The founder of a local transgender group is picking up the pieces after the organization's storefront was broken into and robbed.
Jayce Carver, the founder of W.E. Trans Support, said the break-in happened early Wednesday morning. According to Carver, a safe was taken containing $1,000 cash, $800 in gift cards and a significant amount of bus passes.
W.E. Trans Support is located on Wyandotte Street West near Ouellette and describes itself as a safe place for transgender people to come for assistance in accessing community resources. Carver, a transgender woman, said most of the contents in the safe were meant to be given to youth and adult transgender individuals who are having a difficult time transitioning. Carver said she believes this was a targetted act.
"If they were looking for money, we're a non-profit organization, we don't have a lot of that," Carver explained. "There are several downtown businesses that have far more cash on site. They could have just gone into any other one. We believe this was targeting of our centre."
Carver said she is not surprised by what happened and said at this point actions like this are a part of her everyday life. According to her, every time the organization is in the news, she receives an average of 100 death threats and hate emails. Last year when she commented on Ontario's sex-ed curriculum, she said her tires were slashed.
Carver explained that most recently she was doing press in support of local elementary schools raising a pride flag. She said she believes that was the catalyst for the most recent incident.
"People still look at us as mentally ill and incapable and that's the furthest thing from the truth," she said. "People are fearful of what they don't know."
Following the break-in, W.E. Trans Support closed it's doors for the day and will be installing cameras. Carver said she's thankful no one was hurt and still wants people to know that W.E. Trans Support is a safe space.
"One of the main things that we want to remind our community is, let's not retreat, let's not go back in the closet, lets not run away from this. Let's become more public and say 'we're going to stand against this'."
Windsor police said the investigation into the break-in is in its early stages and will be taken over by the Property Crimes Unit. Anyone with information is asked to contact them 519-255-6700.
