Discussing the Causes of Violence Against Trans Women

Violence against trans women does not only exist as individual hatred or bias-motivated crime. It comes in many forms and for many reasons. Trans women are systematically placed in circumstances where we are more likely than others to experience multiple forms of violence.

In order to end violence against trans women, it is important to understand that more than just personal prejudices are at fault. Other kinds of oppression like racism, laws like the criminalization of sex work, economic forces like poverty and gentrification, and many other forces are also at play.

Wednesday, DCTC’s Sadie Vashti spoke about violence against the transgender community with the Latino Media Collective. The interview was broadcast on the radio, but you can also listen to it anytime at this link. (The interview begins about 1/4th into the clip.) In order to be more accessible, click below to read an abbreviated transcript broken into headings by topic.

Note: The views expressed in this interview belong only to Sadie. DCTC is a collective of many people with a variety of views. To learn more about our official organizational principles and stances, see here. Also, this interview was conducted before the most recent attack on a group of trans women by an off-duty MPD officer.

8/18: Let DC Gov’t Know Your Thoughts About Its New Trans Employment Initiatives!

Hello DCTC members and allies! Tomorrow (Thursday, August 18th), Jeffrey Richardson of the D.C. Office of GLBT Affairs is holding a discussion about unemployment in trans communities. Recently, representatives from a handful of advocacy groups met directly with Mayor Gray. During the meeting, the Mayor proposed several initiatives to decrease barriers to employment and increase access to jobs for trans people in DC. His concessions included a paid jobs training program for trans DC residents and expanded diversity training for all employees of city agencies.

While we would always like to see more done to address un- and underemployment in our communities, we are very excited about this victory! Tomorrow’s meeting will take place from 6:00 – 8:00 pm at The DC Center (1318 U St NW). We had hoped that the original meeting would have included a broader segment representing the many diverse trans communities in DC; this is our chance to be heard. Please attend, learn about the proposed initiatives, and add your voice to this crucial and on-going discussion!

DCTC, Others Meet with Mayor Gray to Discuss Unemployment in Trans Communities

On August 4th, representatives from the DC Trans Coalition, Transgender Health Empowerment, and the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance met with Mayor Vince Gray to discuss barriers to employment for trans people in the District. In a follow-up e-mail, Jeffrey Richardson, head of the DC Office of GLBT Affairs, summed up the Mayor’s commitments:

1)    The Gray Administration is committed to expand cultural diversity training across District Government with a focus on LGBT and specifically transgender cultural competency.

a.    The Mayor has directed DC Department of Human Resources, The Office of Human Rights, and The Office of GLBT Affairs to begin working on the development of a training module that the administration will pilot and make mandatory for all District Government employees upon full implementation. The Mayor has asked for the training module to be in place for implementation planning by October 1, 2011.

2)    The Department of Employment Services will run a pilot of their transitional employment program targeting members of the transgender community. The program includes six weeks of training coupled with subsidized paid employment.

a.    DOES will have the pilot run of the transitional employment program targeting members of the transgender community ready for implementation by September 5, 2011.

b.    The Office of GLBT Affairs will work with DOES to ensure there is community engagement in the development and implementation of the pilot program.

We are excited to see such positive progress, and look forward to holding the Gray Administration accountable to these promises. The groups will reconvene in the future to continue the on-going dialog on how to address barriers to trans employment. We also hope that future discussions will include voices from a broader range of stakeholders.

DCTC Recommends Priorities for District Government

Last week, newly-elected Mayor Gray’s Director of the Office of GLBT Affairs, Jeffrey Richardson, attended a DC Trans Coalition meeting. Members of DCTC educated the Director about the needs of trans communities in the District, and we were assured that trans people (along with youth and aging LGBT people) would be among the administration’s top concerns.

For the occasion, DCTC prepared a list of priorities for the Gray Administration, and shared this with the Director. We broke it down by agency and listed the most pressing and achievable goals for each. Among our list were:

• End the Prostitution Free Zones and move toward decriminalizing sex work;
• Nominate one or more trans people to serve on the Commission on Human Rights;
• Enforce the gender-neutral bathroom provisions of the DC Human Rights Act;
• Restore funding to vital trans-sensitive social services like HIPS and T.H.E.;
• Develop plans to address unemployment in the trans community;
• Expand the Dept. of Corrections and MPD trans policies to include other criminal justice agencies in the District;
• Fund the DC Trans Needs Assessment

..and much more. You can read the comprehensive list here.

