Knowing her days were numbered, Jamie Lee Hamilton advised loved ones that her celebration of life must be nothing short of “fabulous.”
A longtime advocate for sex workers, low-income residents, and Indigenous and LGBTQ2S+ people, Hamilton was a transgender, Two-Spirit and Métis Cree woman who fought injustice and forced politicians to act. “While never formally elected, Jamie Lee committed her life to enacting justice,” Ross said. “At every opportunity, she flexed her civic muscle.”
The memorial, a retro lamppost with a red bulb, honours sex workers in the neighbourhood who were forced out by city hall, police and the provincial government in the 1980s. Hamilton was among those who were violently expelled from the area. He read a passage from the book of Isaiah describing the need to maintain justice and do what is right, and explained how it described Hamilton, too.
Niece Tracy Letain recalled the day she and her sister Katherine learned they would from then on be calling Hamilton “auntie.”“That’s the wonderful thing about being children — acceptance and love. They don’t know how to hate. If only people never lost the pureness when they grew up, I think her life experience would have been better,” she said.