High Risk Project Society logo, 2001, courtesy of the High Risk Project Society website.

            The High-Risk Project Society (HRPS) was a non-profit organization that operated out of the downtown eastside (DTES) neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, in Western Canada. It began operations as a weekly meal program for transsexuals and then existed as a stand-alone organization from 1993 to 1999-2001. What the HRPS did for transsexuals living on the eastside of Vancouver was crucial to supporting a largely underserved group and pushing for transsexuals in British Columbia to receive social services, gender affirming care (such as hormone prescriptions and genital surgeries), and protection from discrimination. This exhibit shines a light on this organization’s brief, but immensely impactful, existence.

Jamie Lee Hamilton at Vancouver City Hall with sixty-seven pairs of stilettos to call attention to missing women in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, 1997. Photograph by John Kozachenko.

Vancouver in the 1990s

            For decades, trans women have worked the streets of Vancouver as sex-workers. Some were sex-workers by choice; others were not. Regardless, they were able to make a living free of pimps and drug trafficking, an aspect of Vancouver street life deemed unique by sex-worker activists such as Jamie Lee Hamilton.^[1] These sex-workers, including trans women, had a strong sense of community that provided protection through actions such as wandering the streets in pairs and sharing information like license plate numbers associated with dangerous men. Many also shared living spaces and utilized resources such as soup kitchens and drop-in health clinics.

            These connections were necessary as sex-workers faced overwhelming amounts of violence and prejudice due to their occupation, with many also contending with additional intersections of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class that compounded their oppression. John Lowman, a Canadian criminologist, stated in his analysis of the deaths of sex-workers in Canada during the 1990s that prostitutes had the highest risk to their safety due to their occupation—outnumbering cops and taxi drivers by about twenty-one deaths over the course of the decade.^[2] Indigenous trans and two-spirit peoples were—and are—especially vulnerable to extreme violence, with indigenous women making up a majority of missing/murder cases in British Columbia.^[3]

            In the 1990s, the downtown eastside of Vancouver was worse off than the rest of the city, especially when it came to the safety of sex-workers. The eastside was considered the poorest area of the city, with historian Jean Barman claiming that “one in three Downtown Eastside residents were current or recovering drug or alcohol abusers, and critics pointed to 'the 24-hour wide-open drug market around Hastings and Main.'”^[4] In the 1980s alone, over sixty women went missing on the eastside of Vancouver, with prosecutions for some of their murders not taking place until 2002.^[5]

Map of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and its surrounding area, n.d. Courtesy of Open Street Map.

New First United Church, Vancouver, 1973 (CVA 447-150). Photograph by Walter E. Frost. Courtesy of Vancouver City Archives.

Sandra/Sandy Leo Laframboise in Gendertrash from Hell, 1995. Courtesy of ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives.

Formation of the High Risk Project Society

            In 1992, the Vancouver Native Health Society (VNHS)—now called the Native Aboriginal Health Society—called an inter-agency meeting to address the increase in the transsexual population in the DTES. Sandy-Leo Laframboise, a key member of the HRPS, recounted that this growth occurred partially because of the increased displacement of trans people due to the continued development of the west end of Vancouver.^[6] Hamilton reiterates this in a collaborative article she wrote with Becki Ross.^[7] This displacement of sex workers had been occurring since the 1960s, as Vancouver’s government took a stronger stance against the presence of prostitution, drugs, and alcohol in the streets. As a result, people were pushed out from the west side of Vancouver to the downtown eastside.

