A women and LGBTQ forum hosted by Veterans Affairs Canada was riddled with accusations from top staff that Canada’s military structure is dominated by white men and based on a tradition of racism.
The 2023 Women and 2SLGBTQI+ Veterans Forum was held last February and featured panels of retired and active service members, as well as members of community organizations.
The organization published a report on the conference on Jan. 23, 2024.
Prior to the first panel, Veterans Affairs executive equity officer Jackie Wills explained that the conference would focus on “multiple marginalizations.”
“Multiple marginalizations means the experience of being discriminated against because of two or more identity components, misogyny, racism, homophobia, colonialism, transphobia, ageism and other prejudices,” said Wills.
Later on, retired servicemember Kareth Huber, who identifies as transgender, used loaded language to suggest that “white male special force” operators don’t have it as bad as LGBTQ members.
“I’ve been a lot of different places for veterans and there’s always a miasma in the room of, ”The freak is now taking the stage,’” said Huber.
“Some of you in the room have seen me get angry because some white male special force operator thinks that he had it bad. Okay, be your white male special force operator, go do your special force operation and then get the shit beat out of you by your fellow forces because you’re a fag.”
In another panel on “intersectionality and the veteran experience,” retired major Kathryn Foss explained how she was “racist and sexist” because she was born in Canada.
“I’m racist, I’m sexist. I’m all of those. I was born in this country. I was born in this culture so you cannot deny that,” said Foss.
According to the government report on the panel, the key takeaway was “to uplift the experiences of Veterans facing multiple marginalizations, a concept rooted in the feminist theory of intersectionality.”
“The discussion focused on how individuals may face multiple layers of discrimination (misogyny, racism, homophobia, colonialism, transphobia, ageism, and other prejudices),” wrote Veterans Affairs Canada.
According to Foss, there’s also a “thousands year” history to the military underpinned by a culture of sexism and transphobia.
“Unless you look at the culture and I’m not talking about yesterday. If you go back a few – a thousand years maybe, even – it tells you a lot. The culture, the ideology, what underpins the racism, the sexism, the transphobia, etc.”
When wrapping up the conference, an assistant deputy minister at Veterans Affairs Canada, Amy Meunier, lamented that a commemoration program on veterans of WWI and WWII was dominated by white men.
“When I first joined the department. We had a wonderful program, Heroes Remembered, and some of you may have seen the clips. It sort of didn’t occur to me for a very long time, I was always seeing older white men from World War I and World War II,” said Meunier.
