TSs Forced Into Sex Trade
By Jim Loney Reuters
Contributed by Hayley Rogers
Miami
September 10, 1998
MIAMI (Reuters) - Society's rejection of transsexuals and
transvestites forces them into the sex trade, where they risk becoming
victims of violence and AIDS, according to a University of Florida study
released Thursday.
The study of Miami male transsexuals found they were often
rejected by their families at an early age and had few ways to make a
living other than street prostitution, in the course of which they were
often subjected to robbery and rape.
Transsexual prostitutes were infected with HIV, the virus that
causes AIDS, at a much higher rate than female prostitutes, in part
because they indulged in high-risk sex practices to satisfy customers,
said James Bay, a UF graduate anthropologist who wrote the study.
``Given the social climate, there are really just few things
they can do. A businessperson has a hard time putting someone like this in
front of their business,'' Bay told Reuters. ''Their survival mechanism is
to turn to sex for money.''
Bay, who interviewed 48 male prostitutes between
February and June 1997, said about 40 percent of them were infected with
HIV, 69 percent with hepatitis B and 19 percent with syphilis.
``One particularly tragic result is that many of them have
died,'' he said. ``They've been infected with HIV and died.''
Bay said few transsexuals were strong enough to challenge
society's attitudes as did one Florida government employee who started his
job as a man, then changed his name to Sabrina and began wearing dresses
to work.
``Life's tough enough already. Someone must be very, very
brave to go through what Sabrina Robb did,'' he said.
The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration decided in
September 1997 that Robb's clothing was ``neat, clean and appropriate for
the office'' and that it would not force him to wear men's clothes.
Bay said his study showed that "there is a wide expression
of sexuality and gender and excluding people who vary from the norm may
not always be in our interest.''
Many of the participants in the study had had a strong sense
of wanting to be female since early in life and feminized their appearance
by dressing as women, taking hormones and injecting silicon into their
breasts and hips, although none had undergone sex change operations, he
said.
Bay was coordinating an HIV research project for the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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