So What If I?m a Puta? : Diaries of Transness, Sex Work, Desire

An incisive, intimate diary of the life of a travesti sex worker in Brazil, with a foreword by Charlotte Shane

So What If I’m a Puta, originally published on author Amara Moira’s popular blog of the same name, consists of 44 crônicas that wryly portray her experiences as a trans sex worker in Brazil. In a brazen, funny, and at times heartbreaking voice, Moira explores the political and personal textures of her encounters with the men who buy sex from her, and the complex reality of her labor of a sort of love.

Woven through Moira’s essays are reflections on transition, safe sex, desire, whorephobia, consent—in the grim context of Brazil’s record rates of violence against trans women. Ultimately, Moira writes to center trans sex workers in Brazil’s putafeminist movement, modeling a feminism that envisions inclusivity, safety, self-determination, and joy for us all. 

Amara Moira is a writer, academic, and self-described “travesti putafeminista.” She is a columnist at Buzzfeed Brasil and UOL Esporte. Moira received her PhD in literature from Universidade Estadual de Campinas, wrote her dissertation on James Joyce, and became the first trans woman to graduate using her chosen name. She has given two TEDxBrazil talks: “Who’s Afraid of Trans Women?” and “The World of Trans Words.” She is the author of So What If I’m a Puta and the poetry collection Neca + 20 Poemetos Travesso, and a co-contributor to the collection Vidas Trans: A Coragem de Existir (Trans Lives: The Courage to Exist). She lives in São Paulo, Brazil. 

Amanda De Lisio is an assistant professor of physical culture, policy, and sustainable development in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science, executive member of CITY Institute, and codirector of the Critical Trafficking and Sex Work Studies Research Cluster at the Centre for Feminist Research at York University. Her research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in England, Mitacs Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and published in academic and popular presses in English and Portuguese. She is based in Toronto, Ontario. 

Bruna Dantas Lobato is a writer and translator. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, A Public Space, The Dial, and The Common. She was awarded the 2023 National Book Award in Translated Literature for her translation of The Words that Remain by Stênio Gardel. Originally from Natal, Brazil, she lives in Iowa and teaches at Grinnell College. Her debut novel, Blue Light Hours, is out now from Grove Atlantic.

Charlotte Shane is a nonfiction author and essayist. She is the author of An Honest Woman, published by Simon & Schuster, and Prostitute Laundry and N.B., both published by TigerBee Press, which she cofounded in 2015. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Bookforum, Harper’s, Sports Illustrated, and elsewhere.