Protest in Toronto
So I’m not sure if any of our readers are in Toronto, I’m not even sure if we have any readers yet, but if you are, here’s the body of an email that was sent to me. Check it out if you’re around, I so wish I could be there but I’m working. So if you’re not working and you’re in town, please please PLEASE head on out there. There is a facebook thing about it somewhere on the ‘Book.
“Protest against transphobia and sex worker oppression
Time and Place
Start Time:
Friday, August 15, 2008 at 11:00pm
End Time:
Saturday, August 16, 2008 at 3:00am
Street:
Homewood and Maitland
City/Town:
Toronto, ON
The Maitland Homewood Safety Association is waging a campaign to rid their
neighbourhood of trans sex workers. Every Friday and Saturday starting at 11pm
the Association goes out armed with flashlights to harrass the women working in
the neighbourhood. There have been somereports that the members of the
Association have physically assaulted transwomen.
If you care about the rights of trans and sex working women to be free of
harassment and nimbyism (which you should) and are free this Friday, then join
us Friday August 15th at 11pm at Homewood
and Maitland to show our support to
the women in the neighbourhood, as well as to send a clear message to the
Homewood-Maitland Safety Association that violence and harassment against trans
women will not be tolerated.
PLEASE NOTE:
Organizers of this event are being targeted by this group, we need as many
people there as possible to ensure our safety. For more info on the Associations
transphobia please check out
http://splinterjete.livejournal.com/78658.html?view=1036354#t1036354 and
http://spocgirl.braveblog.com/entry/27765“
- Shae
August 13, 2008 at 8:30 am
We are here for the safety and integrity of Homewood and Maitland Streets. We are dedicated to removing sex-trade from our neighbourhood, and restoring it to a peaceful and crime-free community.
WE RECOGNIZE THE RIGHTS OF ALL PEOPLE, AND THIS IS NOT DISCRIMINATORY AGAINST THE SEX-TRADE WORKERS OR TRANS-GENDER SEX-TRADE WORKERS (primarilyat this corner).
WHY REMOVE SEX TRADE FROM OUR STREETS??
Our corners of Maitland and Homewood are bordered by Lady of Lourdes Catholic Elementary School, Jarvis Collegiate , the Rekai Centre of Wellesley Place (retirement and long-term care facility), Plaza 100 Wellesley (apartment building), 60 Homewood & 15 Maitland Place (condominium residences).
Sex-trade workers should not be operating in such a densely populated area, surrounded by schools and a hospital – surely the residents and students here have a right to surroundings where they can walk, work and live without sex-trade workers and their johns.
CRIME
Prostitution is simply against the law – difficult for police to enforce that’s true – We are in contact with 51 division and have their full support – they are committed to working with us to move this activity out of our area once and for all. With the sex-trade come other crimes, drugs, violence, excessive noise between the workers, increased traffic from the johns and their driving offences and excessive noise, violence towards the sex-trade workers from rowdies in their vehicles.
SAFETY
Everyone has the right to feel and be safe in our neighbourhood. Residents and neibhours have the right to use the sidewalk and streets as they like, without harassment from sex-tradeworkers and their johns, or drug dealers. The sex-trade workers themselves are at constant risk from being picked up by johns that intend to do them harm.
YOUR PROPERTY VALUES
Clearly, no buyer would be interested in your property in this neighbourhood if you were selling, that is, if they knew about the night-time and early morning activity associtated with it from the sex-trade workers. Homewood and Maitland streets are well known and becoming more so with the history of sex-trade workers located here. There are web-sites and publications that declare these corners as the place to go to pick up trans-gender sex-trade workers. People work hard and long to pay for their properties, and deserve to have their value protected. The reputation of this corner is becoming well-known – already we have seen sales fall through after a would-be buyer does some investigating and find sex-trade activity out on the front sidewalks. One would think that houses and condos so close to a school would be in high demand – yet prospective buyers with children stay far away knowing of the activity on these streets.
WHAT’S THE ANSWER?
We have been in constant contact with Kyle Rae, our city councilor, in order that he may meet with us, 51 division, and the 519 Community Centre (the 519 has a support group for the sex-trade workers in our area) to find a solution. We are proposing that between all of us, we can eliminate sex-trade activity from our neighbourhood.
