Namaste received a BA from
Carleton University in 1989, an MA in
Sociology from
York University, and a doctorate from
Université du Québec à Montréal in
Semiotics and
Linguistics. She worked within
ACT UP Paris. 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. In 2005, Namaste published a book titled
Sex Change, Social Change, a collection of papers and interviews dealing with issues faced by transsexual communities, including sex work, HIV/AIDS, access to medical resources, anglocentrism, and other problems in media and scholarship. In 2011, the book received a significantly longer second edition, expanding on many of the same issues and exploring new ones. Namaste became an
associate professor and the Research Chair in
HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health at
Concordia University in
Montreal,
Quebec, Canada. 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==