Catherine Caza (she/her) is a social worker based in Toronto. We met in the fall of 2021 to talk about identity, trauma, rediscovering cultures, and helping others.
In the last few years, I’ve been identifying more as queer, rather than lesbian. I didn’t really like the word “lesbian.” There’s so much stereotype around that word. I felt like it put me in a category that I couldn’t really move out of. For a long time, I struggled with that.
When people would ask, sometimes I would say, oh, I’m gay. But that didn’t feel right either. Then the word queer came out. It was being used more, and people were using it to identify themselves. So I was like, okay, I kind of like the word “queer.”
Photo Credit: Eileen Liu
Feeling the Difference
I was probably eleven or twelve when I realized that I wasn’t like all my girl friends. I had this one friend, and we were really close. We did everything together. We had sleepovers and all that. Then she got a boyfriend—I think it was in grade five or six. I was jealous that this boy was taking her attention away from me.
I was 11 or 12 when I realized that I wasn’t like all my girl friends.
Catherine Caza
Then when I was twelve, I wasn’t living at home, I’d been placed into care. I had a roommate, a female roommate. I would watch her when she got dressed. It was my first experience of another woman’s body and how it made me feel. I was like, wow, okay!
I was brought up Catholic, very Catholic. I was about sixteen when I really started feeling the difference between me and my other friends who were going to church on Sundays. Our church wasn’t very strict. It was more liberal. But they were still trying to teach me that being gay was not okay, that we don’t accept all people. That was really confusing for me, so I stayed in the closet.
I had my first real boyfriend when I was eighteen. He ended up being gay. He came out to me three years later. And then I had another boyfriend who also ended up being gay. I don’t know what that was about. I had my first girlfriend when I was twenty-three. It was amazing. It was like, wow, this is what I’ve been missing my whole life. I didn’t actually come out until I was twenty-four.
It Gets Easier After the First Person
The first person I came out to was a friend of mine that I had in university. We were really close; we talked every day. I sat on my couch in the middle of my apartment and called her. I called her and I started crying on the phone. She’s like, oh my god, what’s wrong? What’s going on? I told her; I came out to her. I said I was gay. And she was like, yeah, I know that. And I was like, what? What do you mean, you know that? I didn’t know that. How did you know that?
She was the first person and it got easier from there. I told both my brother and my sister. I wanted to tell them first before I told my parents because I didn’t know what my parents were going to say or how they would react. If they did react badly, at least I had my brother and sister to talk to.
I told both my brother and my sister. I wanted to tell them first before I told my parents because I didn’t know what my parents were going to say or how they would react.
Catherine Caza
My sister was great. She was cool, accepting. My brother was like, yeah, he knew too. At the time, he was married already, and he and his wife had already suspected and were talking about it. So I got those two out of the way. That was okay, it didn’t kill me. I was still alive, still breathing. I was still good.
Then I told my mom. I couldn’t tell her face to face, so I told her over the phone. The first thing she said to me was, okay, just don’t tell your grandmother. So I was like, maybe you’re not all that accepting. But my mom and I have always had a very on-again/off-again relationship. A love-hate relationship, basically.
It came as a surprise to me that she would say something like that, because I’ve always been very close to my grandmother and my grandfather. My grandmother always seemed very liberal in her views, so I didn’t think she would have a problem with it. But I guess my mom thought that maybe she would, or maybe my mom was projecting onto my grandmother. I don’t know.
I was always very close to my dad so I was afraid to tell him. We had arranged to meet at a coffee shop. Before I went, I had written a letter saying, I’m gay, I hope you can accept me. So I had it ready, prepared, in case I wasn’t able to tell him. We’re sitting across from each other and we’re just talking about nothing. Then finally he said, okay, so what do you want to talk about? I was humming and hawing; I was scared to say anything. I said, I just want to you know that I’m—and before I was able to say it, he said, you’re gay. He was like, I kind of knew that already. I kind of had a feeling, but you’re my daughter and I love you and nothing’s going to change that. I started crying.
My grandmother always seemed very liberal, so I didn’t think she would have a problem with it. But I don’t think I ever did tell her outright.
Catherine Caza
I don’t think I ever did tell my grandmother outright. I did bring my girlfriend at the time to Sunday dinner with my grandmother. I never came out to her and said, this is my girlfriend. I don’t know if she ever suspected. I never thought to ask my mom after my grandmother passed away if she had ever said anything.
My mom has loved all my partners. She’s been very accepting. She once told me that she just wants me to be happy. She was very involved in my wedding and has been accepting and warm to my wife. She treats my wife the way she would treat my sister’s husband or my brother’s wife.
