Front Burner - Introducing: The Village: Season 2

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

Transgender women, and trans sex workers in particular, know what it means to be marginalized, overpoliced, and underprotected. In season two of The Village, host Justin Ling investigates the stories of two women, Alloura Wells and Cassandra Do, whose deaths remain unexplained, and whose cases expose the systems that failed them. More episodes are available at: smarturl.it/thevillagecbc

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem, brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everybody, Jamie here. So we've got something a little different for you today because our team took the day off yesterday. We'll feature more of these special drops in the months to come on the days after stat holidays. Today is the first episode of season two of The Village. By the 1990s, Toronto's gay community already had its coming out. The rash of violent unsolved

killings of the 70s and 80s were fading from the headlines. But for transgender women who knew what it meant to be over-policed yet under-protected, a history of violence was repeating itself. Sex workers in particular found themselves vulnerable and ignored. The Village returns with a new season to explore the stories of two women, Allura Wells and Cassandra Doe, whose deaths remain unexplained and unsolved. Much like the award-winning first season, season two with host Justin Ling investigates what happened to them and asks the question, have we learned nothing? We've got the first episode for you right here, so have a listen. It's a Saturday in August 2017.

A heat wave had just come and gone. Two friends had been out grabbing some pizza, and they decided to cap off their afternoon with a hike. The pair head down into Toronto's Rosedale Ravine, past a dog park, into the shaded past that twists through the green space. Just beyond the edges of the ravine sit some of the nicest homes in the city. A mix of modern looking, recently renovated houses and heritage red brick estates. Rosedale has always been an affluent, green, upper-class neighborhood, but these days, homes around here usually start at $2 million.

Part of the appeal of the neighborhood is that the expansive ravine offers a bit of shelter from the city. But down below, in the ravine itself, there's a reminder of the stark class divides in Toronto. It's not uncommon to see encampments hidden just a little bit off the paths. Many of the city's homeless have preferred the canopy of trees to the streets of downtown. The pair of hikers leave the beaten path and go into a wooded area. They arrive on the top of a small hill. At the bottom, there is a lonely blue tent. And sticking out beside the tent are what, at first glance, appear to be mannequin legs.

But they climb down and get close enough to confirm that the body is very real. It's a woman. She's lying face down. She's wearing skinny jeans, runners, and a blonde wig. There's a broken cell phone and a purse nearby, but no ID. She had been there for some time, and she's badly decomposed. She had been there for some time, and she's badly decomposed. When police arrive, it's impossible to make an identification.

The hikers leave that afternoon shaken, but it wouldn't be the end of the story for them. My name is Justin Ling, and for years I investigated the mysterious disappearances of men from Toronto's gay village. Disappearances that were ultimately tied to serial killer Bruce MacArthur. Last season, we went back and looked at those cases, and a slew of unsolved homicides dating back to the 1970s, murders that remain unsolved to this day, and a system that let their killers get away with it. But there's one story you didn't hear. The story of a woman who disappeared from the queer community,

but who was not connected to those missing men. A disappearance that has never been fully explained. While the community demanded answers, the city, the media, and the police have never given this case the attention it deserves. It's time it does. And it's time we talk about the system that failed her and failed the whole queer community too. I'm Justin Ling and this is The Village, Season 2. Allura was always very creative. Living in a fantasy world, but a very vibrant soul.

She was obsessed with pinup, like old 60s pinup girls. And loved their style and everything about them and the big lashes and the fake freckles and the waves in the hair. She was beautiful. A smile that would just steal your life. She would smile at people and they'd just forget everything, forget their name and where they came from and where they live. Allie Jackson has been thinking a lot recently about her friend, Elora Wells. So like I ran away from home, she ran away from home, and we wound up together.

Like we just randomly ran into each other, took a liking to each other and became friends. There was a coffee shop at Wellesley and Parliament. It was called the Baker 7. I don't think it's there anymore. And it would attract a lot of homeless people, a lot of street kids, a lot of everything. I mean, it was 24 hours, right? And if you needed somewhere safe to sleep with lights,

where there's people around, you could go and knock out in there for a few hours, have a coffee, sit down, eat something. I later found out that actually, like, while we were all homeless straight kids, she actually had a home. You know, she had a home and she didn't want to go home. Like, she would say that she would face certain abuse there and that they didn't really accept her for who she was. Allora and Allie, both for their own reasons,

left home when they were really young. They ran the streets in the east end of Toronto's downtown, just a few blocks away from the village. Allora's family didn't have a lot of money. They moved from place to place. For a while, they stayed in a hotel. But more importantly, she didn't feel comfortable at home. We were both baby trans girls. Like she was living as it was her first six months living day to day as a girl and same as mine.

