An East Vancouver woman is speaking out after suffering what she calls a hate-motivated assault. She says nobody stepped in to help – and little has been done by authorities in the time since.
Iris Houngbo says she was just trying to get home on public transit when a man started harassing her.
“I tried to brush it off. I said, ‘I don’t care, have a good day.’ I kept walking. And homophobic slurs followed, and he was calling me a bunch of names,” said Houngbo.
Houngbo, who is transgender, says she kept walking but the threatening behaviour continued.
“He was this close to me, and so I pushed him away, and then he said, ‘You took the first swing,’ so he punched me, he put me in a chokehold, and he threw me onto the floor, and he ripped the back of my shirt, and the bra that I was wearing.”
That shirt – which read “Destroy White Supremacy” – is evidently what provoked the man.
Despite being surrounded by people, Houngbo says nobody stepped in to assist her as she was being assaulted.
Transit police confirmed they’re investigating the incident, which took place at a bus stop on Broadway and Commercial in East Vancouver at around 7 p.m. on June 30.
Police say they searched extensively for the suspect, but were unable to locate him.
“There’s a lot of language that gets used about safety, especially for the LGBT community, but there are not consequences for people who do things like this.”
Houngbo says she suffered a similar assault on a bus two years ago and says nothing was done about it when she reported it to authorities.
She feels like the lack of accountability is allowing this kind of behaviour to continue. Something she worries could have dire consequences.
“If this man felt this comfortable to do something like this in broad daylight, imagine what he would have done if it was nighttime.”
“I just don’t want this to become a thing where it has to be fatal for the City of Vancouver to take it seriously.”
She says she doesn’t feel safe leaving her house anymore and taking public transit is off the table for the foreseeable future, with a local organization crowdfunding to help support her through this time.
“It doesn’t matter your gender, your sexuality, your race; we all have the right to walk out in the world and to not have to look over our shoulder.”
