A local transgender woman says her human rights were violated when she was barred by a security guard from using the women's bathroom at a downtown bus terminal.

The city has apologized for the incident.

An official complaint was filed to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario shortly after the incident at the MacNab Bus Terminal in October, and proceedings are now underway.

"It's in the very early stages of the process," said tribunal spokesperson Elaine Brown.

The complainant, whose named was redacted from the complaint filing provided to The Spectator, says she's not looking for money — her litigation guardian and spokesperson Poe Liberado says she is "not concerned with anything other than this not happening to anyone else."

The Spectator was not able to independently verify the woman's identity. The complainant would not speak to The Spectator and questions about the case were fielded by Liberado.

According to a press release from Liberado and Space Between, a community-based research project exploring the experiences of marginalized LGBTQ people, the woman was stopped by a security guard while walking into the women's washroom at the downtown terminal.

The guard told her to use the men's or the accessible washroom. She says she disclosed to the guard that, as a trans woman, she has the legal right to use the washroom of her lived gender — but he still pointed her toward the accessible washroom.

Liberado, who at the time worked for The Well, Hamilton's LGBTQ Wellness Centre, says the woman came into her office "in tears."

Together, she says they wrote a letter to the HSR — who Liberado says argued they were "trying to balance the rights" of all involved — including other women in the bathroom.

An HSR representative did not respond to interview requests.

Mike Kirkopoulos, a spokesperson for the city, said staff — including HSR employees — receive harassment and discrimination prevention training "as it applies to all grounds, including gender identity and gender expression."

In an email, Kirkopoulos said the city not only recognizes the rights of trans people to access facilities based on their lived gender — but is "committed to communicating that a trans person will not be required to use a separate facility because of the preferences or negative attitudes of others and, also important, to provide accommodation options on an individualized basis, at the trans person's request."

The city is also working to make information around accessible, all-gender washrooms more readily available, he says.

Kirkopoulos said the city will await the tribunal ruling and work to address any additional recommendations — but extended his apologies to the woman on behalf of the city.

Liberado says she was not surprised by the guard's initial reaction — "but it is that, even after explaining her legal rights, she would still be denied access."

Because she is poor and has a disability, Liberado believes the woman "was written off as someone who wouldn't know those rights."

In the press release, Liberado and Space Between say their goal in going to the tribunal is "for HSR to make a commitment to upholding the Human Rights Code of Ontario by arranging training for HSR staff."

In 2012, Toby's Act was passed in Ontario, which amended the province's Human Rights Code to include gender identity and gender expression as prohibited grounds of discrimination.

Pursuant to that, trans people have the right to use the washroom or change room based on their lived gender.

Nicole Nussbaum, a London, Ont., trans advocate, did not want to comment on this specific case but says human rights training is crucial "to ensure that even well-meaning people aren't faced with a situation where there's a lot of confusion."

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Cole Gately is a trans activist and educator in Hamilton. Still today, he says, public washrooms remain one of the most contested spaces for trans people.

He says we need to get over this mythical threat that these are men posing as women to get into a washroom to hurt people. This is "completely absurd," he says. "I mean, I've never read of anything like that (happening).

"The people who are the most vulnerable in a women's washroom are the trans women," he says.