On the streets, Allura met Layla, who was going through exactly the same thing she was. Layla was just a couple years older. It was easier just to be away from home and like in the streets. It was kind of scary to like come out a second time about being trans. So like we felt more comfortable dressing up in a McDonald's washroom than like, you know, at home because we didn't know how our parents would react. We had the same childhood where, you know, we were bullied in school. People couldn't tell our gender. We played with dolls.

We were scolded for it for a bit. And then parents got over it. And, you know, we grew up like that. Alora knew from a very young age that she was transgender. Her mom seemed to accept it readily. Her father, well, he didn't. He wasn't supportive of it at all, actually. He would take us aside and tell us that he didn't want us to be dressing a certain way around the other kids or that we would be run down, gunned down, that we're only asking for a difficult life.

Her mother would refer to her as her, she, and then her father would say his and him. This was the early 2000s. To be openly gay in a high school was rare, and it would mean, almost without exception, being subject to some pretty intense bullying. To come out as trans was on another level. It was incredibly brave, but it also wouldn't be easy. Not by a long shot. Public schools weren't doing it for us because we were more than just homosexual or whatever. Luckily for Alora and Layla, Toronto had an alternative to those public schools. So we ended up into a school that was LGBT only and it was called the Purple Triangle.

And both of us went through the same program. The Triangle program was a pretty extraordinary opportunity. It's a high school that was designed to support queer youth. It's the only dedicated LGBTQ high school in Canada. Even if Elora's dad wasn't comfortable with her gender identity, a psychologist told her parents this wasn't just some phase. And our parents were basically told that as we grow older, most likely we would probably lean towards identifying as the opposite gender we were born.

Allora had a tough time, though. It's not surprising. A difficult home life, living at least part-time on the streets, it's not exactly conducive to doing well at high school, even if it's a particularly supportive one. Amidst all this, Allura was a teenager. She was still figuring out who she was. Honestly, she had so many names, I can't remember,

but Allura seemed to stick. When she grew up and kind of blossomed into her true self, it was Allura. Honestly, she was drop-dead gorgeous, and was it was Allura. Honestly, she was drop-dead gorgeous and anybody will tell you that. She had a naturally feminine body. She was tall. She had a stunning face.

She had a walk like you knew it was her from a silhouette way down the street and she showed up to that corner and everybody else would just call it a night. She'd just have no fear kind of with it. She'd just jump right in.

Me, I would kind of profile or evaluate or look around the car or see if I see anything like in the passenger seat. Or, you know, try to get a few words, get them to talk a bit just so I could kind of get a feel for them. And then, you know, they're picking up a sex worker off the street. They don't want to be stopped for too long. So a lot of them would just be like, oh, what the hell with you? Life totally changed stepping out onto that corner from what I was going through in society to that. It was crazy.

Layla was around 18 years old, but Allura was two years younger. That's pretty young. Yeah, and then we just started to do kind of like a buddy system out there. Why did you feel the need to have a sort of buddy? the need to have a sort of buddy? Well, you know, it's downtown Toronto after midnight, and you're jumping into strangers' cars. So her and I were pretty new together at the same time and very picked on.

Like, a lot of girls didn't want us to be out there, especially her, because she had these legs to die for. So, you know, it'd be cutting their grass if they seen us around they'd run us off the block and stuff like that beat us up rob us you know i had a mother who cared and so did she and we weren't kicked out we weren't abandoned you know we were problematic troubled girls so you know it wasn't like our parents weren't looking for us. There was many times when both our parents, her dad, my mom came right onto that block and pulled up right onto the sidewalk. To some degree, this was economic necessity. Alora and Layla couldn't just walk into the gap

and get a job. Handing over your driver's license or filling out an employment information sheet, that meant outing yourself. But Allura and Layla, they wanted to be there. This was freedom. Our parents didn't understand that that's where we were queen, you know? And normal society didn't feel that way. We'd get weird looks all day long and people addressing our gender identity the wrong way people like laughing people pointing people being in shock and then you go out there and you have cars almost driving over curbs like looking trying to look back at you and like

you know it felt good so also being trans like you go from being you know a minority and awkward to a goddess and a princess and pretty much you know a pop star alora and leila they were known on the street as the brats dolls if you don't remember them they were these fashionista kids toys. The dolls had glossy full lips and glam makeup. They wore tutus and jean shorts and thigh-high boots. Plenty of young girls wanted to look just like them. We had like a little tiny fan club going on that was like underground and it was edgy, it was dangerous, it was glamorous. She was mostly into, at that time, what every girl that was living in the projects was into.

