As we enter a new year, 2008 cannot end soon enough for Memphis male to female transsexuals. In July Ebony Whitaker was found shot dead, in November Duanna Johnson was shot in the street, and in December Leeneshia Edwards was shot in the face and is seeing the new year in recovering in hospital. All three were prostitutes and in the Old Year’s Day edition of Pink News, Jessica Green writes that local trans campaigners are blaming their shootings on being forced into prostitution because no one will give transsexuals employment.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-10167.html
At the time of her murder, Duanna was considering taking legal action against the Memphis police over video evidence that she was beaten up by two police officers. This prompted some trans bloggers to assert that this must be a police conspiracy, but tragically it looks like she is one of a series of victims – it might even be a serial killer.
Are the campaigners correct, however, to blame the violence on lack of employment opportunities? Certainly, they have made themselves targets by being prostitutes, but the murder of six non-trans female prostitutes in Ipswich shows that this danger is not limited to trans people, and as the following BBC article points out – prostitutes are “Easy Targets for Predators.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7226330.stm
Giving better employment opportunities to Memphis’ transsexuals might reduce their exposure to danger, but the campaigners seem to be band-wagon jumping here. The stories of Ebony, Duanna, and Leeneshiaare are not about employment opportunities, they are about hate crime. Murder is murder and hate is hate – it is wrong if trans people are murdered, it is wrong if any prostitute is murdered, and keeping trans people out of this dangerous profession will not make the murder of prostitutes any less evil.
Employment opportunities for all are important but as the economy worsens, more and more of us will find ourselves out of jobs, prostitution will increase on our internet’s, streets and in our brothels.
It is time that this country wakes up to the human rights of sex workers of all genders and colors. It is time the police in Memphis are made accountable for their actions, and its time to look closer at law enforcements efforts to protect transgender person’s no matter what their occupation.
Sex work is a job in this country legal and illegal. It is time to end prohibition so we can begin to fight for the rights of these workers. Sometimes it is impossible to find a better job or higher paying then sex work.
The decriminalization of prostitution is the first step to ending discrimination of sex workers. We will remember Ebony, Duanna and Leeneshiaare and we will be proud that they lived their lives trying to do what was right for them.
I hope you are in a better place.
Sincerely,
Robyn Few
co founder Sex Workers Outreach Project USA
Thank you for that Robyn, yes I am in what I think is a happier place, namely the United Kingdom, where trans employment rights have improved greatly in the last decade, although rights and actual practice are often far apart. I am an ex-academic now back at university to train as a nurse. We also have reasonable safety nets in our welfare system, so that there is greater possibilities to avoid prostitution, but that does not stop me being concerned at those who stop at preventing certain groups getting into sex work, and forget those left behind in danger. I live in Manchester city centre, two minutes walk from the Gay Village, so these are my near neighbours I am thinking of. I posted the above piece because I felt that Ebony, Duanna and Leeneshiaare’s stories were being hijacked for another cause. As the US Catholic theologian David Tracy wrote, there is no greater oppression than to rob the oppressed of their own story of their own suffering. That looks like a very good organisation that you have founded. Best wishes, Mercia.