Inside the Fruit Machine and Canada’s LGBT Purge

Cyn Sweeney:

Welcome to TransCanada Stories. I'm Cynthia Sweeney, and I use sheher pronouns.

Emma Stanley:

I'm Emma Stanley. I use sheher pronouns. In this podcast, we go beyond the binary coast to coast, telling the stories of trans people as people. In 2018, filmmaker Sarah Foti made a documentary featuring survivors of a decades long homosexual witch hunt in Canada. The film recounts personal stories of dedication and betrayal at the hands of the Canadian government.

Emma Stanley:

Former public servants were targeted in what is called the Purge. And in the documentary, The Fruit Machine, they came together united to seek justice, reconciliation, and memorialization. On September 19, two survivors joined a screening of the film at the Halifax Central Library, followed by a fireside chat. The event was sponsored by TD Bank Group. Today, we are humbled to be joined by Martine Roy, one of those survivors, to talk to us about her experience being targeted within the Purge.

Emma Stanley:

So Martine is now here with us in the studio. Martine, I'm so happy to have you on the show.

Martine Roy:

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here and very humble about it.

Cyn Sweeney:

And I'm recording from my bedroom today because I have COVID.

Emma Stanley:

The Purge is a difficult topic to talk about, and I can only imagine how difficult it was to actually be involved in it. So I met you through this documentary called The Fruit Machine. Now The Fruit Machine is about a series of events that took place from starting in the 1940s with Cold War paranoia leading up to, I think, 2017 when there was a formal apology from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about what happened. Can you tell me what happened from your perspective?

Martine Roy:

Okay. So me, I'm really a girl from Montreal, Born, raised in Montreal. My father was a cinematographer from National Film Board. I had two sisters, very artsy family. And I didn't know what I wanted to do.

Martine Roy:

Everybody was really like a lot of talent and I didn't have a talent. So my father worked really hard to try to convince me to do something with myself so I joined the Army Forces to become a medical adjoint, medical assistant. And I didn't really wanna go. I didn't know what I was getting on board with. I was like 19 years old.

Martine Roy:

I was seeing a woman in Montreal, even the one that started first pride parade in Montreal. I was was with her. And so I joined the army and at the two first week I was like resisting resisting calling my mother asking her to get me out of there. And she was saying no I cannot do anything so I really join in. And I put my 150%.

Martine Roy:

I cannot tell you that I knew that we cannot be as homosexual or not. I didn't grasp that. So I did my training. It was amazing, good training and I graduated and all that and then I met a man and I fell for him and I started going out with him. I didn't question myself, no I was seeing a woman before now a man or I'm 19 years old what was the most important was to succeed because it was heavy training and to make it.

Martine Roy:

So finally I'm transferred to Borden. He has transferred as well to Borden and while we're both training at one point I meet a woman at the hospital and we start talking and everything and one of the things she tells me is let's keep our boyfriend or because we're not allowed. And that's the first time I grasped that hope and we're not allowed. And I don't even have time that I turned around, I get arrested. It's almost like they ran my mind.

Martine Roy:

So I get arrested in the field and it's a car that comes and I think they're lost tourists and they arrest me and they bring me in that little house to interrogate me and never I think oh I should get a lawyer or what's happening or nothing like that. But then they go about my sexual relation with people how many times and how and they get really it's very humiliating. So they release me, they arrest me again and it goes on like that. Then they let me go, I finished my training, I end up in Ottawa. And finally in Ottawa, I'm at the National Defense Medical Center and I graduated from my training.

Martine Roy:

I work at the pharmacy and I get called by the psychiatrist. I'm at the pharmacy so I'm not really sure why. So I go there and it was to evaluate me to see if I was rehabilitable. So finally it didn't really go very well obviously. But they let me go and to the point even that they came back to me and they said okay we want to keep you, we want to renew the contract, a contract of three years and I say okay I don't want to do this role anymore I would like to become a chem research.

Martine Roy:

So they went on and they came back with their contract and I signed it and I was going to go to Kingston and it's only like a month later that they call me at the head office to tell me that I was dissonably discharged for being a sexual deviant under a law policy where homosexuality was the same that bestality, rape and incest. It was in December, it was a shock because I really thought after all that training and I was really good too, really succeed well. That never something like that. I could not understand. I could not understand why my sexual orientation and sometime even my gender was in the way.

