Police Harassment and Violence Against Transgender & Gender Diverse Sex Workers in the United States

ABSTRACT

Sex workers continue to experience high rates of abuse and violence around the world. However, information regarding police-perpetrated harassment and violence against transgender and gender diverse (TGD) sex workers in the United States remains extremely limited. The current study is the first known examination of police interaction, harassment, and violence among TGD sex workers in the United States using a large nationwide dataset. Data from 23,372 TGD people were used. Results revealed that sex workers were more likely to experience police interaction, harassment, and violence compared to non-sex workers. Among sex workers with police interaction while doing sex work, 89.2% reported experiencing at least one type of harassment and/or violence. Regression analyses revealed that individuals with no reported income and trans women were more likely to experience multiple types of police harassment/violence. Taken together, TGD sex workers continue to experience alarming rates of interaction, harassment, and violence from police in the United States. Urgent, and effective intervention is needed to eliminate police harassment and violence toward TGD sex workers and provide support for TGD sex workers who survive this violence.

KEYWORDS:

• Police
• violence
• transgender
• sex work

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2022.2132578

Additional information

Funding

Support provided by NIH grants T32DA019426 and U54AA027989.The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.