When I read the news of Julie Berman's death, it broke my heart. Berman was a Canadian trans activist that had served on an organizing committee for Toronto's Transgender Day of Remembrance. At the event, she delivered a speech about the rise of transphobia in Toronto and the murder of a trans friend of hers.

This speech was given in 2017 and only two years later, Berman was murdered.

She dedicated part of her activism to speaking out about the violence that trans women face, which makes it even more saddening that she ended up having her life taken from her.

Stories like Berman's are one of the reasons I get so infuriated when I see people saying that trans women are not "real women" and that trans women should not be allowed in the women's bathroom/women's spaces in general. These kinds of statements fuel transphobes into becoming more aggressive and can easily snowball into violence against trans women.

A study done by the Trans PULSE Project found that "20 percent of Ontario's trans people had been physically or sexually assaulted for being trans and another 34 percent had been verbally threatened or harassed but not assaulted."

Olivia Nuamah, the executive director of Pride Toronto, stated, "I don't know that [trans women] ever felt safe. For many in the trans community, sadly, violence is a part of life."

One of the ways that this violence is able to occur is by ignoring when someone is making an anti-trans comment. When someone says something hateful about trans women and they are not called out for it, it allows the hate to build up inside of them and can also cause hatred to grow in someone else that hears those comments and thinks they are not transphobic. People then resort to violence when the hatred gets strong enough, which is what can cause trans women to be murdered for simply existing.

Te hatred for trans women is appalling. These women are just living their lives and there are people that think they should be murdered for that? It truly fills me with disgust. These women are braver, stronger, kinder, and smarter than you transphobes can ever hope to be.