I have been researching the global sex trade for well over two decades, and my book on the topic remains one of the most comprehensive to date. I did a deep dive into the rates of murder, violence, and other forms of serious harm caused to women, men, and transgender people within the sex trade, and I have absolutely no doubt that the murders of transwomen are primarily perpetrated by pimps and punters within prostitution, and motivated by misogyny.
To suggest that these trans people were murdered because of transphobia is disingenuous and misleading. Any murder is a tragedy, but to frame it in this way is to twist the truth.
But quite the opposite. Perhaps the below might help in the understanding of why the trans lobby and the sex work lobby are so intertwined. Those who are women, men and transgender, those who are doing different types of sex work like stripping or BDSM and so forth. The common obstacles are that the sex workers are criminalised, there is abuse and corruption and violence on behalf of the state authorities, and the absence or lack of access to good secure house services.
There are several arguments used to claim that the experience of being transgender and being prostituted are very similar, if not the same thing. One is that many trans women cannot find regular employment, or need fast cash in order to pay for surgery, and therefore turn to the sex trade. In fact, aside from trans women, women are excluded from the equation altogether. Both groups seem to realise how important merging their interests is. Pro-prostitution lobbyists regularly tap into support from the transgender lobby and vice versa.
I came to realise just how handy this was for both groups during the campaign to introduce a law in British Parliament to criminalise those who pay for sex. It was and a proposed bill was being debated that would criminalise the purchase of sex from a person who was trafficked or otherwise coerced. It was still considered important to get this bill through, even though many were sceptical about it because it separated the women who could show that they had been pimped or forced in some way from those who were being otherwise abused and exploited in the sex trade, and it would be practically impossible to police.