Girl rappers, Lil' Kim, How Many Licks. The no shame to your game kind of thing, like get your money honey. She was all about that. She was so shy and then as soon as the sun went down the lashes went on like when i say stunning people literally like would go like like and just be in awe of her that's obviously how she felt more comfortable yeah what's so frustrating of all the normal choices that teens their age face? Do I stay at home or leave? Do I find a job? Do I apply for university?

Allura and Layla really felt like their best choice, maybe their only choice, was sex work. Listening to her, I do forget how young they were. Where were you living? I mean, where were you kind of getting meals and um basically we're like little rascals so we would spend like two three nights out and usually just sneak back home either to my place or her place depending on like our parents work schedules we knew that we would have to um basically take a little break and go home and get grounded and not be allowed out of the house and told not to hang out with that person anymore and have our wigs and makeup and skirts taken away

and then, you know, meet back up again in a week or two and be gone again. Or we would stay with clients or sometimes just sleep in McDonald's bathrooms. or sometimes just sleep in McDonald's bathrooms. Mixed in with the glamour and, well, sleeping in McDonald's bathrooms, there were risks inherent in this job. Alora and Layla, they knew that sex workers were often targeted. Girls go missing, girls end up dead, girls end up addicted, girls end up trafficked, kidnapped, sick.

We knew about it all. We were aware, but it was kind of like, you think about it, and there was nowhere else pretty much in the world that we could get that type of attention. We went to seminars, how to keep yourself safe. Sometimes, like, maybe never shut the door all the way when you're driving with a trick in the car. So if you need to jump out, never fasten your seatbelt. Never turn your back to them. Never let them get on top of you. Never be in a hotel room with things beside the bed, such as lamps or alarm clocks, devices with cords,

you know, just stuff like that. Many sex workers preferred listing ads in the local alt-weekly newspapers. It was safer. You got to screen your clients and set up dates in predetermined locations. But Allora and Layla didn't have that luxury. Where else are we going to go to try and sex work underage? No one's going to host that. That'd be like, that's child trafficking at that point, right? The advent of the internet, specifically the digital back pages, made advertising possible for girls like Allora and Layla.

Craigslist came out. So we didn't have to be on the street anymore. And it wouldn't be only after 10 o'clock at night. So then we started running 24-7. We didn't have to, like, you know, pay out three crackheads a night to be able to work. And listen, I know what you're thinking. It is not good that websites like Craigslist made it possible for underage sex workers to find clients. But that wasn't Allura and Layla's concern.

They were just out to make some money. So we got to, like, you know, have professional photo shoots. The rates got higher. We got to work with, you know, people that wouldn't be driving around a sketchy corner like that. And we started to meet people that actually would, like, you know, take care of us and fund our life. One summer, the pair cobbled together enough money to get their own apartment. But the home quickly turned into a place for other girls to work out of. Layla says the lifestyle was getting out of control.

We started to let other girls come over. We started to have dates there all the time. That apartment was also a grim reminder of the violence that faced their community. The apartment directly above us, she's still a cold case. Her name was Cassandra, and she was strangled to death and left in her bathtub. Cassandra Doe. She was also a transgender sex worker. She was killed in her home in 2003. That was always a scary story for me. I didn't ever meet her in person.

And they hadn't caught the guy who did it. To this day, no, it's still a cold case file, yeah. I wanted a fresh start and I wanted to go somewhere where, you know, I could focus and work on my transition and get it over with so I could move on in life. And I just went to Montreal one day and I didn't come back for four years. Without Leila, Allure went back to her parents' place. But things weren't great there. And she started learning that the Canadian government didn't think very highly of sex workers, especially in those years. I get a hold of her court records. Her first criminal charge as an adult was for communicating for the purposes of engaging in prostitution. She was 18 years old.