Martine Roy:

Because we're in the eighties. They didn't really want women in the army. It was really new. So sometimes my question was it really because I was a lesbian or because I was a woman and nobody and there wasn't great policy to come after us. So I left the army.

Martine Roy:

I was totally destroyed. I did try to fight with my father. We made it until the chef that was General Theriot that told me there was no injustice and that I let myself go. So I stopped fighting from there because I had to take care of myself. I had to go through therapy.

Martine Roy:

And it's only in 1999 that I found really a job that was fitting for me. It was IBM. And when they offered me the job the first time, I said no because I was sure they were like the army. So I started here in New Brunswick in The Maritimes at IBM in 1999 for Y2K and I discover a fully inclusive company. The policy was there since 1953 that TJ Watson put in place about inclusion.

Martine Roy:

So I went through IBM and it's via IBM that I created the first LGBT group in St. John New Brunswick in February. Came back to Montreal in 02/2005. I created in 2008 with seven other person Pride at Work Canada. And for me Pride at Work Canada was my revenge.

Martine Roy:

It was my way of okay, I'm gonna get the workplace. I'm gonna change every workplace possible. Alright. And I think it did work to a certain point. So I was there for ten years.

Martine Roy:

And through that, I became the president Day Against Homophobia. And I'm the one that had transphobia to it by consultation as a president. And then in 2014, there's someone that calls me and you have to understand, 1984, I got fired. The only person I knew that was fired was Michelle Douglas in 1992. And when that happened I was sure they were going to ring my doorbell and come in Siemens and apologize and get my job back.

Martine Roy:

But they never did. They never even talked. They was a purge. Never So everybody was so ashamed. Nobody was talking about it.

Martine Roy:

So I didn't meet anybody else until 2014. That's where I met the first time someone else that was affected and so affected that I felt privileged. And they say we want to ask for an apology. So I decided to try to help and it was two women from Maritime again, two professors from St. John University, I have to say it, Carmen Poulet and Lynn Gottelier that were doing a research in 2000 and asked me questions.

Martine Roy:

They're the one that pushed in 2014 that a group get together with Gary Kingsman, Patricia Gentile, all academicians together and we asked for apology. And we did. We went in 2015 at Parliament in front of Harper and I don't think anybody heard about it because it didn't work, It didn't get anywhere. So it took the Egal organization that created the Just Society Committee where it was all people from all around Canada, mostly from legal activists and all that, that put together 84 recommendations for the new Liberal Party that just got in with. And in it, they asked to put with them an apology.

Martine Roy:

So they asked us can we put it in a recommendation and can someone from Widom and An Apology comes to Ottawa. So I ran there and I met for the first time Douglas Elliott and Michelle Douglas life. It was the first time in my It was really like and then again the story more and more people going through it and it was like coming from everywhere and that's where I joined the Just Society Committee to represent Quebec. And we really, really thought when we give the recommendation to Judy Riebel that she would put them in place. Mhmm.

Martine Roy:

But she didn't. Not right away. It was taking forever. So in December 2016, I brought my file to Douglas Elliot and I asked him, can we do something about this? And said, let's do a class action.

Martine Roy:

So that's how we launched a class action in December 2016 in Quebec, Ontario and we found out there was someone in Nova Scotia. Alida Cecilyk that wanted to do it so we got her on board, and we had 11 lawyers to go fight for it.

Emma Stanley:

Okay. No way. That is quite a story. I know. And one that takes place over so many decades.

Cyn Sweeney:

Thanks so much for sharing that journey from back when you were 19 years old up until 2017 when the apology was made. And then after that, the formulation of this documentary, The Fruit Machine. I just want to go back for those who maybe haven't seen The Fruit Machine or don't know the significance of the name of that title. My understanding is that The Fruit Machine as a name was like the formula they used, like a queer detector as they were spying and hunting and looking for queer people within the military. And a series of questions and traits that they aligned to those who they suspected of being homosexual.

Cyn Sweeney:

Do you wanna talk just a little bit about the significance of that of the name?

