Great distinction for Viviane Namaste
Viviane Namaste, a professor and researcher at Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute, has won the 2010 Grand Prize from the Quebec Council of Gays and Lesbians (CQGL).
She received the distinction at the October 25 Gala Arc-en-ciel at the Cabaret du Lion D’Or. Previous winners of the award have included the Honorable Louise Arbour and former politician Svend Robinson.
“Professor Namaste has been distinguished for her academic and research excellence, her support for minority rights, as well as her defense of transgendered and bisexual peoples’ rights to healthcare,” said Steve Foster, CQGL’s President and CEO.
Namaste, who is Concordia University Research Chair in HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health, is well known provincially, nationally and internationally for her extensive research and defense of the health rights for transgendered and bisexual people.
Winner of the 2009 Canadian Award for Action against HIV/AIDS and human rights, Namaste was special guest of UNAIDS at the fifth International Francophone Conference on HIV/AIDS in Casablanca in 2010. She was also a guest speaker at the Franco-Cuban initiative to establish a first international symposium on trans-identities, gender and culture in Havana.
She is founder of the Quebec Health Action, which began in the 1990s to improve the health for Montreal’s transvestite and transsexual community. Most recently, she was principal investigator in the versatility project that focused on research, prevention and sexual health of bisexuals.
Author of three important books about transsexuality, she received the Outstanding Book Award in 2001 from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights for a work entitled, Invisible Lives: the Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People, published by University Chicago Press.
Related links:
• Institut Simone De Beauvoir
• Action Santé Travestis et Transsexuel(le)s du Québec
• Viviane Namaste interview with Christiane Charette
• Viviane Namaste’s research profile
• Conseil québécois des gais et lesbiennes