What to know<\/p>\n
Scarlett Gillespie, a trans woman, activist and former sex worker, will drop her endorsement signatures off at City Hall on May 1, bringing years of advocacy and policy experience into the race.<\/p>\n
Gillespie emphasizes nuanced policymaking informed by her background\u2014particularly around sex work, housing, and systemic failures\u2014arguing that better outcomes come from understanding the differences between sex work, survival sex, and trafficking.<\/p>\n
Her platform prioritizes faster access to affordable housing, better coordination of social services, and shifting toward community-led crisis response models rather than relying solely on policing.<\/p>\n
Scarlett Gillespie has spent years fighting for marginalized communities. Now, the 32-year-old trans woman, activist and former sex worker wants to bring her advocacy to Hamilton City Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Friday, May 1, Executive Director of the Sex Workers\u2019 Action Program (SWAP) Gillespie will drop her endorsement signatures off at City Hall in hopes of becoming Hamilton\u2019s next mayor.<\/p>\n
Gillespie is also known as Jelena Vermilion for her previous work in advocacy and art. For the forthcoming election, however, she\u2019s running under Scarlett Gillespie because public office requires a clear line of accountability, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about distancing myself from my past. It\u2019s more about bringing that work into the forefront in a formal leadership role with transparency and responsibility,\u201d Gillespie told Now Toronto.<\/p>\n
Sex work advocacy<\/p>\n
Some of the biggest misconceptions she\u2019s learned from sex work are that it\u2019s a poverty or working-class issue. Gillespie explained there\u2019s a difference between sex work, survival sex and sex trafficking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen governments collapse those into one category, it leads to bad policy and real harm for people on the ground. So it becomes harder to identify actual exploitation and it becomes harder to support workers who may need solidarity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we want effective policy, we need to start with honesty about those distinctions and my experience as a sex worker, a former sex worker, brings that nuance straight to the forefront as a leader and why, I think I\u2019m very well suited to provide the consultation and the leadership towards bettering those conditions,\u201d Gillespie added.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what matters most is what I\u2019ve done with that experience,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
Experience<\/p>\n
Gillespie has built programs, secured funding, worked across systems and contributed to important policy changes in Hamilton.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose experiences have helped how I understand power, both in the sex industry and as a trans person when systems fail our most vulnerable people in society. People don\u2019t disappear, they fall into crises \u2014 and my focus is on preventing those crises through stable housing, coordinated services and policies grounded in real-world outcomes and not just theory,\u201d Gillespie said.<\/p>\n
Her advocacy includes delegating to multiple City of Hamilton committees and the Police Services Board since 2021.<\/p>\n
She also helped change the Municipal Code of Conduct for Hamilton, including an amendment that provides more clarification on honest and non-abusive communications from public office and elected officials to the public.<\/p>\n
Housing<\/p>\n
As a working-class person living with disabilities, Gillespie advocates for improved access to housing.<\/p>\n
She said it took the city four years to house her in City Housing Hamilton, despite qualifying for the special priority policy list. Some people wait up to a decade.<\/p>\n
These experiences drive her to accelerate approvals for non-profit housing and improve coordination among housing, healthcare, and social services.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuilding units alone is not enough if people cannot remain housed, once they become housed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
If elected, she plans to repair existing housing and prioritize city-owned land for affordable, cooperative, and supportive housing in her first year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Hamiltonians, we need to design systems with people, not just for them,\u201d Gillespie said.<\/p>\n
Community-led safety<\/p>\n
\u200bTo safely lead Hamilton\u2019s community, Gillespie said it starts with \u201cbeing honest with ourselves and each other that police cannot and should not be the only response to every emergency issue in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead of having police-led Crisis Response Teams for mental health and social issues, she suggests investing in trained outreach workers who are trusted, entrenched and embedded in their communities.<\/p>\n
She also looks to provide support to youth who are vulnerable or potentially accessing housing supports and violence interruption programs \u2014 suggesting after-school social programs like movie nights, bowling alleys, \u201cthings that allow people to do something that gets them away from activities that might end up with them committing a crime,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spend so much on reacting to crises, and we need community-led safety, because that is about reducing the number of crises in the first place and reducing the amount of money we have to spend as a city,\u201d Gillespie said.<\/p>\n
Vision<\/p>\n
In five years, she hopes to see a city where people feel more welcomed and safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I were to win as Mayor of Hamilton, I see a city where people can feel the difference in their day-to-day lives, where people are more housed and remaining housed, where infrastructure is maintained properly, buildings aren\u2019t falling apart, and the roads aren\u2019t riddled with potholes. City services are easier to access,\u201d she told Now Toronto.<\/p>\n
Because right now, City Hall has failed many, she explained. \u201cCity Hall has failed people who are trying to stay afloat, tenants, working-class families, small-business owners and people experiencing crises. The pattern right now is that people are paying more but receiving less in return. Less services, less quality of life, less good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m running for real. I\u2019m modelling, also behaviour that tells people if a sex worker, a former sex worker, can run for mayor. I can too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What to know Scarlett Gillespie, a trans woman, activist and former sex worker, will drop her endorsement signatures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1957,3332,11681,11682,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-23442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-city-hall","9":"tag-hamilton","10":"tag-hamilton-mayor","11":"tag-scarlett-gillespie","12":"tag-toronto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}