And the law kept coming after her. In the next few years, she faced some petty theft charges. And when I say petty, I mean petty. She was arrested in 2011 for stealing a t-shirt. And then again the same year for stealing a box of ice cream. So now she's a trans woman with a rap sheet, even if it's for some pretty minor crimes. That would make getting a legal job a lot more difficult. Then, something else happens.

Her mom gets sick. It's lung cancer. a lot more difficult. Then, something else happens. Her mom gets sick. It's lung cancer. Laura and my mom were very, very close. And she was there for my mom, you know, while she was doing all her treatments and all that. This is Laura's sister, Michelle Wheeler. He didn't leave.

He stayed with her the whole time. And it definitely affected him, that's for sure. There's no rock to fall back on, you know. I should note here that sometimes Michelle uses he to refer to Allura. Michelle explained to me that sometimes she still uses male pronouns. It's not malicious and there's no intent behind it. It's just a habit. But it is exclusive to their relationship. So, to you and me, Allura was, and will always be, she.

With all the troubles at home, Michelle left at 16. Allura was still a kid. They didn't actually spend a lot of their childhoods together. When Allura was just 22, her mom died. It was devastating. But it brought her and Michelle closer together. He was just there for me. The whole, like, we became so close.

And this was after he had told me he was trans. I didn't mind. I didn't care at all. We weren't really even that close before I had kids and after my mom passed away. He just became, like, my rock. He helped me so much with my kids. They loved him so much, especially my son. As we chat, she brings up pictures of Allura on her phone. This picture I really like.

Oh, that's really nice. I think she looks beautiful. She's got long, light brown hair framing her face, with her bangs swooping down over one eye. She's wearing a leather coat. She's got glossy lipstick, dark eyeshadow, and dramatic eyebrows. One thing I've heard from everybody who knows Allura, she was a whiz with makeup. She was very confident. She was such a good drawer and like, I don't know, she could really like do anything with her face.

She could probably be a really good makeup artist if she wanted to be. I look at the photo and then I look at Michelle, who is sitting across from me down a long dining room table. It's striking just how much they look alike. I'm just realizing the photos I've seen of her later, you have like a real family resemblance. Yeah. I don't know if I'm that interesting. I think that she kind of picked makeup that ended up kind of resembling you, frankly. I think that she did look up to me.

I definitely know that. Even though I wasn't always that confident. I tried to be the best sister that I could. But there's definitely some regrets, that's for sure. And, you know, things that could have went differently. Life's funny. After her mom died, Elora got her own place. Nothing fancy, a rooming house in Scarborough, on the eastern edge of the city, not far from where Michelle was living with her kids.

It kind of sounds like even just having that room, even if it was a rooming house, was kind of more stable than hotels. Yeah, it really 100% was. Allura would often lend a hand to Michelle around the house. I see a Facebook post from Michelle thanking Allura for watching the kids so that she could have a night out. There are pictures of the family on a trip to Niagara Falls. But it's telling to me that Allura didn't feel entirely comfortable being herself outside of her community, outside of downtown. When we were in Scarborough, she would only dress like a boy. But downtown, she would dress as a girl.

I mean, she had been in Scarborough a few times dressed as a girl, but... Only what she had to be? Is that fair? Yeah, basically, when she was doing her thing. Over those years, Allura went back to school. One day, out of the blue, she messaged Allie about it. She says, guess what? And I know this is late, but I'm trying to get my GED, bitch. Around that time, she wrote on Facebook, got accepted into the security guard training course.

Can't wait to start making that green. She did have a security guard course. She did. And she was so proud of herself for doing that. And I was so proud of her for doing that. But it never really went anywhere. Elora clearly had this drive to look after herself, to make herself financially independent. But there were things

working against her. My dad could never hold a job. I don't feel like she was like that, but mentally, maybe she felt like she didn't have motivation because she never got motivation from other, you know, her family. Also, I think that she just wished she had it a little bit easier. Eventually, Elora was back to living on the streets. When she had nowhere else to go, she would make it back to Michelle's.

So I was going out. I was leaving my house. And we had like a patio. And I just looked over there and Elora was laying there sleeping. So I'm like, what are you doing? And I guess she had a pretty rough night. She walked all the way from downtown to me in Scarborough. That is about a three and a half hour walk. And so I let her in and she slept for the whole entire day.

