7 How Gender and Sexual Identity Shape Sex Work Experiences

Keywords: Queer identity, Sex work, Safety

Gender and sexual identity are both extremely prominent research topics today. However, these topics are lacking in research regarding gender and sexual identities in sex work. When people think of sex work, most people think of strip clubs, prostitutes, and women selling sex to men. However, this is not always the case. Sex work can be defined as “the act or practice of engaging in promiscuous acts in exchange for money” (George, Vindhya, & Ray. 2010). Although this definition can be used to define numerous acts in which sex is used for gain, it is generally assumed that sex work refers to the forms of illegal actions by people such as streetwalkers, escorts, and brothel workers (George et al. 2012). Despite the vast amount of sex work, few areas of sex work have been addressed in research, mainly focusing on the experiences of cisgender female sex workers. Although some research focuses on male sex workers (particularly those who have sex with other men), there is a lack of research on transgender female sex workers as well as non-binary sex workers. Many people of different genders and sexual identities participate in sex work. This paper examines how one’s sexual identity and gender have defined one’s experiences in sex work. This will be done by reading and researching published articles. For this paper, sexual identities will be defined by how one thinks of oneself in terms of to whom one is romantically or sexually attracted. At the same time, gender in this paper will refer to how someone identifies (male, female, non-binary, trans). This paper will examine how men, trans, and non-binary peoples’ experiences have been shaped by their experiences in sex work through gender.

Transgender people have faced discrimination on systemic, interpersonal, and institutional levels. Previous literature has discussed and supported that most transgender women’s only viable career option is in the sex work industry (Nadal, Vargas, Meterko, Hamit, & McLean 2012). Nadal, Vargus, and Fujii-Doe (2012) conducted a qualitative research study on male-to-female transgender women. These women were interviewed on their experiences in the sex work industry. Nadal et al. found that “there was severe hindrance placed upon these transgender women when finding work and that many felt sex work was their only option due to discriminatory hiring practices” (2012). However, one interesting finding from Nadal et al. was that many of these women reported a positive experience within the sex work industry. Many reported this because they stated that “they felt appreciated as real women by their male clients” (Nadal et al. 2012). This is interesting as it shows how many trans sex workers could feel more comfortable in their bodies.

Additionally, many of these women chose to stay in sex work because of positive experiences and appreciation for other aspects of their lives that they received. However, there also needs to be a light shined on the negative experience many transgender women face in sex work. Because sex work is illegal in many places of the world, specifically in places like the United States, Japan, and Canada (not the actual work but the purchasing which hinders Canadian sex workers). There are negative and pervasive societal attitudes toward sex workers which allow for trauma and victimization towards sex workers to occur and continue. Due to societal attitudes, many transgender sex workers are at a higher risk for dangerous outcomes (Nadal et al. 2012). For example, transgender sex workers are often victims of physical violence and emotional abuse, engage in high-risk behaviors (e.g., risky sexual practices and substance abuse), and are even abused in the criminal justice system (Nadal, Davidoff & Fujii-Doe 2014). Thus, regardless of one’s personal view of whether sex work should be criminalized, sex workers (particularly transgender sex workers) experience significant trauma, potentially damaging their physical and mental health. Additionally, Police edicts and other similar devices are used to penalize prostitution and persecute transgender people in public places, showing that prejudice and violence against their identities also manifest in the control of urban space (Soich 2021).