Standing Against the Criminalization of Sex Work

This op-ed piece was written by DC Trans Coalition member Sadie-Ryanne Baker, on behalf of and with help from the DCTC organizing collective, in response to troubling recent events.

Justice, Not Jails
DC must rethink impact on marginalized communities of policing sex work

On the weekend of September 25^th 2010, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) raided a hotel in Northwest in a prostitution-related sting. After initial witness reports that dozens were detained, MPD has confirmed that six arrests were made on charges of soliciting prostitution.

Every week, the DC Trans Coalition receives numerous complaints involving police harassment. Many of these reports come from transgender, transsexual or gender-non-conforming (hereafter trans) individuals, especially trans women of color, who are involved in, or believed to be involved in, sex work.  Due to transphobic and racist police bias, many trans women are harassed and falsely arrested for sex work (the crime of “walking while trans”) while simply interacting in their own communities.

Whether they are sex workers or not, however, is beside the point. No one deserves the degree of persecution and violence these individuals face. While most survivors of policing abuses are unwilling or unable to file formal complaints, we continue to receive a consistently high volume of contacts from individuals who have been assaulted and/or verbally ridiculed by police. Many are treated inhumanely while in custody, despite MPD’s own General Order prohibiting such abuse. A soon-to-be-released study by the National Center for Transgender Equality notes that 71% of trans respondents had experienced harassment and disrespectful treatment by police officers and 45% were uncomfortable reporting crimes to police. After the most recent raid, DCTC was approached for advice from trans community members who are fearing for their own safety in the face of similar sweeping police actions. No one should have to live with this fear.

Due to discrimination, trans people are more likely to experience poverty, housing instability and un(der)employment than cisgender (non-trans) people. Many engage in criminalized activities, including sex work, in order to survive.  We are disturbed and frustrated that the solution most often employed by the DC government is to over-police and to arrest our community members rather than connecting these individuals to jobs, services and public assistance.

Since sex work is illegal, sex workers are denied protection with basic labor practices and human rights standards. If attacked or assaulted by a client, there is often no legal recourse. Marginalized groups such as trans women are among the most vulnerable. This becomes terrifyingly clear when we gather annually for the Trans Day of Remembrance. The list of murder victims heavily features sex workers, most of whom are trans women of color.

Rather than protecting these individuals from violence, many police actions only perpetuate violence. After incarceration, and the establishment of a criminal record, these individuals face the nearly impossible challenge of finding a ‘legal’ job. Instead, they are likely to find themselves back in the sex work industry. At the bottom of the social ladder, marginalized communities such as trans women of color are the worst hit by this cycle of jail and poverty. A preliminary glance at MPD’s arrest records, which we recently obtained from MPD via a Freedom of Information Act request, suggests that a trans woman is far more likely to be arrested for indecent sexual proposal than a cisgender person.

All LGBTQ people should be concerned when the state attempts to enforce morality. Instead of allowing the government to target sex workers as criminals, we must solve the underlying issues of racism, transphobia and poverty. Raids like the one conducted by MPD last week only perpetuate unsafe working conditions and further demonize sex workers, forcing sex workers out of the safety of the private room and into the dimly lit and significantly more dangerous public streets.

It is our hope that the incoming Gray Administration will rethink these failed policing strategies. We look forward to meeting with him to discuss possible alternatives. We need jobs not raids; we need fair wages and labor standards not “Prostitution Free Zones.” Whether individuals chose it freely or not, sex work is real work and will continue to be an industry for those with limited employment options.

We welcome help and support from our allies as we build upon our advocacy efforts. In these tough economic times, we need to develop real remedies designed to curb the persecution and violence that far too many sex workers experience when trying to make ends meet. The time to stand up for the most vulnerable among us is now. To learn more about how you can help support our work, please be sure to contact us at dctranscoalition.org.