Martine Roy:

Yeah. Exactly. It it was created, by the RCMP. What happened? It was a machine that doctor Wake of Carleton University that was sent in United States to study kind of a machine that was looking at showing picture and image and depending of the eyes pupil shape and all that they would say, that person is gay or not gay.

Martine Roy:

It seems they tried it for a couple of years and that was mostly like in the 50s when they started. Because when you're from the community it's not necessarily written on your forehead. So they were, how can we find the gays? They did all kind of thing. In Ottawa they even tried to do a map with trying to find everybody where they mete out.

Martine Roy:

And then some trade the way that people were walking, holding their book, which car they were driving, which way they were sitting in the bar. And all that because of the fear that if the KGB with Russia would get us and would get us to talk because we're gays. So that started with the Russian and the communist and everything. And that was the rationale behind why they were arresting us. So they created that machine called the fruit machine.

Martine Roy:

Fruit machine is really like a satsi. It's we're making a we're laughing about the community. And it was such a bad one that it's still in the book. And this machine is at the war museum in Ottawa. Never really worked.

Martine Roy:

It was because they could not really detect. It was not a for sure thing. So then they went to the other way which was witch hunt. They were following us, they were taking pictures. When they were arresting someone the goal was to break that person and get that person to give names.

Martine Roy:

And what we found out too with a researcher, a reporter from the Global Mail is there was a John Watkins that was a diplomat in the 50s. He was a friend of Leslie Pearson and it seems while he was in Paris he had an affair with a Russian guy. The RCMP was so scared that the KGB arrested him that they arrested him. They interrogated him in Paris for many hours, then brought him to Dorval in Quebec and interrogated him for over sixty hours and he died of a heart attack. For us, it's the beginning of it.

Martine Roy:

That crazy interrogation that doesn't finish and goes in circles and tries to break you. So this story about a thousand pages just came out to talk about it. And we have to understand this started like after the second war until 1992. This is a long time.

Cyn Sweeney:

It's almost unbelievable, you know, when I was listening to, you know, how some people had had bags put over their head and put into a car and driven somewhere and then interrogated for hours and, you know, the psychological torture that, all went through. During that period of the apology, did anyone that had participated in the purge within the RCMP, did any of them come forward and apologize? Or do you ever wonder what had happened to those people?

Martine Roy:

For sure, we always wonder. The closest I got was someone that was in the legal team that dealt with it and that today is feeling really bad. But she didn't really have any control. People didn't really have a control on it. You have to understand this was a black and white policy.

Martine Roy:

And when you were in the army and I'm sure RCMP, you were never questioning decision from hierarchy. You were lessening. And that's what I'm trying to find out because for me too it doesn't make sense. I'm sure people raise their hand. I'm sure people say things.

Martine Roy:

It's impossible nobody didn't say anything and accept that all along. And that's why we work really really hard with the Perch Fund to go and get. We got about 30,000 archive now on the website from that period. But it doesn't tell us everything. So there's the National Defense two that are doing some research to find out to find out what happened.

Emma Stanley:

I am curious on the topic of documentation now. I'm obviously, you want the whole story, but I know that the Purge Fund is still fighting to get more documents declassified and released, and it sounds like that is sort of continually a fight. What are you hoping to achieve by getting the full documentation?

Martine Roy:

You know, when I was working at IBM, there's one thing that I learned is if I don't have the problem, I cannot find a solution. I remember people freaking out when I used to tell them, can you reproduce the issue for me to find a solution? For me, that's it. We we need to talk about what happened to get somewhere else. And when we're in denial, then we make it like it didn't happen.

Martine Roy:

Well, it's dormant, and this is what's happening today. It's coming out left, right, and center. Because people are not well informed. People are misinformed. And that's why I find that that documentation needs to tell us the story.

Martine Roy:

I'm gonna tell you we succeed. We went to court and we got our documentation we were looking for. So now we have 30,000. We have almost everything we were looking And we have Sven Robinson and Sour Wortman as well working on those documents. We wanna know what happened.

