For release, Shannon Lecture Fall 2025 - Lecture 4

Shannon Lecture Fall 2025 - Lecture 5: November 24, 7:00-8:30pm, Dominion-Chalmers Centre

Title: Purging the Canadian military of “sexual deviants”: The war on 2SLGBTQIA+ members and their partners from the 1960s to present.

Description: The Canadian Forces Administrative Order 19–20 (CFAO 19-20) rendered “homosexuality” as deviant and incompatible with military service. Despite the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1969 in Canadian civil society, under CFAO 19–20, the military continued for over 22 years to conduct widespread witch hunts to identify “suspected” and “self-admitted” “homosexuals,” and subsequently purged them by terminating their careers. The military utilised various counter-intelligence tactics such as spying, interrogating, tracking, stalking, and wiretapping to rid itself of the enemy within (Gouliquer, 2000; Poulin, 2001; Poulin, Gouliquer, & Moore, 2009). Our research study (time 1) illustrates the devastating impact on service members and their families, ranging from living with constant fear, being traumatised for life, losing their livelihood, suffering from mental health difficulties, and even committing suicide. Our succeeding study (time 2) reveals the contemporary effects of serving the Canadian nation as a 2SLGBTQIA+ military member or being their partner. The presentation will conclude with comments regarding the following:  the importance of studying social experiences (lived realities); the potential knowledge mobilisation of historical studies; and the value of the Psycho-Social Ethnography of the Commonplace methodology (P-SEC) for research with marginalised groups. We will close with a few words regarding our personal experience and the role of historical research.

Biographies: 

- Lynne Gouliquer is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Laurentian University and a Métis with ancestral ties across Métis lands. However, she calls the Northwest Angle (aka Treaty Three) home: The only historical treaty, Métis were asked to sign onto. Lynne is also a 16-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and survived the military’s war on queers (aka the Purge campaign). She is a co-founding director of the Psycho-Social Ethnography of the Common Place (P-SEC) multidisciplinary research group and the feminist qualitative interdisciplinary P-SEC methodology. She has conducted research for over thirty years co-investigating the Canadian military and such marginalised groups as: servicewomen, LGBTQIA2S+ service members, and partners of 2SLGBTQIA+. Other research focuses have been women firefighters across Canada, New Brunswick older adults requiring home care, and the reality of 90+ older adults of Eastern Canada. While deeply involved in helping her Métis community and working with them along the path towards self-governance and constitution building, she is also co-investigating the lived realities of eastern Métis people. https://p-sec.org/en/ 

- Carmen Poulin is Professor Emerita in Psychology at the University of New Brunswick. Her research focuses on the impact of formal and informal institutional practices on women and marginalised groups’ daily lives. She is a co-founding director of the Psycho-Social Ethnography of the Common Place (P-SEC) multidisciplinary research group and methodology. The purpose of P-SEC research is to identify and develop strategies to eliminate complications faced by marginalised people within organisations. For example, she has examined the daily experience of 2SLGBTQIA+ soldiers in the Canadian Military and their partners, Women firefighters, 90+ Years old elders living in place in rural milieux, and eastern Métis people (https://p-sec.org/en/). She is also interested in the development of methodologies throughout the history of Psychology, and in particular, the role of women in this sphere.