Last weekend I was sexually assaulted on the Queen St streetcar WHILE WEARING MY BABY. It’s taken me a few days to process & now I want to talk about it. Thread. @ttchelps
While wearing my 4 mos old daughter in a baby carrier on my chest, a man started invading my space & leering at me. I moved over one seat trying to avoid him. He then proceeded to make lewd tongue gestures at me. I told him to stop. Things escalated quickly & badly from there.
He leaned over and slid his hand up my thigh, trying to grab my crotch. Let me reiterate, my infant daughter is strapped to my chest at this point. I jumped up and shouted at him, “Don’t f*cking touch me! You’re f*cking disgusting!”
People are staring now & he throws his hands up & says, “What? I didn’t do anything! Why are you getting so angry?!” I am livid, pushing my way through the crowded streetcar up to driver at front & shout “This man touched me! I have my baby with me. Get him off the streetcar!”
The driver is ensconced in his cockpit and can’t really see what’s going on, but he stops the streetcar. I have my back up against the driver’s window & this creep has now lunged at me to do ?? and a young man has intervened and is holding him back.
The young man is wrestling with him, physically frog-marching him down the aisle & kicking him off the streetcar through the middle doors. The creep now runs, outside the streetcar, up to the front doors where I’m standing & starts trying to spit on me and the people helping me.
I am now rage-crying & shouting at driver to close the doors! Driver closes doors. I am bewildered & wondering what the eff just happened & how it went from 0 to 90 so quickly! My baby girl, who was sleeping in the carrier, is now awake & quietly staring up at me as I’m fuming.
Driver asks if I want to press charges, and I look at all the people on the streetcar who just want to get on with their day & I say no, I just want to carry on with our trip. The creep is walking down the street on the sidewalk as we drive past.
Multiple people come up to me and comfort me. And here’s the thing, they tell me that this same creep was harassing multiple women on the same streetcar! But no one did anything or reported him or kicked him off!
We just did what we always do – look the other way, change seats, whatever – because it’s NORMAL for women to be harassed & assaulted on public transit. It’s so commonplace that we don’t even confront it, we just move around it if we can. #defynormal @plancanada
Well F*CK THAT. It’s not NORMAL to grab a woman against her will. It’s not NORMAL to make her feel violated & scared in front of her child.
Thank you very much to the young man who came to my aid & sat with me for the rest of my ride to make sure I got to my destination safely (where were all the other guys when he was physically struggling with this creep solo?) #ManUp #DoTheRightThing
And thank you to the other passengers who circled me & comforted me. How do we do better? How do we end gender-based violence? How do we de-normalize sexual harassment? I hope my daughter never has to deal with this bullshit when she grows up. #whyineedfeminism
