A transgender sex worker is a transgender person who works in the sex industry or performs sexual services in exchange for money or other forms of payment. In general, sex workers appear to be at great risk for serious health problems related to their profession, such as physical and sexual assault, robbery, murder, physical and mental health problems, and drug and alcohol addiction. Roughly 13 percent of the transgender community reports having participated in the sex industry, according to data from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey.
HIV and other STD rates among transgender sex workers are much higher than those found in transgender non-sex workers. These groups focus on providing resources that transgender people are often unable to access like education, shower facilities, and job placement programs.
Poverty works both as a cause and an effect of sex work. Sex workers as a whole are a vulnerable population due to obstacles like poverty, poor health, and legal and social barriers. For these women, sex work is a way to get food, shelter, or income in a society that precludes them from many other lines of work. Despite engaging in higher risk activity, transgender sex workers are more likely to receive lower pay than other sex workers.
Lack of economic opportunities outside of the sex work industry and discrimination may lead to transgender people entering sex work in order to generate income for rent, drugs, medicines, hormones, or gender-related surgeries. In addition to the laws used against sex workers as a whole, laws prohibiting cross-dressing or impersonation of another sex are used to suppress the activity of transgender sex workers.
Many of these kinds of laws and ordinances were enforced strictly in the s and s and a vast majority of them have been overturned, but prohibitory laws and ordinances still exist.