I fed her, she took a shower. She didn't know it then, but that would be the last time Michelle would see her sister. How was she looking when you last saw her? You said she was in rough, but I mean, I'd be in rough shape too if I walked. She was looking pretty rough.

Then she took a shower and she fixed herself up a little bit. It must be hard. She told me that she had a bad incident with some John or something and she had to run away so she told me a lot of stories about what happened while she was living on the streets. Sad stories. She told me she was sleeping one time in like an abandoned house. And she woke up and some guy was trying to set her on fire.

What? Yeah. Yeah. Oh. She's been through some stuff. Yeah. And then I was going through issues with my family, and I ended up leaving for a little while.

Because I wasn't there, he stopped paying his rent, and then he just went back doing what he used to do. So I always blame myself for, like, it probably wouldn't have happened if I just friggin' stayed. I don't think you should blame yourself, because I don't think that's... I kind of do, like, but, yeah. I'm going to go. empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. know their own household income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Sex workers are a community and we're a very vibrant community.

This is Monica Forrester. Monica knows everybody. For decades, she's organized for Maggie's Sex Workers Action Project. Maggie's is one of Canada's most organized and influential sex work organizations. For almost four decades, they've been defending sex workers in court, advocating for laws to protect sex workers and to decriminalize the sex trade. They also run a drop-in center not far from the village. It's a place where sex workers can turn for a cup of coffee, for some food, support, resources, or maybe just a sofa to crash on.

That's where Monica met Elora. I met her when she was 17, sneaking in the bars. She was beautiful. She looked like, what's her name from the name? You remember that show? Fran Drescher? Yeah. She looked identical to her. And she had her personality. She was a singer. She was so young and had so much ambition and such a future ahead of her. She was so young and had so much ambition and such a, you know, a future ahead of her. She did actually do some shows in the clubs, like she did drag shows and stuff, but she was also an

entertainer in the community. She liked to put on a show for us, so it was great. She'd do like a shine like a diamond with that. She'd be on the stage at the 519 because they have this big round circle stage at the 519. She'd be up there, kind of, she liked to make people laugh, and she really wanted to shine and make sure people knew that she was artistic and just fun and outgoing. She was just an amazing,

amazing being. Monica was two decades older than Elora, but she went through a really, really similar thing. You know, I was actually doing activism before I even knew what activism was. You know, coming from a community that's so marginalized, when I came out in 89, I thought I was just a queer boy at the time. And because I've always dressed up growing up as a kid, my parents were very liberal, allowed me to express gender and whatever that looked like. So then when I met trans people, I was like, oh my God, I can transition and be, you know, be Monica.

Because I met a girl in school when I was in junior school. Her name was Monica. And I said, if I ever was going to be woman, I'd be her, because she was everything that I wanted to be, you know, stop it anyways. Monica came out as trans and two-spirit. If you're not familiar, two-spirit covers a range of spiritual, cultural, sexual, and gender identities in Indigenous cultures.

It's a concept that was systematically erased by colonization. In recent decades, however, it has seen a renaissance. When Monica came out, it wasn't common to hear people talk about the trans community. Trans people were scarcely mentioned in the media. If they were, they were often presented as caricatures, sensations, punchlines, freaks and oddities on daytime TV. punchlines, freaks and oddities on daytime TV, or as dead bodies on shows like Law & Order, with no real backstory or personality beyond just being transgender.

Generally, public, visible trans people were a rarity. To come out as trans was to be targeted and harassed. There was so much stigma and discrimination towards trans people, like trans women particularly and trans women of color, that were mostly homeless, you know what I mean? So we lived in the shadows of the community and we really were never acknowledged. So like I was so young, I was 19, 20, but to see my friends that were the same age dying from suicide or overdose or from HIV and AIDS, right? And the fear that they didn't want to go to the hospital because of the stigma about being dead named or not being respected as the gender they were. It was really hard. Dead naming.

It's the continued use of a trans person's birth name, even after they've come out. Calling a trans person by their chosen name is really the bare minimum you can do in terms of respect. For Monica, that stigma and discrimination made it pretty clear that she wouldn't be hired in an office or a restaurant. I didn't think I'd ever be a sex worker, but it pushed me there because I was homeless. that she wouldn't be hired in line with who I was. You know, I wanted to live in a place that was comfortable. Why did I have to live off welfare where I could have to live in a room where I can live in a home and feel safe? Also, sex work is work. It is work. Believe me, I'm still doing sex work casually, but it's work. Our customers can be very demanding. work casually, but it's work. Our customers can be very demanding. You know what I mean? When you get into the sex industry, you don't need to have credentials. You don't need to have work experience. You can be your own boss. And there's a lot of work that goes into sex work.

