daughter, mother, grandmother, and whore: the story of a woman who decided to be a puta

In the early 1970s, while living at home with her conservative middle-class family and studying at the University of São Paulo, Gabriela Leite decided to become a sex worker. From her first client in a tiny room in downtown São 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 Leite’s bold and unique life in her own words. After helping to organize Brazil’s first protests by sex workers against police brutality, she moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she quickly became ensconced in the city’s storied red-light district. From there, Leite built a national network of politicized sex workers, worked for HIV/AIDS prevention, and participated in Brazil’s robust new civil society after its return to democracy in 1985 following a twenty-one-year military dictatorship. Insistent on advocating for the sex worker’s 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.

Gabriela Leite (1951-2013) was a sex worker, activist and organizer, and the founder of Brazil’s sex-worker movement.

Meg Weeks is Assistant Professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida.