Community rallies to support Island woman bashed for her views on gender and parents' rights
On April 22, 2025, we learn the verdict in the case of Nicholas Matear, who punched Tatiana Makovkin to the ground at a parents' rights rally in front of a crowd of witnesses at Nanaimo City Hall.
Tatiana, a 53-year-old single mother of two, works
part-time with a plumbing company. She lives two hours south of
Nanaimo, where the trial was held in March. She attended all the
hearings for eighteen months and testified at the two-day trial. We're calling for community support to help cover the costs because Victim's Services has failed to do its job. Please donate here - any amount helps.
The attack and the trial
In
October 2023, Nicholas James Matear was carrying a rainbow-coloured
sign reading "No Place For Hate" on a long metal stick
when he started
confronting people at a rally for parents' rights and safeguarding
children at Nanaimo City Hall. He singled Tatiana out and punched
her in the face, sending her flying into the curb. Witnesses chased
him down the street and flagged down the police, who arrested him at
the scene. Five civilians and two police officers testified against
him at the trial.
Matear is twenty years younger and 150 lbs heavier than
Tatiana. She describes the attack as lasting “half a
second." She said a large man dressed in black pushed a “No
Place for Hate” sign into her face.
“I lifted my hand and grabbed his sign, then
pulled it down, ” she 
recalls. “His punch sent me all the way to
the curb. I flew more than the width of a car and landed partly on
the
sidewalk.” Tatiana was left in excruciating
pain. Her head and face were swollen and bruised for months, and
an X-ray showed her nose was fractured. The emotional aftereffects
were devastating. Fortunately, the community is rallying around
her to make sure she's cared for and not left to suffer alone.
A small circle of supporters was with Tatiana at the trial. They reported on all the testimony, cross-examinations, and evidence, including the judge's reaction when Matear brandished the metal stick in court. Read the thread on X.com here.
Tatiana is not the only woman to be attacked in public as punishment for speaking out. She intends to compile and publish stories about attacks on women and free speech to raise awareness and help with healing.
The cost of travel and accommodation will be over a thousand dollars by the time the judge gives the verdict, and Tatiana's savings are almost gone. Assuming the judge finds Matear guilty as charged, Tatiana will need to make one last trip to be present at the sentencing hearing.
Every contribution
helps, no matter how small. Normally Victim's Services would provide
financial support, but due to a paperwork glitch, Tatiana is not
able to access that assistance. That's why the community is coming
to her aid.
Help us support Tatiana and pay her way until the judge hands down his sentence. Contribute to her fund here on this page, or send an e-transfer to info@radfems.ca with the password "justice."
You can also send a
message of love and support to help Tatiana heal from the physical
and emotional pain she's endured at the hands of the perpetrator and
his lawyer. Email us at info@radfems.ca.
You can be a part of this community healing initiative by contributing to Tatiana's fund. We will update this story once the verdict is handed down. Thank you for your support!
Sisters! We are looking for women to join this radical feminist community. For so many reasons:
- Retreats, festivals, and celebrations
- Workshops, seminars, and mentoring girls and women
- Contributing to worldwide radical feminist consciousness
- Creating women's land and women's co-housing communities
- To protect, restore, and rewild the land.
This is our statement of principles.
- Women born female who survived girlhood.
- Women of all races and ages, lesbian, straight, bi, celibate, married, single.
- Coming together for mutual aid and support.
- United in our radfem principles and consciousness.
- Holding women's space for healing, mutual aid, leadership, and organizing to fight male domination.
- Pushing back against discrimination based on race, faith, ethnicity and belief.
- Opposed to the culture of male violence against women, including pornography and prostitution.
- We are here for solidarity, peer support, and collective action for women and against male violence.
- We strive to eliminate male domination, racism, classism, bullying, and other forms of exploitation from our communities and our personal relationships.
- We pledge to listen more than we talk, treat each other with respect, set aside our differences, and seek areas of consensus rather than conflict.
- This is a private group based on mutual trust: we will not “out” each other or disclose personal/political details outside of this group.
- Class analysis for the liberation of women. We seek to undermine and overthrow this culture that designates females as the sex class, exploits us because of our biology, and grooms us to be breeders, rape victims, prostitutes, and sex objects.
- Solidarity with women worldwide oppressed by race and class.
- Collective action against patriarchy.
- We directly confront the crisis of male violence against women. We name the problem and the perpetrators.
- We have the right to our own spaces separate from men: those who were born male and benefit from patriarchy.
- We have the right to our own spaces separate from men who say they identify as women.
- We recognize that gender is a set of sex stereotypes designed to subjugate women's bodies and minds.
- We are taking back our space, our voice, and our strength as women.
- Our end goal is a society free from gender stereotypes, pornography, and prostitution.
- It's not about equality. We want to free women from a violent and coercive system, not join with those who oppress us.
- It's about radical feminists, not about those who hate us and challenge our right to organize on our own terms.
- Individualism, identity politics, “fun feminism,” and consumerism do not improve the material conditions of women worldwide.
- It is not possible to change one's sex. Switching genders or inventing new ones does not improve the material conditions of women worldwide.
- Men, those who were born male, are not entitled to colonize our spaces, even if they identify as women.
The Constitution and the Human Rights Act uphold women's inherent right to create and define spaces apart from men. They also uphold our rights to freedom of belief, freedom of speech, and freedom of association. See Section 41 of the BC Human Rights Act.
