A queer defence of the sex trade

The unholy alliance between trans activists and pro-prostitution lobbyists

It’s the annual ‘trans murder monitoring’ report, and looking at the stats, I was moved to publish an abridged version of one of my chapters in my book The Pimping of Prostitution: abolishing the sex work myth (2017). You will see that, according to the report, “globally, almost half (48%) of murdered trans people whose occupation was known were sex workers. This jumps to three-quarters (78%) in Europe.”

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.

You would wonder, wouldn’t you, if so many transwomen involved in prostitution are murdered and seriously harmed, trans activists would campaign for an end to the sex trade? 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.

Julie Bindel, 2017

The Pact between Trans and ‘Sex Workers’ Rights’

“We have managed in recent years to bring together in our movement, a very diverse range of people who are either directly in sex work or related to sex work. 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. So by identifying those common obstacles they can build alliances and grow the organisation and that’s the only way to go forward.”

Irina Maslova, Silver Rose, Russia, 2015

The rise of transgender identity politics has brought with it a strident attempt to merge the identities of prostitution and so-called ‘gender-queer’. 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. Another is the queer argument that we are all part of one big happy rainbow alliance and ‘sex workers’ rights’, trans rights and queer rights are one thing. What this argument loses is an analysis of men’s power in relation to women. In fact, aside from trans women, women are excluded from the equation altogether.

The recently constructed acronyms even lend to my theory that the transgender and ‘sex workers’ rights’ issues have become amalgamated to the point where you literally cannot support one without supporting the other. SWERF (Sex Worker Exclusive Radical Feminists) and TERF (Trans Exclusive Radical Feminists) handily rhyme. 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 2009 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.

Belinda Brooks-Gordon, a former Liberal Democrat Councillor, is one of the key pro-prostitution academics in the UK who regularly criticises work about the sex trade by those who do not share her ideology. Brooks-Gordon was a signatory on the complaint published in the Guardian newspaper about the bigger brothel research that I was co-author of. And I have debated with her on a number of occasions, including at Cambridge University and on the BBC Radio 4 programme Woman’s Hour.

In the build-up to the debate in Parliament and the House of Lords about the new bill, Brooks-Gordon was heavily involved in rallying the troops to argue against it. She posted messages on punter websites such as those on which sex buyers ‘review’ the prostituted women they buy. Steve Elrond, who is a prolific sex buyer, lobbyist for blanket decriminalisation and owner of websites that advertise women to other sex buyers. He posted a message from Brooks-Gordon on his then personal website^, which is no longer live but still accessible on archive websites.

“Dr Belinda Brooks Gordon [sic] who is brilliant at lobbying for our rights has asked that the following be circulated,” wrote Elrond. Brooks-Gordon’s message outlined the reasons why both prostituted women (or ‘sex workers’ as she put it) and sex buyers (‘clients’) should lobby MPs of all parties in order to get them to vote against introducing a law criminalising demand. She went on to explain how important it was to form alliances across different issues, before explaining her next move:

“On Thursday night I am speaking to a transgender group to explain why they should oppose the Bill (some are shakey [sic] on this) – it was one thing for them doing the anti-Bindel nomination demo at the Stonewall awards”, wrote Brooks-Gordon, “but sex work is another issue for them so am working on this. There were good links built up over the demo so will keep you posted as to where they are on this. If anyone wants to come along they are welcome.”

The previous year, I had been nominated and shortlisted in the category of ‘Journalist of the Year’ at the annual Stonewall Awards. As soon as my nomination was announced, the transgender community and much of the gay press went into overdrive. I am regularly accused of ‘transphobia’ on the strength of an article I wrote in the Guardian Weekend Magazine in 2004. I had not asked to be nominated for the award, but as soon as the protest started I knew that I had to turn up to the event or it could have looked as if I had been intimidated out of doing so.

On arrival, I saw that there were well over 100 protesters arguing that my nomination should have been withdrawn and that I peddled “hate speech”. Alongside the trans-activists were a number of pro-prostitution lobbyists and a smattering of academics. The demonstration was the largest in the history of transgender activism in the UK and there was much publicity relating to it.

One of the main organisers of the demonstration was Sarah Brown, who is a colleague of Brooks-Gordon. Following the Stonewall saga, Brooks-Gordon saw an opportunity to get members of the transgender lobby on board in opposing the law to criminalise the demand, and to fight for blanket decriminalisation of the sex trade.

