Canadian Transgender Activist Murdered In Toronto

[RAMROD 117,032]

When Julie Berman came up to the open mic at the trans day of remembrance event on Nov. 20, 2017, she delivered a speech about transphobia in Toronto. She talked about a trans friend of hers that was murdered.

On Sunday, a little over two years later, the trans woman and activist was assaulted and murdered.

Toronto police said they found Ms. Berman on Sunday suffering from head injuries in a residence in Toronto’s Brunswick Avenue and Harbord Street area. She was transported to hospital and pronounced dead. Police have charged Colin Harnack, 29, of Toronto, with second-degree murder.

The suspect is not a known member of the LGBTQ community, according to Ms. Hader.

According to a study published in 2015 by Trans PULSE project that is led by professors in different universities in Ontario, trans people are targets of specifically directed violence. The study states that 20 per cent of Ontario’s trans people had been physically or sexually assaulted for being trans and another 34 per cent had been verbally threatened or harassed but not assaulted.

The study noted that many trans people did not report these assaults to the police, but didn’t explain why. However, the same study said 24-per-cent reported having been harassed by police.
 

Full story at source:  

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/toronto/article-activist-who-raised-awareness-about-transphobia-murdered-in-toronto/

 

Imagine that we’re almost in 2020 and things like this is still happening.

And this is why we are still marching on Pride month as community. The fight is far from over.

[LaMaisonGaga 23,884]

What a sad, sad time.

[REALITY 80,162]

2 hours ago, RAMROD said:

Imagine that we’re almost in 2020 and things like this is still happening.

And this is why we are still marching on Pride month as community. The fight is far from over.

Exactly! 

This is why Pride month is still so important. It's insulting and frustrating when people say, "Why do we need a gay pride month?! Why can't we have a straight pride month too?!". This is the reason we still need Pride month! We are still fighting for our existence. 

[crisTEAne 21,059]

1 minute ago, M Monstre said:

Exactly! 

This is why Pride month are still so important. It's insulting and frustrating when people say, "Why do we need a gay pride month?! Why can't we have a straight pride month too?!". This is the reason we still need Pride month! We are still fighting for our existence. 

tell them witcher

[S0436 10,215]

But do they know her murder was linked to her activism?

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

29 minutes ago, S0436 said:

But do they know her murder was linked to her activism?

That’s what I was thinking also. OMG just yesterday I read about a serial killer from Toronto that killed gay men from 2010-2017, and for years victims families were protesting that the police were not willing to consider the cases linked. The police kept on refusing to accept the possibility of a serial killer, even as more men kept dying. I’m not saying that this activist is a victim of a serial killer, but that many crimes that occur are more about the status of the perpetrator than the victim. In this case, she is a high-profile victim. But her high-profile is not necessarily the cause of her being targeted in the attack. 

[LaLuna 12,732]

And to think Toronto is supposed to be an LGBT-friendly city  

Disgusting doesn't even begin to cover it.

[RAMROD 117,032]

11 minutes ago, LaLuna said:

And to think Toronto is supposed to be an LGBT-friendly city  

Disgusting doesn't even begin to cover it.

I believe Canada is changing too, even if just a little, in the age where Right wing around the world gets lots of civilians support. There must be few Canadian are swept by that kind of movement, or those that already did beforehand, feels like they got some air and get braver to show themselves publicly, and  making the place not as friendly and tolerating as it used to be.

[LaLa 19,898]

Awful, awful. 

1 hour ago, LaLuna said:

And to think Toronto is supposed to be an LGBT-friendly city  

Toronto has a rising homophobia/transphobia problem. It's scary. Recently the Toronto Public Library allowed a transphobic person to give a talk at one of their branches despite a huge outcry and despite the fact that it violated their own policy to allow her speak there. (article here if interested)

And as @Lord Temptation was talking about, the police here have a  HUGE anti- LGBTQ problem. 

It makes me sick. I hope there is some justice in this case, but that doesn't change the fact that a member of our community was senselessly lost. 

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

3 minutes ago, LaLa said:

Awful, awful. 

Toronto has a rising homophobia/transphobia problem. It's scary. Recently the Toronto Public Library allowed a transphobic person to give a talk at one of their branches despite a huge outcry and despite the fact that it violated their own policy to allow her speak there. (article here if interested)

And as @Lord Temptation was talking about, the policy here have a  HUGE anti- LGBTQ problem. 