As the body of research surrounding sex work has grown, there have been calls to look at gender as central to the lives of sex workers. Much of the research on sex work has been focused on women, specifically cis-gendered women; this includes research on their current and past health needs and inequities. However, the experiences of men in sex work remain an under-researched topic. It has been argued that the lack of research is due to male sex workers’ fear of coming out. The fear of ignorance surrounding homosexuality, as well as the greater sexual autonomy connected to men, and that of male sex workers, undermine the popular notion that sex work is inherently a violent act against women (Matthen, Lyons, Taylor, Jennex, Anderson, Jollimore, & Shannon 2018). Researchers have noted, however, that due to the distinct characteristics of male sex workers, research devoted to developing a better understanding of this population is needed. Scholars have noted that a majority of research on men’s sex work is characterized by the pathologizing of men sex workers rather than attempts to understand their experiences without judgment (Matthen et al. 2018). Much of the early literature on men sex workers was conducted by psychologists and characterized men sex workers as deviant; studies were designed to explain men sex workers’ assumed psychopathologies (Matthen et al. 2018). A significant amount of research has been devoted to sex workers’ early experiences of sexual abuse as a factor for later entry into sex work (Matthen et al. 2018). However, researchers have been less successful in investigating and explaining why so many survivors of childhood sexual abuse do not participate in the sex industry (Matthen et al. 2018). Although male sex work remains criminalized in many parts of the world, questions about its normalization are warranted. In post-structuralist and post-modernist conceptualizations of risk, the construction of ‘deviance’ is a consequence of social groups increasingly encountering one another as risks (Minichiello, Scott, & Callander 2015). As mentioned, male sex work has historically been viewed as deviant because of its association with homosexuality. Thus the decriminalization of homosexuality in many countries may have resulted in less policing, both socially and legally, of male sex work (Minichiello et al. 2015). Kaye (2004) has argued that new social meanings for male sex work in the 1970s were derived through the “progressive integration of male prostitution into the gay cultural orbit” (Kaye, 2004), and there have been legislative reforms that allow gay men and women to present more visibly as social groups and communities. This change helped facilitate the appearance of more gay-identifying men in samples of male sex workers in the USA, with some men reporting a positive and professional approach to their work (Minichiello et al. 2015). For the first time, researchers began challenging the constructions of male prostitution as a criminal (male sex workers as victims) or health (male sex workers as agents) problem. Recent research suggests that male sex workers who identify as gay or bisexual tend to identify sexual pleasure as an essential aspect of their work along with other positive work-related experiences, such as earning ability, the flexibility of work, skill development, and client satisfaction (Minichiello et al. 2015).

There is extensive research on trans women working in sex industries. However, little scholarly research has documented the workplace experiences of trans men and non-binary sex workers. Both genderqueer performers and trans men have written about their experiences doing sex work, such as porn, and have also discussed their work in media, such as podcasts. Unfortunately, scholars, especially those with no lived sex work experience, do not always engage with sex worker writing as sources of knowledge, and academics’ lack of connection to sex worker communities can, in some part, help explain the underrepresentation of research on transmasculine and non-binary sex workers. Another explanation for this lack of research is the claim that trans men and non-binary people represent a minimal number of workers. However, this argument collapses if we turn to studies by trans advocacy groups. The American Transgender Discrimination Survey (Grant, Mottet, Tanis, & Min 2011) showed that of the 6450 trans and gender non-conforming people sampled, 11% had sex work experience. Transfeminine people were more likely to have done sex work than transmasculine ones, 15%, and 7%, respectively. As the report noted, ‘this data unearths the reality that some transgender men have also done sex work at some point in their life (Grant et al. 2011). The American Center for Transgender Equality (James, Herman, Rankin, Keisling, Mottet, Anafi 2016) conducted the U.S. Transgender Survey.

The survey included responses from 27,715 trans and non-binary people. It showed that one in eight or 12% of respondents said they had done sex work. Among the sex-working sample, 50% were trans women; 19% were transgender men; 23% were AFAB (assigned female at birth), non-binary people, 7% were AMAB (assigned male at birth) non-binary people, and 1% were crossdressers. It was found through the study that transfeminine people were twice as likely to do sex work (13.1% vs. 7.1%) (James et al. 2016). However, as the U.S. National Transgender Discrimination Survey noted, while most discussions of sex work and trans people focus on transgender women, this finding shows that many transmasculine [and non-binary] people are engaged in the sex trade. At the same time, the small amount of data generated by trans advocacy groups provides a starting point. However, researchers, service providers, and policymakers still know little about transmasculine and non-binary sex workers. There needs to be more research conducted in this area to gain more knowledge and insight. This is where future research should focus their attention as this is a growing demographic. In this study, while most respondents are from the USA, the experiences of sex workers from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Norway, Thailand, and the U.K. were included. In addition to providing much-needed background information about the population, the article also documents client demographics, safety, and harm reduction issues. Disparagingly, fewer transmasculine and non-binary people in the industry than workers of other genders do not justify excluding them in research that affects social policy and services. It does justify excluding them because this growing demographic is showing up in sex work.

