Versace

“It was nice. He was 20.” Versace flashes a million-dollar smile, remembering the first time she got paid. “I only charged $100. But I didn’t have my breasts then.” She’s a 21-year-old Filipino woman who came to Canada as a 12-year-old boy. At 14 she started transitioning [changing gender], which infuriated her born-again Christian father. After four years in various group homes, Versace was granted a semi-independent living arrangement by the government but was cut off at 19. “I guess I could have gone on welfare, but I started this instead. After that first client (the nice guy) was finished, “he was so sweet. He told me, ‘You’re too good to be doing this.’ But I said, look—100 bucks for half an hour. That was my first.” While many of Versace’s clients are charming, good-looking men (“it’s business and pleasure”), she also fields requests for golden showers and high heels to the throat. She smiles like someone who knows all the objections to prostitution and doesn’t care, who’s just daring you to call her a victim. Versace is planning to buy a condo next year in the Paramount building; her realtor is also a client. Sex work, she says, helps her self esteem; men adore her transsexual body every day. “The only time I embraced myself as a tranny was when I started working. She tucks a strand of hair behind one ear, shrugs. “Still, it’s hard to find love."

Money made: $200/hour Number of clients per week: 20 First trick: 19 years old
Biggest anxiety: Catching diseases Where you see yourself in 10 years: Not doing this. Maybe a flight attendant. I have goals