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.

[muir_redwoods]

You are entitled to your opinion but no amount of certainty on your part will alter what I know to be true. Take comfort in your conclusions.

[dixie sass]

I'm sorry, but I can find nothing in this story that would make me feel sorry these people. They, male or female, have chosen their own life-style or as my Momma use to say "They made their own beds, now they have to lie in it."

The possibilities for education and a job that is not demeaning are there. Why they won't take advantage of it, I don't know.

No, I pity them - not feel sorry for them.

[hellinahandcart]

Back at ya...

[hellinahandcart]

The possibilities for education and a job that is not demeaning are there. Why they won't take advantage of it, I don't know.

Self-hatred. They simply radiate it.

And they are the most acutely self-conscious people you'd ever want to meet. Odd, when you consider they claim to only "feel like themselves" when posing as the gender they are not.

What they get out of the lifestyle, I don't know. It certainly doesn't appear to be sex. They may give a lot of it, especially if they're working as prostitutes, but they sure don't seem to get much or really even be after that as a main objective. They're seeking some level of affirmation of their externals that most people aren't capable of giving them, and they're willing to sacrifice any semblance of normalcy or dignity in order to get it. There's every reason to pity them.

I really don't know what makes them tick, but I do know that to call it "biological" when it clearly isn't is a copout.