Message from the Defence Team 2SLGBTQI+ Champions: Public Service Pride Week 2025

August 18, 2025 – Defence Stories

Public Service Pride Week (PSPW) is an important moment each year to come together as a Defence Team to celebrate, reflect, and learn. It is a time to honour the diversity, resilience, and contributions of our Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and additional sexually and gender diverse (2SLGBTQI+) colleagues—both military and civilian—and to reaffirm our shared commitment to building a workplace where everyone can thrive.

This year’s PSPW theme—“Together, We Create Change”—is a powerful reminder that inclusion requires active effort, courageous conversations, and collective responsibility. Positive change happens when individuals and institutions work together to remove barriers, challenge discrimination, and lift one another up.

As we gather in celebration, we also hold space for the more difficult parts of our history. The LGBT Purge—a period of systemic discrimination and forced dismissal of 2SLGBTQI+ members from the Canadian Armed Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and federal public service—remains a painful chapter that we must never forget. Its harmful legacy continues to be felt by survivors, their families, and the institutions we serve. Acknowledging this history is not enough—we must continue to take meaningful action so that such injustice is never repeated.

That includes every member of the Defence Team—regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression—feeling safe, respected, and empowered to serve with authenticity and pride. Whether in uniform or as a public servant, everyone deserves to work in an environment free from harassment and discrimination, where diversity is not just accepted, but celebrated.

Progress has been made. From policy reforms and training initiatives, to support networks, and events like those taking place across Defence Team establishments this Pride Season, we are moving in the right direction.

Inclusion is an ongoing practice that requires allyship from leaders at every level, and from peers who are willing to speak up, stand alongside, and act.

Allyship means listening without defensiveness, addressing harmful behaviour when we see it, and living our Defence Team values in our decisions, our policies, and our day-to-day interactions.

We also recognize that allyship must exist within our own 2SLGBTQI+ communities. We must create spaces where Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer, transgender, non-binary, lesbian, gay, bisexual and intersex members are seen, heard, and included—not only during Pride, but throughout the year. As a community, we are stronger together and we must show up for one another—especially across lines of race, gender identity, Indigeneity, disability, and other lived experiences.

This week, we encourage you to participate, reflect, connect, ask questions, listen deeply, and challenge assumptions. Above all, we invite you to commit to the idea that together, we create change—because inclusion is everyone’s responsibility, and we are all stronger when we show up for each other.

Happy Public Service Pride Week.

In solidarity,
The Defence Team 2SLGBTQI+ Champions
Brigadier-General James Hawthorne and Lara Rooke

And,

the Defence Team 2SLGBTQI+ Champions Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) Senior Advisor
CWO Ian St-Laurent