Police last evening held one of three men who had been spotted trailing sex worker Wesley Holder in the period before he is suspected to have been fatally stabbed last Thursday, members of his family said.
The arrest, which could not be confirmed with police, came just over a day after the discovery of the body of Holder, 19, also known as “Horatia” and “Tiffany,” in an open lot. He was clad in a green fishnet dress and there were stab wounds.
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Male and transgender sex workers in South Africa are at particularly high risk of HIV infection and have significant unmet prevention needs, according to results of a large multi-site study presented last month at the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society conference in Cape Town.
Male sex workers were found to be 2.9 times (AOR, 95%CI=1.6-5.3, p<0.001) more likely, and transgender sex workers 2.4 times (AOR, 95%CI 1.1-4.9, P=0.021) more likely, than female sex workers to have unprotected sex, according to the multivariate analysis of a study examining the characteristics and sexual behaviour of sex workers in South Africa. The study also aimed to assess the risk factors for unprotected penetrative sexual intercourse of female, male and transgender sex workers.
Across four site, 1799 self-identified female, male and transgender sex workers were interviewed by trained sex worker research assistants during May to September 2010. The research sites included two urban centres and one semi-rural site adjacent to a mine and were purposively selected, based on the presence of sex worker advocacy groups and peer education work. Although the three cities were selected to obtain data on diverse sex work settings, these findings may not apply to other sex work areas in South Africa.
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ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - It seemed like a case of simple blackmail. Late one night last month, two cars carrying around 10 soldiers pulled up to a group of prostitutes in Abidjan's Vallon neighbourhood and began demanding bribes.
To save themselves, some of the women in the group approached the soldiers and told them what they knew would divert their attention: They pointed to a sex worker cowering among them who goes by the street name of Raissa. And they sold her out.
The soldiers cornered her, stripped her and discovered her secret: Raissa, who requested that her real name not be used out of fear for her safety, is not a woman at all, but rather a man dressed as one. They savagely beat her with their belts.
Such scenes have become routine since the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast assumed control of Abidjan in April 2011 at the end of a five-month conflict to oust ex-President Laurent Gbagbo and install his elected successor, Alassane Ouattara.
In interviews with The Associated Press, five victims and activists say transgender sex workers have been regularly stripped and beaten. In the most extreme case, those dressed as women who were discovered to be men were held overnight at military camps and raped with Kalashnikov rifles, they say. Others charge their heads were shaved with broken beer bottles.
To ensure an appropriate response in framing the state women’s policy, which aims to recognise the concerns of marginalised communities like transgender women and sex workers, the expert committee will have representation of these communities as well, said Minister for Women and Child Varsha Gaikwad while addressing a state-level consultation in Mumbai on Designing a Social Inclusion Plan for Marginal and Vulnerable Communities.
The consultation, which was organised by the State Women and Child Development Department, State Women’s Commission in collaboration with the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW), Ministry of Women and Child and the Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR), brought together senior officials from all social sector departments, NGOs, community-based organisations and experts.
Speaking about the process adopted by the government to frame the women’s policy, the minister said a committee of MLAs, MPs and NGOs has been formed which will be expanded to include three representatives from transgender women and sex worker communities to ensure that their concerns get reflected in the policy document. She added that the Department of Women and Child Development is also willing to address concerns of transgenders and to ensure their integration into all social development programmes and schemes.
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November 20th is the Trans Day of Remembrance. As we honour those who have past let us remember that discrimination against trans people is not equal. And that those of us who are white should honour, but not appropriate the deaths of those that we honour at TDOR.
If we look at the names those who have died are almost always somewhere on the trans-feminine spectrum, almost always people of colour, and a large proportion of which are also sex workers.
Let us speak the true discrimination that is going on here and not make the mistakes that many second-wave feminists made when they said that sexism affected all women equally. The reality is that this violence is not “just transphobia” and in some cases it is not transphobia at all. This violence stems from the intersection of transmisogyny, racism and a hatred of sex workers.
Let us not appropriate their deaths by saying that the violence is equal because it is not. Many trans folks with privilege (white, middle/upper class, abled, masculine) may have faced violence, but the violence that those of us with privilege face is not the same as those who do not have those privileges. Let us keep that in mind this day and frankly whenever we talk about violence against trans people in future.
This is a post collecting white trans* people and other white “allies” who have decided to use this day to appropriate the lives and stories of Trans* POC.