Being Adopted and Growing Up in Brampton
I grew up in Brampton, just outside of Toronto, from about the age of two and a half, until I was fifteen. I was adopted at two and a half, and before that, I was born in northern Ontario. At the time, when my parents were in the middle of the adoption process with me, they didn’t know they were pregnant already with my younger sister. My mom had two or three miscarriages before that and she was worried that this new pregnancy wasn’t going to go through. So they went through the adoption, and then my sister was born.
Photo Credit: Eileen Liu
I was adopted in November and my sister was born the following May. So I wasn’t with the family very long before my sister was born. There was always this feeling of I didn’t belong. They were able to have their own child, and I was brought in to replace her, just in case. Then I was kind of pushed off to the side.
I think my mom did treat me differently [when I was growing up]. I think my dad really tried hard to make me feel comfortable and part of the family. That’s why we had such a good relationship. But with my mom, it was a little harder. I guess she was going through post-partum depression. She tried her best, but to me, it was obvious that she preferred my sister over me. That was my relationship with my mom.
I had just turned three when [my sister] was born. But we were brought up like twins because there was only four or five months difference between [when I was adopted and when she was born]. There are photos of us dressed the same. We went to bed at the same time, always got the same toys. Everything was the same. My sister and I didn’t get along for the longest time.
I had just turned three when [my sister] was born. But we were brought up like twins. My sister and I didn’t get along for the longest time.
Catherine Caza
My brother’s older. He’s four years older than me. We didn’t get along. I remember one time, I was having a rough day or whatever. My mom was out or at work or something. My brother was babysitting and I wasn’t cooperating or doing what he wanted me to do. I tried to leave the house and he sat on me. He sat on me and wouldn’t let me leave. It wasn’t until he got married that we became closer.
She Chose to Give Me Up
I was adopted at two and a half, but I was taken from my birth mother when I was two weeks old. She was an alcoholic. But for whatever reason, she didn’t drink during her pregnancy, because I don’t have any side effects from that. I don’t have FASD or anything. [But after I was born], she ended up leaving me in a bush, in a field where there were bushes, off the side of the road, to go get a drink. Then hours later, when she came back, I was gone. Someone had found me and taken me to the police station.
She was given an ultimatum. Either you go to treatment and then you come back and take care of your child. Or we take your child. She chose to give me up. I was placed in several foster homes. Some that weren’t very nice, weren’t very good. Apparently, up to two and a half, I couldn’t walk. But as soon as I was adopted, my development sped up. But I still have scars. My right leg was broken and wasn’t set properly. I have burn marks on me and stuff.
So that was my first trauma, being abandoned. And then in my new family, there was trauma with not being seen as part of the family.
My right leg was broken and wasn’t set properly. I have burn marks on me and stuff.
Catherine Caza
Finding My Birth Family
Every few years, I think I’d really like to find my birth mother and my birth family. When I was twelve or thirteen, I was living in a group home. At the time, the government was closing adoption papers; once they were closed, I wouldn’t be able to get them anymore. So my group home mother got mine for me and got what little information there was in my adoption papers about my birth family. Just in case one day I wanted to know.
So I know the names of my birth parents. I know that I had four or five siblings, all older, all placed in care. I do have that information. If one day I do decide I’d really like to know, at least I have a starting point.
I was twenty-one when I got my status. I went to the office, told them where I was born and gave them my adoption papers. And I said, I’m wondering if I have status? They looked it up and said, yep, you have status. This is your status number. This is where your reserve was.
My reserve is actually in Manitoba, northern Manitoba, close to the border with Ontario. Have you ever watched the show, North of 60? It was about this Indigenous community that lived on a reserve north of sixty. Anyway, my reserve is very much like that. You have to fly into it. I’ve never gone.
I was twenty-one when I got my status. My reserve is actually in Manitoba. You have to fly into it. I’ve never gone.
Catherine Caza
When I was about four, my parents took me on a trip back up north to where I was adopted from. I was adopted from Kenora. They took me to the last foster family I was living with that were really good to me. I can’t imagine how I felt; I must have felt scared. Frightened. They’re taking me back there, are they going to leave me there? I just got used to this family and now they’re taking me back? That was the last time I’ve been up there that far.
Something That Is Mine
For the longest time, I was like, it was a culture that gave me up, it was a family that gave me up. Why would I want to seek out these people who gave me up? But now, it’s more like, anytime I go to the doctor, they always want to know my family history. But I don’t know any of them, any of my birth family’s health history. The older I get, I think it would be good information to have.
It wasn’t until I got to university that I had any interest in finding out about my culture and getting involved with ceremonies and powwow and such.
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, Brampton was very white at that time. It’s more multicultural now. But back then, it was very white. I think there were maybe a handful of us who were not white in my public school. I was always the different one. I had a gym teacher once tell another teacher that I was a dirty Indian, and that she didn’t want me in her class. She was probably in her 50s or 60s. She was British and she was white. I had other kids pick on me, tease me. I was always a bad kid, because I was always fighting. You know, somebody is telling me that I’m a dirty Indian, I’m going to turn around and smack them.