You have to advertise, customer service, you know, plus you got to do the services. And then you got to negotiate that over the laws that restrict you from doing a lot of that stuff, right? So it's just like any other job. Some jobs, we love them. Some jobs, we hate them. I had times in sex work where I hated it. I fucking hated it. I hated that I had to do it, but I did it. Now I have opportunity. I can do a client when I want to do a client. I don't have to do a client. Sometimes sex work is short-term. People go in and out of it. But sometimes it's a very lucrative business. I made, I should have been, I should have had a million houses by now.

Monica has one of those early ads framed on her mantle. She went by Alicia in those days. The ad says she's, quote, got a booty like J-Lo. The more time she spent at the industry, the more time she spent helping and educating her colleagues. Trans women that were coming into the scene or working the streets at the time,

I would kind of educate them on safe sex. Because even though we were a marginalized group, we kind of kept each other safe. We kept each other educated and protected. Come on, people know. marginalized group, we kind of kept each other safe. We kept each other educated and protected. In 1996, an attack on the trans community would underscore just how fragile their safety really was. On Victoria Day 1996, three members of our community were slaughtered. This is from a documentary produced later that year called Trans Info. Underneath the narration, there's photos of three people.

Junior Keegan, Deanna Wilkinson, and Brenda Ludgate. The documentary cuts to a shot of fireworks being lit off in Allen Gardens Park. White text flashes across the screen. The gunshots were masked by the sound of fireworks, it says. On that Victoria Day, May 20th, 1996, Marcello Palma picked up a revolver, got into his truck, and went out with a plan to kill transgender sex workers. He would gun down three women before being arrested. He killed Junior and Deanna on the same stroll where Allura would work a decade later. Even though Palma was a john, a customer of these workers,

he called them scum. He hated them. The coverage in the media made it pretty clear how someone could develop such a disgusting notion that these workers were less than human. Deanna was transgender. It's hard to say how Junior self-identified, but their father said they no longer wanted to be a man. And Brenda, she was actually cisgender, a casualty of Palma's crusade against trans women.

But in the papers, these women were mocked. The papers exclusively referred to Deanna by her birth name. They published the victim's HIV status and called them quasi-women. Columnist Rosie DeMano wrote a column suggesting that society isn't to blame at all for their deaths. She wrote, quote, It is a grievous insult to suggest that the rest of us have somehow contributed to these triple murders by not doing enough to embrace and to reinforce gay rights or prostitutes' rights. Where is the correlation between all of us and the madness of one person's killing rampage? killing rampage.

That column looks so similar to what ran in the papers in the 1970s, brushing off a culture that led to gay men being systematically killed. Palma would ultimately be convicted on three counts of first-degree murder. The killings, however, would not be prosecuted as a hate crime. What kind of role has transphobia played in the murders? How can we as a community fight the discrimination we face on a daily basis? Just like the gay community two decades before, trans people were coming out. And they were learning that society didn't always take kindly to people who were different.

that society didn't always take kindly to people who were different. More than ever, activists like Monica realized they needed their own spaces. Safe spaces. There was this big alarm bell that went off that we needed to really focus on trans people in our communities. The 519 Community Center, a queer-focused hub that sits right in the heart of the village, tried to fill that space. They posted a job for a trans outreach coordinator. So I applied and I got the job and I had to be a sex worker.

I said, hey, what a better position, what a better way to get a job. You know what I mean? Monica and another trans activist helped create that dedicated space. They called it Meal Trans. It was a place where any trans person could come and grab a bite to eat, but also where they could just be with other trans people. It was a moment where a community felt like people cared about me and my life does matter.

Because we're giving them that space to grow and say, yes, you deserve to live. Yes, you deserve medication. Yes, you deserve the things that other people have. We were allowed to be able to work with the community through a harm reduction approach. Right? So making sure they had condoms and stuff when they were doing their work. Make sure they had information that they can relate to because there was never resources for trans people.