Martine Roy:

We wanna know where are our allies because I'm sure we had some. I want to know who are the people because one question I have, and maybe somebody is going to tell me one day, is I come in '69 with decriminalized homosexuality but in his own company, in his own house, it was criminal for twenty three more years. That I don't understand.

Cyn Sweeney:

Time to take a break from this TransCanada Stories for a TD Connected Communities moment.

Emma Stanley:

In TransCanada Stories, we're all about connecting communities. We would love to hear your thoughts on today's shows. Were you aware of the purge, or is it new information for you? Leave us a message on our SpeakPipe phone line, and be a part of the conversation. We'll share highlights from your responses in the next episode.

Emma Stanley:

That was a TD Connected Community Moment because community matters.

Cyn Sweeney:

I still remember listening to the apology. I think my son had transitioned two years prior, and I still remember Prime Minister Trudeau's words, you know, I am sorry. We are sorry. And, you know, I couldn't fathom what it was for. I really like there was no connection.

Cyn Sweeney:

There was no context. And then I thought, who is he apologizing on behalf? Where is the we? You know, where are their apologies? Just watching the fruit machine was just, oh, it's just such an eye opener.

Cyn Sweeney:

And I really hope that it's a film that perhaps educators pull into schools, you know, and make it part of the high school curriculum for people to learn more about what, you know, our history.

Emma Stanley:

So if I can jump in here, speaking of our history, particularly as Canadians, I've been really excited about this interview. And so I've been telling all my friends, and I have an older acquaintance. And when I described the fruit machine, because I was trying to get him to to watch the documentary, The sort of immediate reaction was, I said, This thing happened in Canada? And he said, Yeah, but also in The States, right? And that line just drives me a little bit nuts.

Emma Stanley:

There is this built in Canadian bread defense system of blaming everything on America and assuming that all of our sins come from there. And I teach workshops and it comes up again and again, this Canadian smugness of that doesn't happen here. And if it did, it was because of someone, some other country, some other culture. And maybe this is just my bias, being Canadian that I feel like it's more of a problem here. But do you think that, this film and your story will have a concrete effect on this idea that racism and and discrimination of all kinds happens somewhere else and that Canada isn't like that?

Martine Roy:

I like your question very much and your point there. And I totally agree. I hear it a lot too. For me, I find that we've been in denial a lot, and and we sit on that. And and we we act as if and yes, we like to blame others but no, this happened here.

Martine Roy:

It was really a Canadian product. It was in our military book CP '19 OCF 1920. It was enforced everywhere. A lot of people knew about it. I still I meet a lot of military people that tell me, oh, that's what happened to my friend that disappeared.

Martine Roy:

People didn't know because they were really like even me, my best friend didn't know where I went. And at that time we didn't have a cell phone. We didn't have email. We had no way of connecting together. And we were so ashamed that we were not talking about it.

Martine Roy:

Me I went back to Montreal and people were asking me what happened to you. Oh I didn't like it. I didn't like it. I was not telling them I got fired for being gay. I think the first time I really came out with that was at IBM because I was so ashamed.

Martine Roy:

And I think it's very sad that we always hide behind that. Like, it's like the sixty's scoop for me. Okay? I met someone that was sold in a magazine. And when I tell people that they're like, no, no, it didn't happen here.

Martine Roy:

And I'm like yes it did. It did. We used to sell kids in magazine that we used to take away from their family because they had no water or electricity and for us they cannot be taken care of. So we have all those precondition vision of the way it's supposed to be. Even when I came to New Brunswick the first time in the 90s and discovering Acadian.

Martine Roy:

And wanted to put the Acadian flag in Norton and being told no, don't do that. They're gonna burn you down. And I was like, we're in Canada. So I think it is so important that we talk about the real thing. And like I said prior, I think it's the only way we're gonna find solution.

Martine Roy:

And me, I'm still thinking, you know, when I was 18, I didn't wanna go from being heterosexual to homosexual. I didn't want to go from one to the other. I just wanted to be myself. And I'm going to tell you a little story. My mother was really really hard for me on being gay.

Martine Roy:

She was like thinking it's her face. She was even thinking I was doing it just to provoke her. And she was missing out. And I would laugh for a while and when I came back to Montreal in 2005 she was so happy that it's like she forgot about that hatred she had. And I was at IBM and the group at IBM was called Blue Queer.