It makes me sick. I hope there is some justice in this case, but that doesn't change the fact that a member of our community was senselessly lost. 

I will go out on a limb (please don’t crucify me) and say that rapid accelerated immigration has caused this fiery situation where people from different cultures and opposing value systems literally clash. Too many conservative hardliners meet too many freedom fighters, being forced all of a sudden to share the same space...and then violence becomes inevitable.

[Biggest Fan 988]

20 minutes ago, Lord Temptation said:

I will go out on a limb (please don’t crucify me) and say that rapid accelerated immigration has caused this fiery situation where people from different cultures and opposing value systems literally clash. Too many conservative hardliners meet too many freedom fighters, being forced all of a sudden to share the same space...and then violence becomes inevitable.

Regardless 

data is showing this is clearly a target crime towards lgbtq

I mean we should just do something for all 

a law or something that really support trans/gay/ etc  

that be better 

[LaLa 19,898]

8 minutes ago, Lord Temptation said:

I will go out on a limb (please don’t crucify me) and say that rapid accelerated immigration has caused this fiery situation where people from different cultures and opposing value systems literally clash. Too many conservative hardliners meet too many freedom fighters, being forced all of a sudden to share the same space...and then violence becomes inevitable.

I disagree. It isn't immigrants causing the problem and Toronto has always been an extremely diverse city anyway. This isn't a case of people from "somewhere else" coming to Canada and causing a values-clash. I'd say it's the influence of rising far-right ideas and fascism all over the world allowing people who already held those beliefs to feel emboldened.

If conservative hardliners (aka the white establishment) feel "threatened" and act out violently then that is our problem (I say that because I'm white) to solve, not to shift onto  anyone else. 

[LaLuna 12,732]

39 minutes ago, LaLa said:

Awful, awful. 

Toronto has a rising homophobia/transphobia problem. It's scary. Recently the Toronto Public Library allowed a transphobic person to give a talk at one of their branches despite a huge outcry and despite the fact that it violated their own policy to allow her speak there. (article here if interested)

And as @Lord Temptation was talking about, the policy here have a  HUGE anti- LGBTQ problem. 

It makes me sick. I hope there is some justice in this case, but that doesn't change the fact that a member of our community was senselessly lost. 

I had no idea. Absolutely horrible.

I wish I could say Quebec isn't as transphobic but we have that problem too. One of my colleagues is a trans woman and I can't tell you the number of times she was hit on by guys (she's very beautiful and sexy) only to be rejected in a very disgusting way after they find out she's trans. Sadly society is not evolving as quickly as we like to think it is.

[OBEY 57,109]

Just now, LaLuna said:

I had no idea. Absolutely horrible.

I wish I could say Quebec isn't as transphobic but we have that problem too. One of my colleagues is a trans woman and I can't tell you the number of times she was hit on by guys only to be rejected in a very disgusting way after they find out she's trans. Sadly society is not evolving as quickly as we like to think it is.

At least Occupation Double opened some people’s eyes to trans people i guess, we’ll take what we can get  

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

30 minutes ago, LaLa said:

I disagree. It isn't immigrants causing the problem and Toronto has always been an extremely diverse city anyway. This isn't a case of people from "somewhere else" coming to Canada and causing a values-clash. I'd say it's the influence of rising far-right ideas and fascism all over the world allowing people who already held those beliefs to feel emboldened.

If conservative hardliners (aka the white establishment) feel "threatened" and act out violently then that is our problem (I say that because I'm white) to solve, not to shift onto  anyone else. 

I didn’t say it was immigration that was creating the situation. Canada has always had immigration and has always been diverse, but only in the last decade or so has there been a spike in violence against LGBT.

What i do think is helping flame the fires is income inequality and thus technology and how people and societies communicate and interact, and specifically how social media platforms have created all these tribes, identities, buzzwords like cancel culture, wokeness, feminazis, toxic masculinity, snowflakes, hook up culture, Grindr, instagram, online gambling, gore sites, 4chan. All these things didn’t exist a decade ago, and they are sucking people away from their communities and into an ideological or pathological void. Society has been completely fractured, and technology is driving it, creating havens of deep hate that occasionally spill over into real life.