When we read things at doctor's offices or at community centers, we gravitate to things that identify with us. It's impossible to list all the ways in which trans people were disadvantaged discriminated against and forgotten about by society i don't want to make it sound like being trans was some miserable experience at the time for lots of trans people it wasn't and even for those who had a really rough time it wasn't because they were trans it's because society found ways to make their lives difficult take the shelter system when many people find themselves out of a job or out of their apartment and on the street they can

turn to shelters they're not perfect but they can at least put a roof over your head. For many trans people, that wasn't even an option. But our shelter systems weren't allowing trans women to go into the shelters that they felt safe or identified with their gender. So I worked hard with the city to do a consultation with all the shelters to see how accessible they are for trans women. And not one of them was, right? It was not uncommon for trans women to be only welcomed into women's shelters if they presented as quote-unquote female. Or what society thinks it means to be female.

I was in workshops and I said, how many women here are wearing skirts? There was one woman wearing a skirt. You know, I see women that are looking very masculine in this group. Why are you putting these kind of criteria on trans women for the safety of all women in spaces? Women look all different ways. It doesn't mean they're less of a woman if they're masculine, have hair on their face, whatever.

Monica and Elora came out two decades apart, but the Toronto they knew wasn't all that different. Around 2015, Allura was homeless, living in a tent encampment with some other people. She was only 24. She'd already been in and out of jail for years. On her criminal record, most of her charges say NFA, no fixed address. That spring, one charge lists an address as a women's shelter. A couple months

later, she lists her home as Seton House, a men's shelter. Then it's back to the women's shelter, then back to Seton House. We don't know why Allura moved back and forth between shelters that year. Maybe the women's shelters were full, as they often are. Or maybe she didn't want to face any transphobia she'd experienced there in the past. Or maybe she was giving the shelters addresses when she got arrested, but was actually living with her new boyfriend. I saw Allura met up with Guy. Allura's new boyfriend, Augustina's Ballast Dent.

Talking from my own experience coming out very young, relationships are really important, especially when you're trans, because you feel so isolated and alone. For her friends, Allura's new relationship seems, at first, like good news. The two of them get an apartment for a time, although they move around a bit. Then it's back to no fixed address and more charges. The two of them seem totally entangled with the law. On top of every arrest, there's always more charges for failure to comply or for not showing up to a court date.

There's all sorts of things mixed up in this. charges for failure to comply or for not showing up to a court date. There's all sorts of things mixed up in this. Drug use, economic precarity, homelessness. It's complicated. One day, her childhood friend Allie gets a text. Allora had just gotten out of jail. I was like, why were you in jail? I didn't even know that you were in jail.

What the F? That's crazy. She says, I had a warrant. She says, for missing court and fingerprints. I said, okay, but what did you do? She says, I stole from Shoppers Drug Mart. Elora got caught stealing from a pharmacy. She says, now I'm bawling my eyes out trying to find my boyfriend. We have no phone and no place.

And I'm stuck walking around looking for him. I go via Facebook. Facebook said, you're going to be somewhere tomorrow. You need a place to stay in the meantime? She's like, yeah, I do. A place to put as my address for bail. I said, okay, use mine. She says, I'll do that. Thanks. There's one thing we keep hearing from Elora's friends and family. The relationship with Ballastent was toxic. We can even see some of it. They had these sprawling fights that would play out on their Facebook walls.

Elora told her friends that Ballastent beat her violently. While none of them told us they saw it firsthand, they believed Elora when she told them. Her friend Layla says she remembers seeing Allura in rough shape. Every couple of months that I would see her in person, I could just really see the wear and tear. Just marked up with abrasions everywhere, being beaten by this man

that she was with. We've put these allegations to Ballastent, but he has not responded. We did get his rap sheet. He was never charged for assaulting Allura, but on his criminal record, one charge does stick out that seems to support her friend's concerns. In 2016, he was charged with robbing, sexually assaulting, and threatening to kill someone at a public housing complex near the village. He pled guilty to making the death threat and spent two months in jail. So I understand how trans women gravitate to men, or to partners,

I'm not going to say men in general, but to partners for support and stuff like that. Even though that relationship was toxic on so many levels, you know what I mean? Like he was very abusive and stuff like that. And their circumstance wasn't the greatest. They were living under the bridge. I'm not saying that that circumstance is bad, but they were using drugs, which is fine. So, you know, she really looked out to coming to me

just for that kind of support and kind of escape to be in a space where she would sleep half the time there, which was welcoming, or she would put on her makeup, or just engage with community and talk about what's going on in her life. Allura clearly wanted to get off the streets, but she wanted to do it with Ballast Dent. He asked me if he could stay with me. I said he could, but he said the only

way that he would come is if Augustine has come. So I said, no, I have two kids here. I'm not having that. I'm sorry. She reached out to Allie, too. And she's like, I am homeless. She reached out to Allie, too. Right? So my husband wasn't comfortable. And I was like, I can't. Like, I'm sorry, though, you know, I would love to. I just, I just can't. Allura didn't have a phone, but she would often check her Facebook at a local internet cafe.

