What to know
- 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.
- Gillespie emphasizes nuanced policymaking informed by her background—particularly around sex work, housing, and systemic failures—arguing that better outcomes come from understanding the differences between sex work, survival sex, and trafficking.
- 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.
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.
On Friday, May 1, Executive Director of the Sex Workers’ Action Program (SWAP) Gillespie will drop her endorsement signatures off at City Hall in hopes of becoming Hamilton’s next mayor.
Gillespie is also known as Jelena Vermilion for her previous work in advocacy and art. For the forthcoming election, however, she’s running under Scarlett Gillespie because public office requires a clear line of accountability, she says.
“It’s not about distancing myself from my past. It’s more about bringing that work into the forefront in a formal leadership role with transparency and responsibility,” Gillespie told Now Toronto.
Sex work advocacy
Some of the biggest misconceptions she’s learned from sex work are that it’s a poverty or working-class issue. Gillespie explained there’s a difference between sex work, survival sex and sex trafficking.
“When 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,” she said.
“If 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’m very well suited to provide the consultation and the leadership towards bettering those conditions,” Gillespie added.
“But what matters most is what I’ve done with that experience,” she explained.
Experience
Gillespie has built programs, secured funding, worked across systems and contributed to important policy changes in Hamilton.
“Those 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’t disappear, they fall into crises — and my focus is on preventing those crises through stable housing, coordinated services and policies grounded in real-world outcomes and not just theory,” Gillespie said.
Her advocacy includes delegating to multiple City of Hamilton committees and the Police Services Board since 2021.
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.
Housing
As a working-class person living with disabilities, Gillespie advocates for improved access to housing.
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.
These experiences drive her to accelerate approvals for non-profit housing and improve coordination among housing, healthcare, and social services.
“Building units alone is not enough if people cannot remain housed, once they become housed,” she said.
If elected, she plans to repair existing housing and prioritize city-owned land for affordable, cooperative, and supportive housing in her first year.
“As Hamiltonians, we need to design systems with people, not just for them,” Gillespie said.
Community-led safety
To safely lead Hamilton’s community, Gillespie said it starts with “being honest with ourselves and each other that police cannot and should not be the only response to every emergency issue in practice.”
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.
She also looks to provide support to youth who are vulnerable or potentially accessing housing supports and violence interruption programs — suggesting after-school social programs like movie nights, bowling alleys, “things that allow people to do something that gets them away from activities that might end up with them committing a crime,” she explained.
“We 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,” Gillespie said.
Vision
In five years, she hopes to see a city where people feel more welcomed and safe.
“If 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’t falling apart, and the roads aren’t riddled with potholes. City services are easier to access,” she told Now Toronto.
Because right now, City Hall has failed many, she explained. “City 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.”
“I’m running for real. I’m modelling, also behaviour that tells people if a sex worker, a former sex worker, can run for mayor. I can too,” she said.
