At the Oct 27 public hearing, a non-binary and trans student who lives and works downtown shared their experience of the occupation.
“I am non-binary and I’m trans so there were a lot of reasons that for me this was a very, very, scary thing that happened. So I’m doing my online courses at Algonquin at home and also working downtown when it started. From there, it started to sort of gradually impede on my life in more and more ways. I remember walking down Bank Street soon after the trucks had sort of filled up Bank Street and just feeling like this is not a city that I recognize, right now this is not a place where I feel safe. I feel like I am sort of directly in danger just based on what I’m seeing, the sort of looks I’m getting, the atmosphere of it was very very frightening.
The visceral threat of it and then the physical thing of hearing the horns constantly really became unbearable. I had to leave because you can’t live through that, especially as a queer person.”
You can view the full testimony here.
