Viviane Namaste

Viviane K. Namaste is a Canadian feminist professor at Concordia University in Montreal. Her research focuses on sexual health, HIV/AIDS prevention, and sex work.

Education and work

Namaste received a Bachelors of Arts from Carleton University in 1989, an MA in Sociology from York University, and a doctoral degree from Université du Québec à Montréal in Semiotics and Linguistics. She worked within ACT UP Paris. In 2001, she received the Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for her book titled, Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. That same year, Namaste was also a director in the documentary Madame Lauraine's Transsexual Touch which deals with transsexual sex workers as well as sexual health and clientele.

Namaste became an associate professor and the Research Chair in HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In 2009, she received the "Canadian Award for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights", awarded jointly by the HIV Legal Network and Human Rights Watch.

In 2013, she was called as an official intervenor in a hearing at the Supreme Court of Canada on whether the ban on solicitation, prohibition of brothels and criminality of making a living from prostitution violates the Charter of Rights.

The feminist journal, Hypatia, has called Namaste's work, "extremely important".

Bibliography

• 2000 · Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People
• 2005 · Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism
• 2005 · C'était du spectacle! L'histoire des artistes transsexuelles à Montréal, 1955–1985
• 2012 · HIV Prevention and Bisexual Realities
• 2015 · Oversight
• 2017 · Imprimés interdits: La censure des journaux jaunes au Québec, 1955–1975
• 2019 · Thinking Differently about HIV/AIDS: Contributions from Critical Social Science
• 2019 · Savoirs créoles: Leçons du sida pour l'histoire de Montréal

Further reading

• Brandt, Keri Jacqueline (2003). "Book Review: Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. By Viviane K. Namaste. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2000. Postcolonial and Queer Theories: Intersections and Essays. By John C. Hawley (Ed.) Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001". Qualitative Sociology. 26 (1): 137–143. doi:10.1023/A:1021416423075. S2CID 141328153.
• Elliot, Patricia (2012). Debates in Transgender, Queer, and Feminist Theory: Contested Sites. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4094-9279-5.
• Johnson, Katherine (2011). "Transgender, Transsexualism, and the Queering of Gender Identities: Debates for Feminist Research". In Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber (ed.). Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis. SAGE Publications. pp. 606–626. ISBN 978-1-4833-4145-3.