Martine Roy:

Since 1995 it was created. And queer is not a sexual orientation. It's not a gender identity. It's out of the norm. A great name in a way when you think about it.

Martine Roy:

But when I tried to translate it was impossible because it was like doesn't work. So she was seeing me struggle trying to find a French name because I'm in Quebec and Montreal. She calls me two days later and she said I found it. And I said what did you find? The name you're looking for your group.

Martine Roy:

And I'm like you and all people were looking for that name. I have to listen to this. And she said nuance. And I was stunned because for me nuance is exactly who I am. I'm not just a lesbian.

Martine Roy:

I'm not just a white woman. I'm not just I'm all kind of different little things mixed together and there's not one like me. And I have all my nuance. So and it's French and it's English. So at IBM the employee resource group, a business resource group that we call today is Blue Q Nuance.

Martine Roy:

And for me that's my philosophy. That's the way I see life and I really see life as an electricity. Know as it's electrifying. You meet people, you share energy I really really thought that because of Covid we were scared of dying that we would not get where we are today and all day today. So I really hope that the commentary helps for that.

Martine Roy:

I'm sorry the documentary was not prior to the apology. That would make more sense. People would understand the apology and understand why he was in touch because he read the story of Diane Pitt and Diane Pitt was raped. So that's why he was so in touch when he delivered the apology she was right in front of him standing up. So it's important all the steps and I'm sorry that you know when you fight a case like this you cannot put all the plates to pieces.

Martine Roy:

So it comes after hopefully now people will understand and to finish Sensia you're gonna be happy to know that Canadian Army Forces bought the right of the movie for three years and Veteran Affairs did as well and they're using it and I've been going around to headquarter of the army, I did a lot of public function. With the Purge Fund as well we got subtitle and we even dubbed it in French. So we're really trying to use it as a tool like you say because I think it is a great tool.

Cyn Sweeney:

That is phenomenal and out of this as well through the fund that you received, to bring this story out into the open, the Rainbow Veterans of Canada was also formed. Is that correct?

Martine Roy:

Yes. It a funny story too because it was an accident. But the aunt created a nice crest for us because we were called serving with pride. And when I was creating the Cetacean, which the medal that was given to everyone, I was working with the Harold office and when I showed them the badge, the crest, they said it was illegal because it has to be ordered by the army to have a crest. So I say okay, so let's order one.

Martine Roy:

And they say well you have to create a legion. And I say wow, yes, let's create a legion. And that's how the Rainbow Veterans of Canada were created. The Perch Fund funded the old creation. And now Zian Pitt and Todd Ross are the two co chairs.

Martine Roy:

And a lot of people are on board and they work with Veteran Affairs. And it became the best thing ever because now they can help even people that are in the military today, are coming out as a veteran, or people that are older, never really get any support about their sexual orientation.

Emma Stanley:

So with the creation of something like the Rainbow Veterans of Canada, When I'm having these conversations with people who maybe don't know the ins and outs of what's going on all the time, a question that I get a lot is like, haven't we kind of solved this? And and it's true. Things have gotten a lot better. The conditions have changed, and and largely, they've changed for the better. So from someone who's been doing this work for many decades, how has the work of inclusion changed from witch hunts in the seventies and eighties to today?

Martine Roy:

It changed a lot for sure because we're allowed to get married. We can have children. But it's never acquired. That's the problem. And and that's what's happening now.

Martine Roy:

And and I'm I'm I was very proud of what where we got. I was proud of the apology. I was proud of the class action. Class action is the biggest class action in the world. There's not another country that did that.

Martine Roy:

The monument, everything. But now something is happening. And we need to gather and help each other because it's like gender is bothering. And it's not just transgender, it's gender. And mostly the woman gender in general.

Martine Roy:

Anything that is connected to it and then they're going to touch to our children too. They're really going in a way that is very concerning but in the same time we dealt with all that already too. We have at University of Montreal, it's gonna be six years a Shire for Infantrance. We we it was just renewed to become a senior Shire. We have clinics.

Martine Roy:

We have people. We have information. And right now, all what's happening is disinformation. I have even friend that I'm questioning where and I'm asking that, where did you see those things? Mhmm.

