Help Romana Escape Her Abusers
Spende geschützt
I’m Romana, a twenty year old trans woman taking comp-sci classes at Sheridan College in Ontario. My parents are trying to take my rights away. They are abusing the legal process to try to force me into guardianship.
Please listen: I am not a minor being grounded or a child chafing at rules. I am an adult who has been criminally held captive by other adults. They do not have guardianship of me. They were holding me by force.
In December of 2022, they got their application signed under false pretenses and used the threat of police to force me back into their house on the 22nd. A stay of the judgment was granted on the 23rd, but they did not allow me to leave until I had a written copy to show them, on the 29th. The justice had not even read the order he signed.
They are methodically destroying my capability to live a life of freedom and dignity. Here are some of the things they’ve done:
- They are attempting to declare me mentally incompetent while I visibly and obviously maintain all cognitive faculties.
- They are attempting to attain permanent guardianship of me and my property.
- They have physically grappled me back from the door when I try to escape.
- They have prevented me from acquiring a provincial ID card.
- They have forbidden me from learning to drive or owning a vehicle.
- They have prevented me from receiving mail or packages.
- They prevented me from receiving therapy and mental health services.
- They controlled access to, then entirely froze my bank account.
- They threatened to file kidnapping charges against my sister if she shelters me.
- They threatened to have my sister evicted from her own apartment.
On Nov. 2nd, 2021, I asked the Halton Regional Police to visit my home. I asked if they could please stand by the door for just five minutes so I could pack my things and leave without fear of physical harm.
Instead, the Halton police officers said that I was not permitted to leave. I repeatedly asked if I could just walk out the door right then. Each time, they said no. I asked for the legal basis upon which they were making this order. They simply suggested I “do my own research.”
I did do my own research. My friends and I contacted multiple lawyers and advocacy groups for people in situations like mine, and we combed through the code of the 1992 Substitute Decisions Act. Everything we’ve found suggests that the police’s and my parents’ actions are misbehavior.
Ontario’s legal aid system only provides help for a few specific situations — mine is not among them. My sister and friends have offered as much help as they can, but we cannot afford the services of a lawyer.
I am terrified of losing my freedom forever. I only have one life and there is a very real chance I will be consigned to spend it at my parents’ feet, however wrong and absurd it seems to me.
My parents and the police feel confident mistreating me because they know that putting them before a judge is an expensive and laborious process. They don’t think that I will take them to court.
I will take them to court. Please help me.
Mitorganisatoren (2)
Romana Ingram
Organisator
Burlington, ON
Noah Luxton Justin
Spendenbegünstigte
Sable Seyler
Mitorganisator