What is interesting, at least according to Brooks-Gordon, is that at that time in 2009, some of the transgender lobbyists were “shaky” about coming out in support of the pro-prostitution line. Today they are anything but, and I am yet to find a transgender lobbyist who is anti-prostitution.

Currently in the UK, several local branches and two main political parties give responsibility on drafting and implementing policy on prostitution in the sex trade to their LGBT caucuses. The Liberal Democrats, for example, regularly have trans women speaking at conference, attempting to pass motions to support the blanket decriminalisation of the sex trade. This is the same with the Green Party (except they describe themselves as LGBTIQA+) and some local branches of the Labour Party.

For example, a key member of the LGBT caucus in the Islington branch of the Labour Party is Catherine Stephens. Stephens is a founder of the IUSW, the fake union populated by pro-prostitution academics, punters, pimps, brothel owners and other lobbyists for decriminalisation of the sex trade. For the past 10 years I have seen Stephens at conferences and other public meetings and have never heard her declare herself lesbian or bisexual. However, she now identifies as bisexual, which means that she has been granted legitimacy within the LGBT group.

Trans Influence on ‘Sex Work’

Sarah Noble is a Liberal Democrat activist and pro-prostitution trans woman. In 2014, Noble made a speech to conference calling for decriminalisation. Brown, also a trans woman, additionally made a speech at conference calling for decriminalisation.

Janet Mock is a male-to-female transgender activist who catapulted into the public arena with the publication of her memoir about growing up transgender, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More in 2014. In the video accompanying the book, Mock appears to celebrate children’s involvement in the sex trade: “I was 15 the first time I visited Merchant Street, what some would call ‘the stroll’ for trans women involved in street-based sex work. At the time, I had just begun medically transitioning and it was where younger girls, like my friends and myself, would go to hang out, flirt and fool around with guys and socialise with older trans women, the legends of our community.

Mock goes on to explain how she “idolised” the prostituted trans women in the area, including those who were used in pornography and in strip clubs. “These women were the first trans women I met and I quickly correlated trans womanhood and sex work,” says Mock, explaining that she came to understand the role of the sex trade as a “rite of passage” for trans girls.

Mock is disparaging about the role of the media betraying prostitution as “shameful and degrading”. Like many pro prostitution lobbyists, Mock considers the stigma attached to prostitution as extremely harmful, placing it above the harm done to prostituted people by sex buyers, pimps and brothel owners. In fact, Mock strongly suggests that any condemnation of the sex trade will lead to violence against those selling sex, claiming that anyone with a negative view of the sex trade “dehumanises” prostituted people.

Mock states: “Sex workers are often dismissed, causing even the most liberal folk, to dehumanise, devalue and demean women who are engaged in the sex trades. This pervasive dehumanisation of women in the sex trade leads many to ignore the silencing, brutality, policing, criminalisation and violence sex workers face, even blaming them for being utterly damaged, promiscuous, and unworthy.”

As Mock had earlier said, she had learned to link prostitution with being transgender and argues that, because she had learned that prostitution was viewed as shameful she began to view being transgender as shameful: “I couldn’t separate it from my own body image issues, my sense of self, my internalised shame about being trans, brown, poor, young, woman.”

This is a bizarre and dangerous argument. Mock is effectively saying that unless we completely normalise and de-stigmatise the sex trade, trans women such as herself will never be able to feel proud of their ‘womanhood’. Think about the implications here: first of all the total conflation of prostitution with being transgender, coupled with the somewhat manipulative argument that if we don’t understand prostitution as ‘empowering’ then trans women will experienced self-hatred.

Mock writes: “These women taught me that nothing was wrong with me or my body, and that if I wanted they would show me the way, and it was this underground railroad of resources created by low-income, marginalised women, that enabled me when I was 16 to jump in a car with my first regular and choose a pathway to my survival and liberation.”

There we have it: prostitution is about liberation and any condemnation of it means that marginalised women and girls will not be able to survive.

“Transphobia” – A Slur to Abolitionists

At a 2011 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where both pro prostitution lobby groups and transgender rights organisations are highly organised (united by a hatred of radical feminism), I was heckled during my speech on violence within the sex trade by a number of men and women waving placards with slogans such as “End Transphobia” and “Sex Workers’ Rights are Trans Rights”.

