Canadian Museum of Human Rights to recognize country’s “LGBT purge” with new exhibit
A new exhibition, Love in a Dangerous Time: Canada’s LGBT Purge, opens at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg this week, shedding light on a dark historical chapter.
Deeply rooted prejudices combined with Cold War concerns led to a series of what was then called “anti-gay purges” between the early 1950s and 1990s, resulting in mass discrimination.
Canadians suspected of “homosexuality” were expelled from the civil service, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the armed forces in mass.
The exhibit features first-hand testimony from survivors, including Michelle Douglas, executive director of the LGBT Purge Fund, who was expelled from the military due to her sexual orientation in 1989.
“One of the more devastating, shattering parts of being purged is the feeling that you are completely alone,” said Douglas. “The fight that has been carried for decades by survivors of the Purge is a testament to the fact that we were not alone.”
As a result of Douglas’s landmark legal challenge, the military ended its discriminatory 2SLGBTQI+ policies in 1992.
A class action lawsuit was launched in 2016, resulting in a $145 million settlement two years later and an official apology from the federal government.
However, not all of those impacted by the Purge lived to receive compensation.
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