Martine Roy:

Who told you those things? And I think that's the work of all of us to make sure people are well informed. And that's the problem right now. People are being told or being shown things that are not happening. And they're they're acting and judging on things that are not real.

Martine Roy:

So it's really troubling. The old drag thing too, I find is very troubling too because for me, I think it's the story that is important you know. And I don't know when I was a kid I had people that were telling me story that were looking as a drag of today and a drag at the end of the day is a woman. So are we saying that women are disturbing? Are we saying that so it's all that that I'm questioning and I'm a mother so it's really hard for me to understand.

Martine Roy:

So I'm trying to do the best I can to pass the message and use the purge what happened to us as discrimination and how it destroy our life as an example of what can be happening right now with what people are doing.

Cyn Sweeney:

Martine, you're a mother and you said something last night in the fireside chat that, you know, I don't think people realize how fragile our human rights are and and, you know, everything that is is going on right here at home but around the world. But you you mentioned last night how if you were in Italy at the moment you would no longer be a mother.

Martine Roy:

Mhmm.

Cyn Sweeney:

Do you wanna just elaborate a little bit on that?

Martine Roy:

That's so hard for me because I live in Italy. I have a lot of friends in Italy. I love Italy. It means that the prime minister decided the one that the leader in Italy, and it's a woman, I decided that if you are not biologically connected to the child you don't have any more right over the child. So the in vitro and everything in us we did the did in vitro with my wife.

Martine Roy:

It is her that had the child. But it means that if that law was here in Canada it means that I would not be their mother anymore. All the paper and everything I did would be invaluable. So that's what I mean like abortion in The States. Look what just happened.

Martine Roy:

So it's very important to grasp that it's not because we acquire some right that we always going to have them. We have to preserve them. We have to care for them. And this is why it was so important and the 84 recommendation I invite you to go on the Egal website and look at the Just Society Committee recommendation. You're going to see we even help to put C60 to expunge file from people that had growth in the C.

Martine Roy:

We even remove a law that was here since we put our feet here that was saying that two men, they have to be both 18. One cannot be 16 like a woman. You could be arrested. So we removed that law. A lot of things change, but people have to be aware and they have to be aware to make sure we save those and that we don't go backwards.

Cyn Sweeney:

This may be a difficult question to answer, but if you had the opportunity to sit down with some, you know, a Department of Education leader, a Minister of Education in one of the provinces right now that you know, is not New Brunswick, is not Saskatchewan, and they might be in a position where they're determining where they're going to go with allowing, you know, gender affirming education in school. What would you say to them if you had that opportunity?

Martine Roy:

I would bring them with me to a meeting at the Meraki clinic to meet with Cheval Ghosh and Andrea Gorskov to doctor that was with Children Montreal and sit down and let's talk. Because people like I say are misinformed. One of the thing I can tell you there's not one child that will go in the clinic that will get an operation from it. And a lot of time they're going to give beta blocker and the beta blocker is not a new medication. It exists since the 70s.

Martine Roy:

We use it for puberty that was too fast and not fast enough. And this permits to the child to decide or to feel himself to give him the time to give him the buffer and to give as well the doctor and everybody working with that child to make sure that they're doing the right thing because you know the decision it belongs to the child. At the end of the day nobody else should be deciding for them. It should be their child. And we did all that.

Martine Roy:

We even put in place a law in Quebec that at 14 you can change your name if you need. Because it is traumatizing to go in a school and see yourself as one gender and being called another gender. And the thing at the end I would say to that person, What does it matter? What does it matter? You know the child what you want.

Martine Roy:

You want a child that is healthy, thriving, you know authentic. What doesn't matter. That's why I always come back to it's the electricity and not the plumbing that is important in someone. And find that people really put a lot of time on gender like that. And I'm going to be honest and I talk a lot with my wife about it and I was talking to a woman this morning too.

Martine Roy:

I don't feel like a woman all the time. I don't. And there's day I feel way more masculine than feminine and I just want to be. So that's what people are saying and we want to get out of the norm. We've been in the norm forever.

