"But it's my truth, right. So I do think people should share and not be afraid of that."

While only a fraction of sexual violence is reported to police, a Peel police crime report showed an 89 per cent increase in reports of sexual violations between 2015 and 2018. The Peel police report did not separate based on gender, but women are roughly seven times more likely to be sexually assaulted than men, according to a 2017 report from Canada’s Department of Justice.

Interim Place, which provides emergency shelter for women and children in Peel, took in 155 women and 98 children in 2018 said the organization's 2017-2018 report. The numbers were up from the previous year when Interim Place sheltered 116 women and 74 children.

“We all hope that we work ourselves out of jobs, that shelters would not need to exist and women wouldn't need to come to shelters because they've experienced violence,” said Rebecca Rogers, Interim Place's manager of programs. “But sadly, that's not the case.”

Whether or not the Brampton woman who died on Sept. 18 tried to get help was on the mind of Anu Radha Verma at the recent Take Back the Night. Verma, who is a survivor and an organizer with QTBIPOC Sauga, said the woman’s death created a sombre mood at the event.

"We don't know if that person ever tried to access services," she said. "We don't know if the neighbours heard things and didn't do anything about it. There's a lot of things that we don't know."

Queer and trans women face heightened risks violence, especially if they are persons of colour, according to Canadian human rights charity Egale. Verma said that QTBIPOC, which organizes meet-ups for queer and trans, Black, Indigenous and people of colour in Mississauga and Brampton, has been advised to keep the locations of their meetings quiet for safety.

She said that while queer and trans experience violence is at a high rate, there's hesitancy to participate in public events like Take Back the Night because "Peel's not always a safe place to be."

"That's still a concern, that people don't feel comfortable to walk around even somewhere like Square One or Bramalea City Centre holding their partner's hand because of some of the looks they might get,” she said.

Disclaimer: These poll results are not scientific. They are the informal findings of a survey presented to the readers of The Mississauga News and Brampton Guardian and reflect the opinions of those readers who have chosen to participate. The survey is available online to anyone who is interested in taking it.