            Not long after the VNHS held that inter-agency meeting, the Downtown Eastside Youth Activities Society (DEYAS) and the Lookout Emergency Shelter—both of which interacted with and served queer people but found transsexuals to be the “most isolated and difficult group to service”^[8]—agreed with the VNHS’s assessment of the ever-increasing troubles faced by transsexuals on the eastside of the city. In 1993, the Zenith Foundation, a Vancouver-based transgender advocacy organization founded by Stephanie Castle (a trans-woman) in 1992, also recognized that these displaced trans people were in desperate need of support.^[9] This recognition led that same year to the Zenith Foundation’s creation of what eventually would become the High Risk Project Society, which was originally a program that provided once-a-week meals served at the First United Church to trans people living and working the streets. The meal program was spearheaded by Jamie Lee Hamilton, a prominent Métis Cree, two-spirit, trans-activist and politician who did advocacy work for sex-workers, trans people, and the large number of missing and/or murdered indigenous women on the West Coast.^[10] The program was supported and partially funded by the Zenith Foundation, with other organizations such as the VNHS, the DEYAS, and the Lookout Shelter reportedly “relieved to have somewhere to send these most troublesome people.”^[11] The program was run by two trans women, April Valle and Barbara Hammond, who were also HIV positive—a fact that foreshadowed the HRPS’s future activities.

            Due to disagreements involving Hamilton, the Zenith Foundation, and the church where meals were provided, other women involved in the program decided to expand beyond the meal program. This next stage in the HRPS’s development was led by Sandra/Sandy-Leo Laframboise. Laframboise is a two-spirit person who, at the time, identified as a trans-woman. She took over leadership of the organization, as Valle and Hammond both left the organization during the first quarter of 1994.^[12] Laframboise worked with other agencies to perform outreach and create a safe place for street-entrenched trans people in the downtown eastside area. In January 1994, Laframboise and Hammond established a new physical location for the HRPS in the basement of the VNHS building on the eastside of Vancouver.^[13] That same year in July, Deborah Brady joined as Assistant Director and helped write many of the applications that the HRPS sent out for funding; she also played a key role in public presentations for the HRPS. The HRPS primarily served street-entrenched transsexual women who also were sex-workers, drug addicts, and/or HIV positive, but the organization also served others.^[14]

BCPWA News, Issue 87, 1995/1996, p. 24. Courtesy of the ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives.

Creating a Safe Space: The Building of HRPS Services and Funding

            The HRPS offered a variety of community services, including a Talking Circle (also called “spiritual healing”), an HIV/AIDS Discussion Group, a “PRE-pre-employment program,” a computers for beginners program, daily lunches and food bank, crafts and outings, books to read, a place to cook and bake, and videos and TV to watch.^[15] It also offered health-focused services such as a needle exchange program and resources for finding and accessing gender-affirming treatment/care, including hormones and surgeries.^[16]

            During these early days, Laframboise and Brady applied for funding to the British Columbia Health Ministry so that they could provide drop-in services to what Laframboise calls “primary transsexuals.” Primary transsexuals referred to trans people who consistently identified as transsexual, whereas secondary transsexuality was used to identify “effeminate” homosexuals and transvestites who “became transsexuals under stress.”^[17] The use of these medical classification terms was divisive. It was utilized to legitimize transsexuals who expressed their cross-gender behavior early in life and completely embodied their gender identity, while putting down and delegitimizing trans people who transitioned later in life and/or did not fully embody their gender identities.

            Although the terms are loaded, Laframboise’s use of them in her retelling of the founding of HRPS is critical to understanding her approach to obtaining the resources that the HRPS needed from the Canadian government. She elaborates in later statements that her and Brady’s initial push for funding based on strategies that focused on “primary” transsexuals was flawed and had negative consequences. Following these medicalized ideas of the transsexual body, however, was necessary to obtain the funding the HRPS desired.

            Despite this, the HRPS—with Laframboise’s guidance—decided to expand its definition of “primary transsexuality” to include all trans people who sought medical transition, regardless of when they came out or how they chose to present themselves. A major issue the HRPS encountered with this was that many of the people they recognized as trans and in need of resources often failed what is called the “Real-Life Test” (RLT). The RLT was a process that required a trans person seeking gender affirming care to live completely in alignment with their gender identity, meaning that they had to present themselves in accordance with a medical professional's standards at home, at work, in public, and more generally for approximately one year or more.^[18] RLT was heavily utilized by the medical community—and especially by gender identity clinics (GIC)—in order to determine the viability of funding a trans person’s transition needs, which included approval for surgeries and hormone prescriptions. Most people seeking HRPS services were unable to pass the RLT due to a mix of factors, including the fact that they were prostitutes, addicted to drugs, not able to present themselves up to the standards of medical professionals, and trying to transition by taking black market hormones.^[19]