Martine Roy:

Know the pink and the blue and it's a boy it's gonna go this way, it's a girl it's gonna Can we just be? You know and I think that would be helpful. If we go by the study Aboriginal and even my wife is a First Nation, kids when they were born they were not said, Okay you're going to be a woman and you're going to be They were just be. And they would let them grow And they would let them like if that child wants to go hunting and if that they would let them be and discover themselves. And I think that's what we need to do.

Martine Roy:

And I think we should concentrate more on the curriculum than on that. Because right now we're losing a lot of time and I find that the curriculum are in school needs to be changed to be more 2023 for the skills and what people need. Children are somewhere else with all the data, with all the accessibility. We don't need to show them how to access a computer I think. So we need to talk about something else.

Martine Roy:

We need to be somewhere else. And I don't know why this is coming out so strong right now. I don't know why people are so scared of. I would like them to tell me what are people scared of about this topic.

Cyn Sweeney:

Think that's such a good point, and I think you're exactly right. I don't think people would be scared of this topic if it wasn't for sort of that false narrative of fear mongering that is happening, unfortunately. But that is such great advice. Thank you, Martine.

Martine Roy:

You're welcome.

Emma Stanley:

Alright. I think we're almost out of time. I'm gonna leave you with one last question. Your LinkedIn profile says that one of your important skills is being authentic. What does that mean for you, and what can we achieve by simply going out and being ourselves?

Martine Roy:

I think we can achieve that people's gonna love us for who we are and not for what we try to look for like like. Right? I find that a lot of time we try to fit and look for others and what's important is us. One thing is I'm a very spontaneous person. So when I'm not authentic it's like I lose my voice.

Martine Roy:

It's like things are not coming out like I want them to come out. I know it's I can be vulnerable like that too. And I know being vulnerable is not easy but I rather be vulnerable than non accessible. Know and and for me it's important. Like I said I have two kids and I really want to show a good example.

Martine Roy:

I don't want to show them somebody like that is not happy. I want to show and take risk too. And it is a risk to be authentic, but I find it I always say it's like an investment. You know? Like the documentary for me was an investment, you know?

Martine Roy:

I have a big mortgage to pay because I'm doing it, but it's a great investment because it's giving back. It's being back. And I don't know for you guys, but me when I'm not authentic, I cannot be focused and I cannot be productive. So it slows me down. It it makes my work harder.

Martine Roy:

And I find I cannot answer people the way I would like to. I always make the the comment like my wife had breast cancer. And if I could not be authentic, would say what my husband has a cancer. And you start lying about it and all that. And at KPMG, they did the study.

Martine Roy:

500 employees and more that are not authentic lose about fifteen minutes a day in lying. At the end of the year, it's over a million point 5 in lost time. So when people likes to talk about money, that talks about money. Mhmm. Yeah.

Emma Stanley:

I wish I could keep you here all day, but I can't. I cannot thank you enough for coming into the show. And I I hope everybody listening runs out and watches the fruit machine. It is a fantastic documentary. And, hopefully, we'll be able to have you on the show again.

Martine Roy:

Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I wish you an amazing day. Thank you all.

Cyn Sweeney:

It's the end of the road for this episode of TransCanada Stories.

Emma Stanley:

If you'd like more information on our other programming, check out simplygoodform.com. We hope you'll subscribe to our podcast and that we'll see you again next time.

Creators and Guests

Cyn Sweeney
Host
Cyn Sweeney
Co-founder, Writer and Producer TCS and Hey, Cis! podcasts
Connor Sampson
Producer
Connor Sampson
Episodic Podcast Producer with Podstarter
Martine Roy
Guest
Martine Roy
Dismissed from the Canadian Armed Forces for her homosexuality at age 19, Martine led the class action suit that concluded with an apology from the federal government in 2017. Martine Roy is the Regional Director for 2SLGBTQ+ Business Development in Québec & Eastern Canada for TD Bank and is committed to bridging the gap between the 2SLGBTQ+ community and the workplace.
SGF Inclusion
Producer
SGF Inclusion
Beyond Binary inclusion education 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈 Host of the Hey Cis! and Trans Canada Stories Podcasts🎙
Inside the Fruit Machine and Canada’s LGBT Purge
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