I like being first.

I could go so far as to say I love being first.

Much of what makes me who I am today is built on this drive to be numero uno.

At 16, I broke one of my first barriers and earned the glamourous honour of becoming the first female broiler cook at the Ponderosa Steak House. At 20, I pissed off the men-folk I worked with by becoming the first female jackhammer operator in my department with the Ontario government.

Perhaps most significantly, at 28-years of age, I was the first person in my workplace to ask for - or to have the courage to ask for - same-sex benefits.

That was almost four years ago now. I'd been with the newspaper for three months and it was time to sign the papers that would provide me with the beloved benefits. Dental, medical, you name it - it was all going to be mine - mine and my same sex lover's.

Off I went upstairs to see Cheryl, the purveyor of sacred coverage. We sat down. I answered a series of oh so personal questions. And then the moment of truth came, the moment when the gay girls are forever separated from the straight girls.

"Do you have any dependents to claim?" she asked, innocently enough, from her respected sphere of heterosexual love.

"Yes," I replied, meeting her gaze with the steadfast demeanor I had learned to acquire when dealing with such matters.

"Her name is Meg."

I watched Cheryl for the twitch, the all-revealing shudder the less bent often display when forced to come face-to-face with the love that dare not speak its name. To her credit, and I will forever think of Cheryl positively for this, she showed none of the tremors of her less worldly comrades. We finished the forms and off I went back down to the world of reporters, stunned, completely stunned. I couldn't believe how easy it had been.

And then the phone rang.

"Kerry, it's Cheryl," said she, the keeper of the beloved benefits.

My stomach turned to liquid heat.

It appeared that the insurance company's guidelines specifically stated that a spouse must be of the opposite sex, in bold lettering no less, in order for any sort of coverage to kick in.

As she informed me of the hateful, prejudiced clause, I informed her that she had no choice but to change it. I'm ready for a fight when it comes to these things. I would take it to court if need be.

Cheryl said she'd have to talk to our mutual boss if there were to be any straying from the word on high, to which I could only reply: "So do it, because otherwise you're going to have one hell of a fight on your hands."

A heavy-handed reply to a woman just doing her job, but one that could only be offered up given that my personal security, my integrity and the pride of my sisters and brothers in our worldwide family was on the line.

It may well seem that I'm overboard here, but take a moment to consider some of our sisters and brothers who, for reasons too heartbreaking to believe almost, give up the fight and let the insurance companies win. Maybe it's a matter of our kids, a matter of the country we live in, a matter of housing or employment, that leads so many of us not to struggle for what is ours by right - what is ours because we are as human and as deserving as the people who live the straight life.

In the North it is particularly important that we struggle if or when we can. Neither the Northwest Territories nor Nunavut has any human rights legislation in place to protect us. This means we can be fired from our work, booted out of our homes or have our children taken from us on the mere whim of the homophobic presence that is alive and well on the tundra and the taiga. This is not to say that the shit isn't found south of the 60th parallel, just that the armour or the weapons we need to put an end to it are beyond our territorial legal grasp - for now.

So, I was proud when Cheryl and I ended our conversation that day. I hadn't won yet, but I hadn't backed down. She committed herself to speak to our boss when he returned from holidays. I sweated it out, but just a few days later, I got word that it would be no problem, Meg could have her benefits. We could have our cake.

I still rejoice over this. I still feel good to have broken ground at the newspaper and to have perhaps made it easier for others who will follow in my footsteps. And there will be others.

Those benefits came in handy. Just months later, Meg broke her leg during a hockey game and we had to be medevaced -- flown south for medical treatment. This triggered a whole new set of firsts. The ambulance driver in Ottawa asked me out on a date in the back of the ambulance. As Meg lay there beside me on the stretcher, made delirious by Demerol, I told the guy of our relationship. Judging by his reaction, that was the first time he'd ever asked out a lesbian, or at least the first time he'd ever been turned down by one.

Meg became the first of my girlfriends to ever meet my mother and my sister and as is always the case with these beautiful women in my family, they rose to the occasion and fell as much in love with Meg as I was then.