That's how she would get in touch with Leila. She never had a contact number. It was kind of a little bit exhausting to track her down, too, and she was always running from me. Like, you know, she was ashamed and embarrassed of herself. So it wasn't easy. Layla was still living in Montreal. She was learning firsthand that while there was still plenty of discrimination against trans people in society,

things were improving. There were opportunities. Healthcare for trans people was expanding. Workplaces couldn't just fire you anymore. Social acceptance was growing. I had made a life in Montreal for myself, and I was happy. So I wasn't going to go back to the streets. I had done $190,000 in plastic surgery.

I changed my name. I changed my sex designation and my birth certificate legally. You know, I was going to school in Montreal. I had completed my transition. I was feeling really good about myself. I didn't need drugs anymore. You know, I was recognized as a girl, a woman. My transition felt complete. I had success.

And, like, everything that I talked about that I wanted to, and everything that she ever wanted to do, I did. And she was just, she was ashamed of herself and embarrassed. Every once in a while, Allura and Leila would video chat. Honestly, I thought she was going to be a superstar. Leila wanted to help Allura get on her feet. So, in the summer of 2017, she asked Allura to come to Montreal. Layla's birthday was coming up and she was finishing beauty school. She wanted Allura to be her hair model for the final exam.

I loved her to death, but the only thing I could do for her was tell her to come my way. Layla sent her the money for a bus ticket, but Allora never came. She later confessed to spending the money on drugs. And she admitted it. She was sorry. She apologized. It was fine. I accepted it. I'm not judging her. What could I do? She didn't keep it from me. She said, like, I was hurting. I just, I needed some dope. I had sent her a ticket and extra money. So I said the ticket and the drugs so this time I thought that she was actually

coming into Montreal she had gone and retrieved the ticket from Greyhound but Allura never arrived but I just figured maybe she had changed her mind and that this guy was holding her back because she was in love. And what business was it of me? Well, like, I was doing my thing. You know, I figured she doesn't have her parents anymore. She has no family, pretty much, that's close to her. So if she's in love and she's experiencing that, like, why not let her have it? Allura kept saying she wanted to come visit.

So Layla, she didn't give up. On July 18th, 2017, they talked again. July 18th is the last time I ever spoke to her. Do you remember what you talked about on the 18th? She wasn't going to try again to have a cell phone, and she was living under a bridge. Under a bridge in the Rosedale Ravine.

Coming up, this season on The Village. I was like, where's Delora? And so everyone was talking about it, but no one knew where she was. I was like, where's Delora? And so everyone was talking about it, but no one, you know, no one knew where she was. She would never go down there alone. We're going to be navigating again, rougher terrain, and we're going to go right up the Rosedale Valley.

They say it's too soon to know if there's a link to the murder of another prostitute, Cassandra Doe, this summer. The last time I had seen her, she was terrified. We're still walking in fear, knowing that person's still out there. The Village is written and produced by me, Justin Ling, and Jennifer Fowler. Sound design was by Julia Whitman, with help from Evan Kelly. and Jennifer Fowler.

Sound design was by Julia Whitman, with help from Evan Kelly. Our associate producer is Eunice Kim, and our digital producer is Fabiola Melendez-Carletti. Thank you to Boyd Kodak for the use of Trans Info. Alex V. Green, Faith Fungdahl, and Chris Oak are our story editors. Our senior producer is Cecil Fernandez, and the executive producer of CBC Podcasts is Arif Noorani.

If you haven't listened yet, please go back and listen to The Village Season 1, my investigation into serial killer Bruce MacArthur and the spate of unsolved murders from The Village dating back to the 70s. All nine episodes are available now on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. You've been listening to Season 2 of The Village. You can listen to more episodes on the CBC Listen app and everywhere you get your podcasts. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.