For the longest time, I was like, it was a culture that gave me up, it was a family that gave me up.
Catherine Caza
My parents did try to introduce my Indigenous culture to me. When I was younger, we had a cottage up north, and there was a reserve that was very nearby. So during the summers, we would be up at the cottage, and they would try and take me over to the reserve to go to a powwow or just be around other Indigenous people. But I was like, no, not having it. Not interested. I guess they took my lead and was like, she’s not interested, so we’re not going to push it.
It was that first year, in the transitional year program [at U of T], that I did Indigenous Studies. I met a girl who was Indigenous. She grew up in the area where I was born, so we got to talking and became really good friends. Her mom was a prison guard who worked in a jail, and she knew my birth father. He’d been in and out of prison for drunken behaviour and disorderly conduct, or whatever. But she hadn’t heard or seen him for a couple years. At that point, I was kind of interested in following up with it, just to see, but then I never did.
Photo Credit: Eileen Liu
[In that Indigenous Studies course], we began each class with a smudge. We would do sweat lodges. In the summertime, we would go to powwows. I went to a couple conferences up at Trent University. I was getting more and more involved in my community, but at that point, I was still wearing a cross. I went to this conference up at Trent and we had this talking circle with an elder. He took me aside and he asked me, respectfully, to take off my cross. There were people there who had trauma with the church. So, I did and I never put it back on. Now, I’m a spiritual person, but I don’t go to church anymore. I don’t consider myself Catholic.
I still do ceremonies with Anishnawbe Health Toronto. They have sweat lodges and they have elders working there. Once a month, I see an elder, I present tobacco. He talks and it feels really enlightening. It’s hard to explain how it feels. But it feels like the spirits around me are taking care of me and lifting me up.
Through therapy, I realized that it wasn’t the culture that gave me up. It was a person; it was my birth mother.
Catherine Caza
I’ve had some sort of therapy since I was seven years old. Through therapy, I realized that it wasn’t the culture that gave me up. It was a person; it was my birth mother. Coming to some realization around that acceptance of that, it let me be more accepting of my culture and wanting to have something of my own. Growing up in a white family in a mostly white neighborhood, going to a white school, I didn’t see anybody who looked like me. I wanted something that was mine, that’s a part of me, so when somebody looks at me, they see me as Indigenous, not as whitewashed.
I am Ojibwe. My reserve is called Little Grand Rapids. I do have a spirit animal. I do have a colour. I do have a name. I just haven’t been given those yet. You’re given those by an elder during a ceremony, and you have to be in the right mental space for that. I haven’t been in the right space for it yet. But I am excited for it.
When Things Went Downhill
My parents got divorced when I was nine and things went downhill from there, in terms of my behaviour. I was causing a lot of trouble at home with my sister and my brother; I was acting out all the time. My mom couldn’t deal with me so she contacted Children’s Aid Society. They came and took me and I was placed in foster homes and group homes until I was sixteen.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of Youthdale, but it’s pretty evil.
Catherine Caza
And then I was placed in a youth treatment centre. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Youthdale, but it’s pretty evil. It’s for youth from age ten, I think, until they’re eighteen. It runs very much like a psychiatric hospital. The kids are heavily medicated, so they’re easier to deal with and there’s counselling 24/7. They have group homes in Toronto and a group home in Aurora. I was in that one, in Aurora. They heavily medicated me so I was more easily controllable. If I got out of hand, I would be placed in a holding—like, you know, restraints.
When I was almost eighteen, I moved down to one of their homes in Toronto. It’s basically a house with staff and the residents living there were on their way to independence. But I got kicked out of there because I told a staff member to shut the fuck up. I left the house and when I came back, all my belongings were out on the front porch, packed up, and I couldn’t enter the house. After living for almost four years with extreme schedules—like every minute was scheduled for something—then all of a sudden, I have nothing. I ended up living with my dad for a few years.
Being Helped and Helping Others
I studied English and Religious Studies at U of T. I never finished high school. So I did a transitional year program at U of T that was for people who didn’t finish high school, but wanted to go to university. It’s basically university prep, teaching you what to expect. We had to take two university courses in that year and I took Sociology and Indigenous Studies. I passed with flying colours.
I really wanted to go into Psychology. But sociology wasn’t really what I was looking for, and the psychology program had a lot of sociology in it. I’ve always been really good at writing—I’ve always written for myself, you know, stories, essays, all that kind of stuff. I’ve kept journals my whole life pretty much. So I thought English would be good. And Religious Studies because I was always interested in religion.
