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 Canadian academic and trans rights activist Viviane Namaste chats with Elena Jeffreys about sex work, gay marriage, gender-neutral toilets and lesbian bed death.
Through her detailed collection of histories and experiences of transsexual and transgender people in Canada, author Viviane Namaste became an outspoken advocate for the watershed work of trans sex workers and their contribution to the trans social movements that have now achieved so much.
“There would be no community services for trans people [in Canada] were it not for the labour of transsexual prostitutes,” Viviane tells CHERRIE. However the current Canadian trans movement is trying to distance itself from the issue of sex work.
Similarities could be drawn in Australian, with individuals such as Roberta Perkins not as openly recognised for their work as perhaps would have been predicted 15 or 20 years ago. I ask Viviane if this is a global trend among western trans activism.
“If we look at the history of transsexual communities around the world, we find that prostitutes have taken a lead role in organising services, community support, and political mobilisation,’ Viviane says. “I don’t hear too much of this history, or these people, when we talk about trans issues in the English-language mainstream media. This also means that the political priorities shift: activists from the middle class are heavily invested in matters of human rights, but less often active on the regulation of public space, the criminalisation of prostitution, or access to methadone in prisons for transsexual inmates.”
Battles over public space and how trans people are included or excluded were the base of increased visibility of trans people in western countries in the early days of the movement. However, human rights issues such as marriage and parenting overtook earlier concerns. Recent attention to an American trans man who gave birth saw everyone from Fox News to Oprah Winfrey showing interest. But Vivane is not sure if this means there have been gains for the trans community.
“I think that this increased visibility is a double-edged sword,” she says. “On the one hand, it has people talking about the issues, learning about the discrimination to which transgendered people are subjected on a daily basis – lack of access to health care, violence, problems with identity documents.”
So if they are the positives, what are the negatives? Viviane returns to the issue of sex work. “A price is also being paid to the extent that this mainstream visibility has completely eclipsed the community organising and labour of transsexual prostitutes,” she asserts. As for marriage, Viviane laughs, “I support lesbian divorce. What more is there to say on this issue?”
When asked if trans and queer movements have become too mainstream, Viviane cites an example from Montreal when activists campaigned for gender-neutral toilets. Viviane claimed that the toilets would create social exclusion for trans individuals who didn’t ‘pass’.
“If it is known that there are washrooms for trans people, if an individual who does not pass as a woman uses the women’s washroom, she could quite easily be told, ‘Well, they have washrooms for people like you’,” she opines. She also recognises that there is a gendered element to such issues.
“It is generally more difficult for a male-bodied individual to pass undetected as a woman than it is for a female-bodied person to pass undetected as a man.” Viviane argues that pushing trans people into a ‘middle gender’ is in conflict with what her research has found that most trans people want: to be accepted as either a man or a woman in social spaces.
With so many controversies to comment on, I had to ask one final question of Viviane, and that’s her views on the lesbian community. “Instead of talking so much about clothing style and cultural representation, activists [should] make lesbian bed death a pressing political priority for community-wide discussions,” she quips. “Really, this problem needs to be tackled and solved – QUICKLY!”
Viviane Namaste will give a talk on ‘HIV education and transsexuals in Canada and Québec’ on 20 of October, 6.30pm-9.30pm at Sydney Mechanics College, 280 Pitt St, Sydney, and ‘Undoing Theory: Reflections on The Transgendered Question and the Limits of Anglo-American Feminist Theory’ on 22 October, 4-6pm at the Marjorie Oldfield Lecture Room, Edward Ford Building, University of Sydney. Both talks are free. For more info email Vek Lewis at
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