For Transgenders, Meaner Streets; A Difficult Lifestyle Turns Deadly (WashPost sob story)

Washington Post ^ | Aug. 22, 2003 | Jose Antonion Vargas

[mountaineer]

Here she is again, strolling K Street, her black skirt very short, her black top very tight.

It's Wednesday, 11:35 p.m. "Too early to be out here," Tanekea says. Still, she stands on a corner of Third and K streets NW, just as she did Monday night, hoping to turn a trick: maybe $40 or $50 for oral sex, she says, and "more" for "something more."

With long hair, long legs and freshly shaved skin, Tanekea, 21, heads to Fifth Street, then back to Third. The sidewalks are dimly lighted. Two patrons from the nearby Louis' Rogue Go Go Lounge pass her. The clock ticks: 12:05 a.m.

A few drivers slow down and give Tanekea a second look; some shake their heads, look disgusted. Life as a prostitute is not easy. Life as a transgender prostitute is harder still, activists in the transgender community say.

This week has been an especially difficult one, with three shootings in the District of transgenders -- two of them fatal and at least one, police say, the result of a male customer angered to learn the prostitute was a transgender.

[N3WBI3]

And some people are born alcholics that does not mean we should make it easy for them to drink.. You are right about one thing but for the grace of God..

[mountaineer]

Hmmm, unintended irony.

[John O]

Sometimes the confusion is physical structure, sometimes it is psychological but it is real, rare but real. We are not all neatly divided into two groups. Once you actually know someone who is in this middle state and come to understand their situation you realize how lucky you are to be "normal"

If it has two X chromosomes it's a woman. If it has one X and one Y its a man. In very rare cases you'll have XXY or XXXXXXY but the presence of a Y chromosome means it's a male. (Standard Olympic rules)

Birth defects of the genitalia do occur but that doesn't change the maleness of the unfortunate with the defect

[<1/1,000,000th%]

"At any stage, they can be beaten up by customers, by lovers, by family members," says Rachlin. "And some of them don't feel the need to disclose because they have a sense of rightness: They are female regardless of their body and regardless of what anyone else says. I'm overgeneralizing here, but for a transgender woman to tell a man that she is a male goes against everything in yourself. So they use their own moral compass, they decide how to handle the situation. There's not a right or wrong answer here."

Must be the pay and working conditions that draw them in.

[Keyes2000mt]

Look, guys who go for prostitutes are not the most moral people in the world. To make a living that way is asking for trouble whether you're "real" or not.

[Old Professer]

So, if you got a hummer from a brain surgeon and you ran into him on your street throwing garbage in the back of a big BFI truck, would you call your transgendered lawyer?

[johnb838]

That is an excellent point, Zavien. X is X and Y is Y and never the twain shall meet. No matter how the body is sculpted or the plumbing is re-routed.

[johnb838]

And some people are born alcholics that does not mean we should make it easy for them to drink

The whole conception of alcoholic recovery is about the person facing and accepting certain truths about themself. These people need to understand (and admit) that they are sick freaks before any recovery is even remotely possible.

[Clint N. Suhks]

Who says two sexes aren't enough?

How about science?

[Clint N. Suhks]

For Transgenders, Meaner Streets

It should read “For Prostitutes”

[Zavien Doombringer]

XXY or XYX = Klinefelters Syndrome
Medical condition that affects MALES...that Y chromosome creates the "danglies"...

[putupon]

[Zavien Doombringer]

Get this one...If you were drunk at 9pm would you suspect this guy?

[Clint N. Suhks]

If it has two X chromosomes it's a woman. If it has one X and one Y its a man. In very rare cases you'll have XXY or XXXXXXY but the presence of a Y chromosome means it's a male. (Standard Olympic rules) Birth defects of the genitalia do occur but that doesn't change the maleness of the unfortunate with the defect

That's right, it's defect to the reproductive organs, if it had anything to do with homosexuality we'd all homosexuals with intersexed disorders.

[mountaineer]

The notion that hacking off the male organ somehow turns one into a woman reminds me of those Cadbury candy commercials around Easter time, where various animals audition to be the Cadbury bunny, thinking that wearing fake bunny ears will fool everyone.

[muir_redwoods]

Do your own research. The term is hermaphrodism and it is a medical reality. My cousin is a neonatologist, works in a medium sized hospital here in CT and is frequently called to consult on such births. The psychology of transgenderism is real. There are people, probably under 100,000 in this country, who are simply in the wrong bodies. I know one and unless you do, its hard for you to make an unbiased judgement about such a condition. It's easy to try and blame them but the brain is a very delicate structure and it doesn't take much to upset its fine tuning. We are all a miracle and if you want information on just how strange some problems can be, Oliver Sacks has several books out on malfunctions of the brain, fascinating stuff.

[muir_redwoods]

I know such a person and it is from that knowledge that I speak. You seem to speak with enthusiasm but how much real information do you posess on this topic? Is it just another area where you couldn't possibly be wrong?

[mountaineer]

The term is hermaphrodism and it is a medical reality. ... The psychology of transgenderism is real.

The former is physiological, the latter is psychological. Apples and oranges.

[hellinahandcart]

You know a genuine hermaphrodite, or a "transgender"?

I know none of the former, and have had professional and personal dealings with the latter over the years. Then there are some really sad cases that I've only observed on the street. Do you really think I could have gone to art school, lived through disco, lived in Manhattan for 23 years, worked in the fashion, jewelry, high-end ladies' retail, and fine art fields without encountering a few real live trannies up close??

Hell, there were not one but TWO men dressed as women working the phones on the last political campaign I worked on. I was polite. But those two were MEN, and the only thing ambiguous about them was their grasp on reality.

The phenomenon you describe simply doesn't happen very often. You're not "born into the wrong body" simply because you think you are. You could only make that claim if you really were born with ambiguous genitalia, or with a male and a female set. And 100,000 isn't even a drop in the ocean in a population of 280 million (there are probably more albinos). It doesn't even begin to account for the number of people who've decided they're "transgendered".

[Katya]

I could easily make the assumption that many of these guys had no "real" male figure around growing up, the only people with any balls were female...therefore their role model for survival is female.
Obviously only a small percentage of fatherless boys grow up this confused.
The probability of needing to pay for a drug relationship also presents itself....let's just say it's easier to find a man willing to pay for a screw than a woman.