This Is Hard

There are no easy answers.

When a woman is the target of domestic violence where does she turn for help? Many times it is a domestic violence shelter. Where does a trans woman turn for help when she is the target of domestic violence?

Forced to share a room with transgender woman in Toronto shelter, sex abuse victim files human rights complaint
But when Hanna called the Human Rights Legal Support Centre, they said that she was the one engaged in discrimination for describing her new roommate as a 'man'
National Post
By Joseph Brean
August 2, 2018

A woman has filed a human rights complaint against a Toronto shelter for female recovering addicts, claiming staff forced her to share a small double room with a pre-operative male-to-female transgender person.

The formal complaint against the Jean Tweed Centre, which runs Palmerston House, followed Kristi Hanna’s efforts to inquire about her own legal rights in this unusual situation, only to be told by Ontario’s Human Rights Legal Support Centre that, by describing her new roommate as a “man,” Hanna was the one engaged in illegal discrimination.

Hanna, 37, is a former paramedic who has lately worked in the service industry, and has been struggling with the lingering effects of sexual abuse and resulting problems with addiction to alcohol and cocaine. She described herself as an “active ally in the LGBTQ community,” but said this conflict has left her feeling as if vulnerable women are unable to voice their own gender-based rights for fear of violating someone else’s.

“It’s affecting everyone in the house. This can completely ruin your recovery, let alone your safety, let alone your life,” Hanna said in an interview.
[…]
The dispute began in mid-July, when the transgender woman arrived and, according to Hanna, was acting odd and failed a sobriety test. Residents must be clean for a month before they are admitted. After some time in detox, the trans woman was admitted July 20 and assigned to Hanna’s bedroom, a double room with beds about five feet apart.
[…]
“With respect to accommodating trans women, we do not discriminate; nor do we impose modifications with respect to accommodation,” Hume said in a written statement to the National Post. “We do, however, do our best to meet the needs of all parties affected in a way that complies with the requirements of shelter standards and trauma-informed practice.”

One of her complaints was…

Hanna said the woman is in her late 20s, has facial hair, chest hair, and wears large black combat boots that “trigger” her with their thumping. She said at one communal dinner, the roommate talked about having had a wife in the past, and a pregnant fiancée, and was overheard talking about some unidentified women as “hot” and expressing her preference for Latina women. Hanna said her mannerisms came across as “piggish” and inappropriate.

It costs a lot of money to remove facial hair and without hormones and androgen blocks the body hair will not go away and it takes time for them to work. As for combat boots, there are a lot of women who also wear them and I don’t mean just in the military.

This is hard to answer, but there are answers. First I hope that the shelter used female pronouns when discussing her, this is very important to validate the resident’s gender.

Second I hope that they sat down and talked to the other residents saying that they are an affirming safe space.

She was offered the alternative of moving to a room that, because it leads to a fire escape, does not even have a door that closes. She declined.

Well I also don’t think that was an acceptable alternative, I think they should have offered other alternatives.

Lastly, did they have any training about trans residents?

Domestic violence is real in the trans community, just this past spring a trans woman was murdered by her husband. I know of other trans people who are targets of their partners and there are also trans men who are mentally and physically assaulted by their partners. Another thing to keep in mind there is also domestic violence in the lesbian and gay communities and they also need safe shelters.

But all else we should keep in mind that Ms. Hanna fears are valid.

Let's hope that DV shelters move into the 21^st century and realize that DV shelters should be for everyone. They might need to expand their programs to cover all victims of DV.