            Even though the HRPS broadened its own definition of primary transsexuality and provided resources to anyone who sought its help, the organization catered specifically to street-entrenched primary transsexuals. This was because there were little to no social services that were provided specifically to transsexuals. Unfortunately, due to these restrictions, HRPS was not able to easily network with other trans-focused groups and organizations. This was not entirely the fault of the HRPS, as many trans-focused organizations were openly discriminatory against transsexuals who were prostitutes. Laframboise emphasizes this in a 1995 interview when she agrees with the statement that “there is a lot of discrimination against transsexual prostitutes in most transsexual support groups, organizations, etc.”^[20] Even so, she goes on to say that all transsexuals, regardless of primary/secondary classification, are at high risk of harm because they are an oppressed minority and that this truth should bring the community together rather than split them apart.

            The HRPS was able to find other community connections with Aboriginal and AIDS/HIV groups because HRPS focused on AIDS/HIV support and a majority of the people served by the HRPS served were indigenous.^[21] According to Laframboise, about 50% of the people HRPS helped during the first two years of operations were aboriginal.^[22] That said, the HRPS was not entirely isolated from connections to the queer community of Vancouver, as  it often was featured in local queer newsletters as a support group and program for trans people.^[23]

            According to Laframboise, running the HRPS was an exhausting venture. Members often argued and the center required many hours of unpaid work to maintain operations.^[24] Even Laframboise and Brady had disagreements about what the HRPS should address. Laframboise wanted to focus on social services, including HIV/AIDS and Aboriginal teaching, while Brady wanted to focus on human rights.^[25] Ultimately, Laframboise won these arguments but aspects of Brady’s vision worked their way into future HRPS endeavors. Additionally, because the HRPS was a volunteer-run organization, members and helpers would regularly come and go, with only a small number of dedicated members remaining for longer periods of time. For example, April Valle and Barbara Hammond, who had been a part of the HRPS since its inception, left the organization in late 1993 and March 1994.^[26]

            Funding was also difficult to maintain, as the HRPS had to continuously seek assistance from government programs. Unfortunately, the HRPS’s applications were not always approved. For example, the community services grant HRPS applied for in 1994 and 1997 was denied by the Vancouver City Council because the services the HRPS laid out were under the mandate of other branches of government and the HRPS’s work overlapped with the services offered by other providers.^[27] Because of this, HRPS relied heavily upon donations for funding and for items such as clothing, personal care products, and food. Despite these challenges, the HRPS experienced a decent amount of success with some of its funding applications and Laframboise came to believe that the organization was held to a higher standard after it obtained some highly competitive grant funds.^[28]

Gendertrash from Hell, 1995, p. 2. Courtesy of ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives.

Sandra/Sandy-Leo Laframboise at the 1995 International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy Conference from the “Your Health” Workshop Report, 1995. Courtesy of the Digital Transgender Archive.

Deborah Brady at the 1996 International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy Conference from the International Issues Workshop Report, 1996. Courtesy of the Digital Transgender Archive.

barbara findlay in front of one of her awards, n.d. Courtesy of barbara findlay.

High Risk Project Society newsletter Gender, 1.2, 1998 (AM1675). Courtesy of the Vancouver City Archives.

“It’s Transsexuals for Transsexuals”: Advertisements, Conferences, and Advocacy

            In 1995, Gendertrash from Hell, a zine produced by and for trans people in the 1980s and 1990s, published an interview with Sandra Laframboise. The 1995 issue also included an article written by Laframboise and Deborah Brady. In the interview and the article, the HRPS is described as providing necessary health and community related services to transsexuals in Vancouver.

            The interview with Laframboise was conducted by Mirah-Soleil Ross. It covered the personal experiences of Laframboise that had led to her work with the Zenith Foundation and the formation of the HRPS. In the interview, she emphasizes the discrimination experienced by transsexual sex-workers within the transsexual community. Middle-to-upper-class transsexuals, she explained, used sex-work as a social scapegoat to elevate themselves in the eyes of their oppressors. They considered themselves to be the “good transsexuals” (the ones who had sex reassignment surgeries, were in heterosexual relationships, had “respectable” jobs, etc.) compared to those who were prostitutes, drug-users, and living on the streets.^[29] This degradation and exclusion of transsexual prostitutes shows just how great the need for groups like the HRPS was to the DTES of Vancouver.

            Later in the interview, Laframboise and Ross discuss the difficulties faced by the transsexual community when it comes to HIV/AIDS. They both note that there is no educational materials available regarding the intersection of transsexuality and HIV/AIDS. This led Laframboise to write and publish her own materials, such as her article “Transsexuals: HIV and AIDS.”^[30] They emphasize how vulnerable trans people are to HIV/AIDS, with those who are street-entrenched, drug-addicted, and/or sex-workers the most vulnerable to infection. Laframboise then establishes that the immediate goal of the HRPS is to provide necessary resources to these transsexuals, whether that is a place to shower, cook food, or hang out in a safe place among peers.^[31]

            The accompanying article to the interview, titled “Transsexuality: A Mental Handicap Or a Physical Disorder?,” focuses on the medicalization of trans identity and the ways in which this affects trans people’s ability to receive gender-affirming treatments.^[32] The article explains that the HRPS supports U.S. transgender advocates lobbying for the American Psychiatric Association to remove transgenderism from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual’s list of mental illnesses.^[33] Although this went against the wishes of some transgender people—who wanted to receive disability health care coverage based on  their transgenderism^[34]—the HRPS believed that gender dysphoria (the distress one feels when one’s sex is incongruent with one’s gender identity) was not a mental handicap and that labeling it as a mental illness perpetuated the idea that trans-ness was unnatural and needed to be “cured.” Alternatively, HRPS proposed that people should push for laws that establish rights and protections for transsexuals when receiving social services and medical care to prevent discrimination against trans people and to help them feel more comfortable doing everyday activities. These points set the groundwork for HRPS’s future political advocacy for the rights of transsexuals to receive medical care and its belief in the validity of trans identity without implying that transsexualism is a disease or mental disorder.

            In 1995, Laframboise and Brady attended the International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy (ICTLEP) as representatives of the HRPS.^[35] At the conference, they did a presentation updating participants on HRPS activities related to healthcare. The first half of the presentation was about how the HRPS leaders were advocating for the Canadian government to cover the cost of gender affirming treatments. They were successful in some individual cases—they got one person’s electrolysis covered and even a breast implant in another case—but were working toward establishing a standard throughout all of British Columbia.^[36] The second half discussed the advocacy they were doing on behalf of some of their “girls.” These girls were generally put into men’s rooms and treated as males by hospital staff. Due to the HRPS’s intervention, one hospital moved the women to private rooms and even thanked the HRPS for advocating on these women’s behalf.^[37] The presentation then ended with Laframboise stating that their next goal would be to get legislation passed to protect trans people from discrimination.

            HRPS representatives also attended the 1996  ICTLEP conference, where they were commended for their use of Charter Challenge funds to address medical provision and civil/legal rights issues as well as another project on which they had been working.^[38] This project was done in collaboration with barbara findlay, a lawyer and LGBT/women’s/disability/anti-racist activist, and involved writing the seminal paper Finding Our Place: Transgendered Law Reform Project in 1996.^[39] The paper was written because the HRPS had received complaints from community members about human rights violations, which led the HRPS to conduct a study to examine the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; Canadian human rights legislation; the Canada Health Act; British Columbia health, human rights and hospital legislation; and case law and legislation worldwide.^[40] Finding Our Place set forth the argument that transgender people deserve, and are entitled to, equal opportunities and access to resources and should not be discriminated against based upon their gender identity, especially when it concerns the funding of gender affirming treatments.

