Nicki Ward always expects she’s in for a fight when she hears of a gathering at the Trans Memorial in Barbara Hall Park. It’s why she instead sobbed at the sight of a few dozen people there helping to clean it.

A space dedicated to some of the city’s fallen trans people has been tucked beside the AIDS Memorial in the Church-Wellesley Village since 2014, and Ward, a neighbourhood advocate who helped erect the memorial, says it has battled consistent vandalism ever since.