We believe there must be an answer, and we are appealing for input from our representatives to help us eradicate this behaviour from our streets once and for all.
Join us on Friday and Saturday nights, 11pm until 3am, or any time at all during that window and show your support that you want to take back your streets!
Contact Kyle Rae to show your support , and ask for help!
By letter: 100 Queen Street W, Toronto , ON M5H 2N2
By phone: 416 392 7903
By fax: 416 696 4300
By email: councillor_rae@toronto.ca
Contact 519 Community Centre to show your support and ask for help!
By letter: 519 Church Street, Toronto, ON M4Y 2C9
By phone: 416 392 6874
By email: info@the519.org
Contact us for your thoughts and more information!!!
homewoodmaitlandsafety@gmail.com
August 13, 2008 at 8:33 am
“Is it OK for people to scream, swear, pee, defecate, and have sex in YOUR front yard? I don’t think so. The world is meant for us all to share, and when people dominate a public space with such activities, it is considered inappropriate, and these particular activities, illegal.
When neighbours walk with flashlights instead of guns and knives, it is considered a non-violent way of expressing discontent. I personally believe that people need to express themselves sexually in many ways, and this includes all sex, same sex, transvestite sex, trans-gender sex, and then…we can go on to violent sex, loud sex…etc.. Whenever your sexual activity is performed on public property and is infringing on the happiness and rights of others…it is illegal. Simple as that.
We are also concerned for the welfare of the children, families, and elders that live in this neighbourhood, because they are especially vulnerable to the illicit activities that are going on in front of their homes and schools.
Sex workers are a very important and valued segment of society, and I would never venture to prevent it, but, it needs to be kept within an area that is not for families and schools. Very simple to understand, don’t you think?
We want everyone to be happy and sexy as can be, but just not in our front yard.
And beyond all this…I want to sleep at night.”
A Resident of Homewood Maitland
August 13, 2008 at 10:04 am
Is it OK for people to scream, swear, pee, defecate, and have sex in YOUR front yard? I don’t think so. The world is meant for us all to share, and when people dominate a public space with such activities, it is considered inappropriate, and these particular activities, illegal.
When neighbours walk with flashlights instead of guns and knives, it is considered a non-violent way of expressing discontent. I personally believe that people need to express themselves sexually in many ways, and this includes all sex, same sex, transvestite sex, trans-gender sex, and then…we can go on to violent sex, loud sex…etc.. Whenever your sexual activity is performed on public property and is infringing on the happiness and rights of others…it is illegal. Simple as that.
We are also concerned for the welfare of the children, families, and elders that live in this neighbourhood, because they are especially vulnerable to the illicit activities that are going on in front of their homes and schools.
Sex workers are a very important and valued segment of society, and I would never venture to prevent it, but, it needs to be kept within an area that is not for families and schools. Very simple to understand, don’t you think?
We want everyone to be happy and sexy as can be, but just not in our front yard.
And beyond all this…I want to sleep at night.
August 13, 2008 at 12:54 pm
As a resident of Homewood Ave I have been participating in this community action. We have been threatened with violence more than once, including veiled threats of gun violence.
We are peaceful, we obey the law and at no time have we engaged in any form of violence, intimidation or criminal harassment.
As homeowners, we have vested interest in having a safe and pleasant community in which to live quiet lives. Street prostitution is not a victimless crime. Having a crack deal take place on my front porch is simply not acceptable. Having individuals defecate on my property is nto acceptable. spending the warmer months sleepless becaus of the noise, the fighting and the John traffic is unacceptable.
It astonishes me that our elected representatives (Kyle Rae, Bob Rae and George Smitherman) have given this issue scant attention. In a riding/ward that incorporates both Rosedale, Cabbagetown and the Gay disrict around Church St. we have been left to fend for ourselves, private citizens armed with nothing more than bristol board signs and flashlights.
We circulated a petition to close off the end of the street to prevent Johns from circling at all hours and Kyle Rae quashed it. The most he was prepared to do was erect a sign at the top of Homewood banning southbound turns during specific hours. We can’t even get speed-bumps!
Counter-demonstrators are not planning their own “community action” against us despite the fact that NONE of them actually live on our street! I’ve been called a Nazi, a capitalist pig and yuppy scum. I’ve been personally threatened by these YES in YOUR BACKYARDers (YIYBYs?) with retaliation.