Looking at the past five years, the shift to online-based sex work has been particularly notable among men (including transgender and cisgender men) and non-binary sex workers who have few opportunities to work out of formal indoor sex work venues, such as massage parlors, and have been displaced from street-based solicitation in many urban centers due to urban planning efforts to eradicate visible sex work (Koenig, Murphy, Johnston, Pearson, Knight, Gilbert, Shannon, & Krüsi 2022). Furthermore, the introduction of phone apps to connect for non-commercial sexual encounters (“hook-up” apps) among men who have sex with men also contributes to the popularity and normalization of online sex work (Koenig et al. 2022). In addition, a growing body of research has elucidated how soliciting services online benefits sex workers’ occupational health and safety and reduces their risk of experiencing workplace violence through increased opportunities to enact personal safety strategies (Koenig et al. 2022). These strategies include using pseudonyms, only seeing regular clients, pre-screening new clients, and letting their social networks or other sex workers know details about a transaction ahead of time (Koenig et al. 2022). Such strategies are essential in jurisdictions where sex work is criminalized and sex workers lack access to legislated occupational health and safety protections (Koenig et al. 2022).

In Conclusion, sex work has shaped not only the experiences of those involved in sex work but also the way that researchers look at sex work and how it is studied. Pre-existing analytical tools such as the risk environment framework help characterize how structural factors, workplace conditions, and interpersonal/individual behaviors shape health inequalities among sex workers and intersect with sex work criminalization. Intersectionality theory argues that multiple forms of oppression, such as those experienced by Black women and sexual and gender minorities, are mutually constitutive and interdependent. Stigma and discrimination across the risk environment produce distinct experiences of health care services among women living with HIV depending on their intersecting racial, sexual, gender, and sex worker identities. This can also be seen at a macro-structural level, where interacting contexts produced by multiple forms of criminalization and institutional discrimination reduce access to services and increase police violence, disproportionately impacting racially minoritized and marginalized communities (Platt et al. 2022). Nevertheless, there has been little quantitative research on the extent to which oppression and discrimination at the intersections of race, gender, and sexual minority identity among sex workers may increase instances of violence and repressive policing.

References

George, A., Vindhya, U., & Ray, S. 2010. Sex Trafficking and Sex Work: Definitions, Debates and Dynamics—A review of literature. Economic and political weekly, 64-73.

Grant, J. M., Mottet, L. A., Tanis, J. J., & Min, D. 2011. Transgender Discrimination Survey. National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force: Washington, DC, USA.

James, S. E., J. Herman, S. Rankin, M. Keisling, L. Mottet, and M. Anafi. 2016. The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality.

Kaye K. 2004 Male Prostitution in the Twentieth Century: Pseudohomosexuals, Hoodlum Homosexuals, and Exploited Teens. J Homosexuality. 2004;46(1–2):1–77.

Koenig, B., Murphy, A., Johnston, S., Pearson, J., Knight, R., Gilbert, M., Shannon, K., & Krüsi, A. (2022). Digital exclusion and the structural barriers to safety strategies among men and non-binary sex workers who solicit clients online. Social Sciences (Basel), 11(7), 318. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11070318

Matthen, P., Lyons, T., Taylor, M., Jennex, J., Anderson, S., Jollimore, J., & Shannon, K. (2018). “I Walked into the Industry for Survival and Came Out of a Closet”: How Gender and Sexual Identities Shape Sex Work Experiences among Men, Two Spirit, and Trans People in Vancouver. Men and Masculinities, 21(4), 479–500. https://doi-org.ezproxy.viu.ca/10.1177/1097184X16664951

Minichiello, V., Scott, J., & Callander, D. (2015). A new public health context to understand male sex work. BMC Public Health, 15(1), 1-11.

Nadal, K. L., Davidoff, K. C., & Fujii-Doe, W. (2014). Transgender women and the sex work industry: Roots in systemic, institutional, and interpersonal discrimination. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 15(2), 169–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2014.867572

Nadal, K. L., Vargas, V., Meterko, V., Hamit, S. and McLean, K. (2012). “Transgender female sex workers: Personal perspectives, gender identity development, and psychological processes .”In Managing diversity in today’s workplace: Strategies for employees and employers: Vol. 1. Gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and power, Edited by: Paludi, M. A.123–153. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Platt, L., Bowen, R., Grenfell, P., Stuart, R., Sarker, M. D., Hill, K., Walker, J., Alvarez, X., Henham, C., Mtetwa, S., Hargreaves, J., Boily, M., Vickerman, P., Hernandez, P., & Elmes, J. (2022). The effect of systemic racism and homophobia on police enforcement and sexual and emotional violence among sex workers in East London: Findings from a cohort study. Journal of Urban Health, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-022-00673-z

Such, M. (2021). “Back to Where They Were”: The Socio-Discursive Representation of Transgender Sex Workers and Urban Space in a Television News Report. Frontiers. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2021.633699/full