Daughter, Mother, Grandmother, and Whore

In the early 1970s, while living at home with her conservative, middle-class family and studying at the University of So Paulo, Gabriela Leite decided to become a sex worker. From her first client in a tiny room in downtown So Paulo to the launch of an exuberant clothing line designed for sex workers in Rio de Janeiro thirty years later, Daughter, Mother, Grandmother, and Whore tells the fascinating story of Leites bold and unique life in her own words. After helping organize Brazils first protests of sex workers against police brutality, she moved to Rio de Janeiro where she quickly became ensconced in the citys storied red-light district. From there, Leite built a national network of politicized sex workers, worked for HIV/AIDS prevention efforts, and participated in Brazils robust new civil society after it returned to democracy in 1985 after a twenty-one-year military dictatorship. Insistent on advocating for the sex workers comprehensive human rights, Leite pioneered an irreverent grassroots Latin American feminism, which critiqued moral hypocrisies and Christian conservatism while affirming pleasure, joy, and agency. Daughter, Mother, Grandmother, and Whore also includes a foreword by artist and activist Carol Leigh.