What will it take for our elected officials to get off their well fed behinds and take effective action against the lawlessness that prevails on Homewood and Maitland??
August 13, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I have also been participating in the weekend patrols. Transphobia is not part of the equation here. People are not afraid of trans gendered sex workers nor do they object to the lifestyle. The accusation of transphobia is just a ploy to portray the sex workers as some kind of victim. In fact, the transexual workers and their supporters in particular are running a campaing whereby they claim that they have been ‘demeaned by the flashlights’, ‘physically assaulted and harassed’ This is a total fabrication since no one has been assualted, quite the contrary, the patrollers have been threatened with the possibility that ’someone could go crazy and shoot at you homeowners’, that ‘very soon stones will be thrown at your valued properties’. In one instance I even witnessed a transexual worker threatining to use pepper spray at one of the patrollers while he was pointing his flash light at the license plate of one of ‘her’ prospective johns. Who is the perpetrator of injustice here?
The true victim is the resident who is kept up all night with the noisy goings on, who is threatend if he or she dared to protect the neighbourhood against johns and the constant littering, loitering, drug dealing and illegal activities. I hae witnessed many patrollers being called disparaging comments such as faggot, Nazi etc.
The transgendered sex workers seem to have a sense of entitlement to the public real estate of the area. It is ok to hog the perimeter all night long with impunity whilst clearly breaking the law but it is not ok for the residet to rteact and fell upset or vulnerable. The sex workers accuse the residents of Nimby-ism (not in my back yard). Ironically it is the sex workers who believe that the area is their legitimate back yard and we must be guests in our own neighbourhood! What to tal cheek and absurdity!
Also, the sex workers have told that that they have been here forwever and that we, the ‘gay condo yuppies’should either sell or get over it and put up with the trannies! The sex workers are trying to sabotage history since they HAVE NOT BEEN HERE FOREVER. In fact, we, the residents have been here since Victoritan and Edwardian times where many of the houses were built. The trannies need to get the history record straight and not twist the facts to score phony brownie points!
The trannies and their supporters have accused us of being uncool and intolerant and not open minded. In the meantime many of the protestors have been called homphobic names, and been deluged by emails with epithets such as ’sick’ ‘weirdos’,'fags’by the very same people who think we are somehow intruding on their legitimate rights. What abject hypocracy is this!
Let’s face it. The sex workers are really upset since the Homewood maitland safety Association has had a mjor impact in thei illegal dollar income. When we started out with this intitiative, the johns were bumper to bumper in the area. The flow has now been reduced to a trickle. This initiave has hurt their $ pockets. Hence it makes the trannies greater capitalists than the residents around!
Lying about the facts is not going to wash unless one belives what an infamous politician once said: “You lie all the time and the lie will be believed”
The transgendered sex workers and their supporters have no credibility in this neighbourhood since they retain that they have all the rights and entitlement and we, the residents have absolutely none and if we dare complain then something must be wrong with us and we deserve nothing but their contempt, false accusations, insults, aspersions and their constant harassment. I guess there is no fairness in love and war, Mr. Tranny.
August 19, 2008 at 12:04 am
Michael, you’re showing your Transphobia here quite a bit. Use of the word “Tranny” is as offensive as “Faggot.” Also, your derogatory tone in questioning their pronoun use and identification as female is incredibly insulting. You claim not to be transphobic in one sentence, and then release a tirade of transphobia in the next.
I suppose I will see you at Homewood-Maitland on Friday, again.
~Morgan
August 26, 2008 at 2:29 pm
…FYI,
A complaint has been lodged to Revenue Canada/Revenue Ontario/Ministry of Social Services and the Toronto Welfare Offices for cases of Tax evasion/illegal income reporting on the part of the prostitutes operating on Homewood/Maitland.
September 11, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I have made a new post about this issue, if any of you who commented here are interested in having your say on that as well. I think that this discussion is important and I’m glad that people have been talking about it in various forums all over the internet.
September 29, 2008 at 1:51 pm
The stroll is now dead ! – The prostitutes have moved to some darker corners, corners of a dark and creapy existence – somewhere else in some dark alleys – The lowlifes are now where they belong, with the rats and the trash….