            The paper was presented at the 1997 British Columbia Human Rights Conference, with five members of the HRPS in attendance—Sandy-Leo Laframboise, Deborah Brady, Don Crowe (a drop-in worker), Tamara Loyer (another drop-in worker and editor of the HRPS newsletter, Gender), and an additional unnamed member.^[41] Brady and Finding Our Place were also mentioned in an article published by Transgenderist, a “monthly magazine for the Transgender Independence Club,” as a part of its coverage on international happenings.^[42] In the aftermath of the conference, members of the British Columbia Human Rights Commission even visited the HRPS drop-in clinic, where they held a hearing so that they could listen to the complaints of street-entrenched trans people.^[43] Ultimately, the HRPS’s efforts to include “gender identity” in the BC Human Rights Code failed in the short term, with the code not updated to include gender identity until 2016.^[44] Laframboise and Brady, however, saw this as a personal victory, as the conference presentation and drop-in visit showed that the government and the public were politically recognizing sex-workers and trans people. In other words, as Laframboise observes, “They were significant enough to be consulted.”^[45]

            Although not much is known about what the HRPS was doing beyond normal operations during 1997, it reached significant milestones the following year. Throughout 1998, the HRPS published its newsletter Gender, which featured news snippets, service advertisements, poetry, and trans-related announcements. There were at least four issues published that year. The HRPS website, advertised in the newsletter, served as an online hub for a plethora of information regarding the HRPS for the people it served and anyone else interested in learning about transgenderism.

High Risk Project Society website, 2001.

Burnout: The Decline and Closing of the High Risk Project Society

            Tracking what the HRPS did from 1999 onwards is difficult due to a lack of documentation. Through its advertisements in queer Canadian newspapers such as Angles and BCPWA, however, the organization’s activity can be tracked. For example, High Risk Project Society advertisements appeared in the BCPWA as late as April 1999. In the 1999 issue, the HRPS is listed as a support group and program with a description that states that the organization provides “peer and direct support services to the transgendered.”^[46] The HRPS website also was updated until sometime around May 1998.^[47] 

            Laframboise left the role of director sometime after the end of 1998. She continued, however, to volunteer at the HRPS as a fundraising consultant.^[48] Deborah Brady also decided to resign as assistant director/president in 1997 or 1998. Instead, Brady volunteered her time by acting as volunteer coordinator.^[49] It was also during this time that the Vancouver-Richmond Health Board decided to conduct an audit of HRPS finances. Not long after the organization received a positive review from the Vancouver-Richmond Health Board, members of the HRPS voted to close the society.^[50] Laframboise notes how hard the decision was for her and the rest of the members, but says that it was necessary due to membership burn-out and the fact that key leaders wanted to move on to other ventures. Although the exact date of closure is difficult to determine, it occurred in 1999, 2000, or 2001.^[51]

High Risk Project Society newsletter Gender, 1.4, 1998 (AM1675). Courtesy of the City of Vancouver Archives.

The Legacy of the High-Risk Project Society

            The story of the HRPS showcases the importance of inter-communal and external cooperation. Cooperation and networking across various oppressed minority groups is necessary to maintain continuous activism against oppression. Without support from the Vancouver Native Health Society, AIDS/HIV groups, and government agencies, the HRPS would not have been able to continue operations for as long as it did. The HRPS would not have been formed at all if not for the concerns that various organizations had about the pains and struggles of the trans population.

            The HRPS also had to continuously contend with stigmatization and degradation from other communities—including other transsexuals—regarding the people it helped and served. It is a testament to the flaws of advocates and activists who failed to account for the multitude of identities held by community members. People are not one-dimensional; they have intersecting identities resulting in multifaceted experiences of joy as well as oppression. Excluding specific trans people based upon their involvement with drugs, their participation in sex-work, and/or their economic standing serves only to perpetuate the idea that trans people must be able to integrate into “normal” society to be accepted. Organizations that have a special focus on specific intersections of identity are also important to community cohesion. Groups such as the HRPS are still necessary, as organizations that cater to a targeted group can be critical to providing resources to people who might otherwise be excluded from the broader community.

            The HRPS was an organization that, despite being short-lived, was influential for the services and advocacy it provided to the transgender population of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and British Columbia more generally. Its successes and failures show the importance of its work and provided a foundation for future trans-focused community services and advocacy. Providing a record of the High-Risk Project Society is an essential part of documenting LGBTQ+ history and continues the conversation surrounding the issues it addressed in its work.