Veterans purged from military for sexual orientation lay wreath at Montreal ceremony [Video]

Private Martine Roy was only 20 years old in 1984 when she was arrested, interrogated and dismissed from the Canadian Armed Forces for being what was then termed a “sexual deviant.”

After fighting for the right to be recognized as a veteran, she laid a wreath at Montreal’s Remembrance Day ceremony Monday on behalf of survivors of the wave of persecution that has become known as the LGBT Purge.

“I was arrested twice, then sent to a psychiatrist and then finally dismissed,” she said of her experience. “That was really, really hard for me.”

Roy was one of the lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit that led to a $145-million settlement and a 2017 federal apology for decades of discrimination against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

According to the website of the LGBT Purge Fund, between the 1950s and mid-1990s, LGBTQ+ members of the Armed Forces, …