Then at the end of it, when I graduated, I was like, what am I going to do with an English degree? I didn’t really want to go into teaching. I didn’t really want to go into journalism. So I ended up working for Starbucks for a year. A year turned into seven. I became an assistant manager at Starbucks. It was my last year with Starbucks that I decided I wanted to go into social work. So I went to George Brown and did a social service worker program. And then I did a year at an independent college to specialize in addictions and mental health.
I wanted to do psychology because I have so many people in my life who helped me through some of my most difficult times. I wanted to do that for somebody else.
Catherine Caza
When I first started university, I wanted to do psychology because I have so many people in my life who helped me through some of my most difficult times. I wanted to do that for somebody else. I didn’t end up [studying psychology]. But maybe that’s why, years later, I ended up doing what I’m doing now.
Social Work and Mental Health
I work with Jean Tweed Centre for Women. It’s for women who have addiction, mental health, and gambling issues. I work in supportive housing and I’m an Indigenous case manager slash counsellor. Some of these clients have very intense needs and I see them at least once or twice a week. So it’s a lot of work. Since I’ve been there, we’ve had seven clients pass away from overdose and one from suicide.
It’s a high-risk demographic, but we also blame COVID. COVID has prevented people from being together with friends and family, and so, you know, social isolation. There’s more demand for certain drugs and people won’t care that it’s tainted.
COVID has prevented people from being together with friends and family. You know, social isolation.
Catherine Caza
Our team is really good, really close, and really supportive of each other. We have a really good manager, who’s very supportive. Twice a month, we have a consult with a psychiatrist from Women’s College Hospital, who will meet with the staff and talk about issues that are affecting us as staff. We also have an employee assistance program with psychologists and psychiatrists and whatever, that we can reach out to if we need to. They have a bereavement program to help us whenever we lose a client, to help us move through the grieving process. So it’s good.
Mental health has gotten worse during the pandemic. The staff, the agencies, are all stretched beyond their capabilities. There are long waiting lists. For some of my clients, they can come and see me and we can work on goals and such. But sometimes it’s better to have more people in your circle of care. And we try to connect these clients to outside agencies for supplemental counselling or care or anything like that. But we’re just faced with long waiting lists. Some of the agencies have shrunk the area they work in, which sucks because we were once a part of their service area and now we’re outside of that service boundary.
Photo Credit: Eileen Liu
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
I find it really sad, actually. It almost feels like a fad to be a part of this truth and reconciliation. I feel like it’s a bandwagon and people are just jumping on the bandwagon right now. And a few months, a few years from now, it’s not going to matter anymore. Which is sad to think about, because it’s a horrible thing that happened. It’s very traumatic to Indigenous communities. Like, where was the compassion?
And then working with a bunch of Indigenous women, a lot of them are a lot older than me. They’ve gone through their own personal experiences with residential schools. Or had grandparents or parents or aunties who have gone through, or who did not come through residential schools. Trying to help them and support them with that… it’s just been really hard. Really hard.
For me, I don’t need to hear an official apology from the Pope. I don’t need to hear an official apology from the Prime Minister.
Catherine Caza
For me, I don’t need to hear an official apology from the Pope. I don’t need to hear an official apology from the Prime Minister. Some people do need that, but I just think action speaks louder than words.
I was part of the 60s Scoop. The 60s Scoop ran from the 60s right up until the late 1990s. A part of me felt like I was owed something for it, for being taken away and having my culture taken away from me and being assimilated into a white culture. But at the same time, I just feel like, it happened. It’s terrible, but it happened.
I did apply for the funding that came with it. I was accepted and I received the money. But a part of me was like, this money doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to my community. So right now, it’s in savings. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with it. I’ve thought about donating it to my reserve or to some Indigenous social services down here. I don’t know, but like I said, actions speak louder than words. And something has to be done.
Important Women in My Life
My foster mother when I was between the ages of eleven to sixteen. She was a young mother who had two or three kids of her own. She didn’t put up with anything. She’s very tell it like it is, very honest. She was very good for me. Very caring, very loving.
And then one of my exes. My first relationship with a woman was a student staff member at Youthdale when I was a resident. Years later, we ran into each other in downtown Toronto, one thing led to another and we ended up together for seven years. I helped raise her daughter. And then she broke my heart and prevented me from seeing her daughter, which was terrible. But we’re good friends now.
Photo Credit: Eileen Liu
And then at the very unconventional Catholic Church [when I was a kid]. There was this family that I was really close to. There was the mother, the father, and they had two kids. I used to babysit their youngest. I was really close to the mother. She really understood me when I was a kid and having trouble at home.
I met my wife at an LGBT choir. She teaches grade six, seven, and eight. She’s a special ed teacher. We have a cat. We tried to have kids. We tried to get pregnant for about five years and it wasn’t happening. Then we tried adopting and that didn’t work out. So we’re just happy being aunties. We have a nephew that we’re really close to.
Feature image by Eileen Liu. This interview was supported by Community One Foundation.
