“Not on the Street Where We Live”: walking while trans under a model of sex work decriminalisation

ABSTRACT

The phenomenon frequently described as “walking while trans” in which transgender women, particularly women of colour, are profiled by police on suspicion of soliciting, is documented as occurring in the USA. In New Zealand, sex work was decriminalised in 2003, yet this mode of harassing transgender women persists—enacted by other members of the public, often associated with self-appointed “concerned citizen” groups. An examination of news media texts from 2009 to 2013 identified narrative categories applied to street sex workers (but particularly transgender workers) in South Auckland, and the concurrent attempts to limit their presence in public space through proposed by-laws. The findings highlight the way societal stigma against sex work is deployed against transgender women, at the same time as transmisogynistic discourses are used to reinforce whorephobia. This article concludes that situating the workers as inherently threatening rhetorically positions workers as interlopers in their own community, and contributes to the campaigns to remove them from public space. In the absence of literal policing, the role of enforcing normative limits on who may inhabit these spaces is taken up by other community members.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex work
• transgender sex workers
• sex work decriminalisation
• prostitution
• transgender women
• prostitution decriminalisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I use the term whorephobia here to refer to the discrimination, hatred and fear which sex workers are subjected to as a result of the stigmatization of their work (Chi Adanna Mgbako 2016). The concept of “whore stigma” has been theorised for some time, and the term “whorephobia” has recently moved into common usage in both informal and academic contexts (Gail Pheterson 1993; Graham Ellison and Lucy Smith 2017; Tiffany Tempest 2019).

2. The texts in which this occurred were “Not on the Street Where We Live”, “Cleaning Up the Streets”, and “Street Legal: Ten Years After Prostitution Decriminalisation” which interviewed former sex worker and former MP Georgina Beyer.

3. Within this list of terms double quotation marks refer to reported speech from interviewees, while single quotation marks indicate terms used within the body of the reportage from journalists, or copy from editorial commentary.

4. Fa’afafine is a Samoan term for people who were assigned male at birth but adopt more traditionally feminine modes of dress and expression; some may undergo medical transition (Johanna Schmidt 2003, 417, 2010, 2–4).

5. Street sex workers are similarly the smallest but most visible proportion of the industry in New Zealand (Gillian Abel, Lisa Fitzgerald, and Cheryl Brunton 2007, 171).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gwyn L. E. Easterbrook-Smith

Gwyn L. E. Easterbrook-Smith recently completed their PhD through Victoria University of Wellington. Their research considers the conditions attached to “acceptability” of sex workers under a model of decriminalisation, with a focus on news media texts about the sex industry published after New Zealand passed the Prostitution Reform Act in 2003. E-mail: [email protected]