Hamilton police reveal third-party facilitator to lead conversations with LGBTQ2 community

Hamilton police have introduced a third-party facilitator they say will lead conversations between them and the LGBTQ2 community.

Rebecca Banky, the current chair of the city’s LGBTQ2 advisory committee, will now take on the new role after being nominated by fellow community members.

Banky says the appointment is a bit of a surprise, believing her perspective on what the service needs to do could be considered to be “too radical.”

She says that viewpoint came to light amid a “proposal stage” tied to a McMaster University engagement survey.

“I was one of the presenters, and I think they liked the presentation that I had and the ideas that I was putting forward,” she told Global News.

The facilitator role was created via recommendations made during an analysis of how police responded to Hamilton’s Pride festival in 2019.

A trans woman, Banky has admitted to having “a healthy distrust of police,” choosing not to engage investigators in a hate incident during her 11 years in city.

“I chose to report it only in a very limited way because the trust didn’t feel like it was there for me,” Banky revealed.

Banky will run a number of small focus groups with community members over the summer, which will culminate with a town hall at the central library branch in September.

The project she’s pitched involves “talk in smaller circles” of about 10 to 15 people without police to “protect anonymity.”

“I don’t want to presume that I can speak with the wisdom of every queer person living in Hamilton, and certainly those opinions are going to be varied,” said Banky.

“But we can probably arrive at some consensus and we can figure out what small steps could be taken to improve the service experience.”

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