I was speaking at the conference, a joint effort between the feminist abolitionist organisation and the Danish government, with Janice Raymond, who authored The Transsexual Empire in 1979. Raymond, along with myself and a number of other radical feminists who take a position against the sex trade and against the notion that gender is innate or linked to biological sex, is often prevented from speaking on a number of platforms.

As I write, I have just been disinvited as a keynote speaker at a conference on prostitution and trafficking in Oslo, Norway. My talk was to focus on the tactics and arguments of the pro-prostitution lobby internationally. The conference was organised by the Socialist Left Party of Norway (SV). One week before the event, the feminist organisation Women’s Front, who were collaborating with SV in organising the event, were told that they had to disinvite me on the grounds of ‘transphobia’. There had been several complaints from trans people that I would be threatening their ‘safe space’. The complainants had registered to attend the conference but when it was announced that I had been withdrawn, they promptly cancelled their attendance. The complainants were all identified to me as pro-prostitution by feminists involved in the conference, as well as by a journalist who covered the story of my ban.

SV, officially at least, supports the law that criminalises the demand for prostitution, which was introduced in Norway in 2008. Twitter threads examined by feminist journalist and blogger Megan Murphy, founder of Feminist Current, and others, revealed that the protest against me was orchestrated by male members of SV who are unhappy with Norway's sex buyer laws decriminalising the purchase of sex and the SV's support of that law.

Moreover, it was demonstrable that these men had never complained or protested about the stuff that actually harms trans women: male violence and the male violence carried out in the sex trade that I was planning on discussing. These men self-evidently had no concern for the real issues affecting the lives of trans women save its utility as a ruse to undermine the very law that most effectively protects them.

Following an article in the daily leftist newspaper Klassekampen about me being no platformed, a letter from one of the main instigators of the of the campaign to stop me from speaking at the event was published by Ingvild Endestad, leader of FRI (The Association of Gender and Sexuality Diversity), a close ally of PION, a pro-prostitution organisation in Norway. Endestad was clearly displeased by the fact that the journalist who wrote the piece had interviewed me. “SV could have created an arena where Bindel’s opinions on transgender people could have been challenged,” wrote Endestad. “Instead, she was offered a lectern where she could talk freely without having to be held accountable for her discriminatory opinions.” Perhaps Endestad is proposing that anyone who is speaking at a public event, and has views that she doesn’t approve of on transgender, should be grilled about that topic whatever they are speaking about?

Vilification of Feminist Positions on Gender

The connection between transgender activists and the pro-prostitution lobby groups is often explained by claiming that many trans women enter the sex trade because of being excluded from the mainstream job market. I would suggest another connection: part of the whole trans woman identity is about presenting as hyper-sexualised. Because there is no such thing as a natural woman, all it can ever be is an idealised image and that image is created by the male gaze.

The ridiculousness of the postmodern take on transgenderism, prostitution and race is perfectly highlighted in a paper from the Graduate Journal of Social Science (2105) by Jet Young entitled ‘Blurred Lines: The Contested Nature of Sex Work in a Changing Social Landscape’, and sub headed: ‘A Chinese diasporic trans rentboy, reflects on the contested arena of sex work. Ponderings on whorephobia as a strategy of imperialism, the continued oppression of femininity, and the murky politics of penetration.’

Piggybacking on the LGBT Campaigns

In a Huffington Post article entitled ‘Why LGBT and Sex Worker Rights Go Hand-In-Hand’, the writer Stephanie Farnsworth, who describes herself as an ‘intersectional feminist’, argues that: “The heart of the demand for LGBT rights is the idea that all people should be granted autonomy over their lives and bodies, that anyone should be allowed to sleep with who they choose and that it only concerns the people in the relationship and not the government or bigots. The very same idea is at the core of the fight for sex workers. Why should they not be granted the same freedom? Why should they not be allowed to have sex with who they choose? It is simply hypocritical for LGBT activists to fight for bodily autonomy but deny it to sex workers.”

From emotional labour to sex, housework to being a wife or girlfriend, the queer liberal line is to redefine exploitation as work. As Kajsa Ekis Ekman, a journalist and feminist, who wrote the searing critique of surrogacy and its similarities to prostitution, Being and Being Bought told me: “The queer movement is a refuge for some people in prostitution who found that, if you drink to excess and do a lot of drugs, or have been in prostitution, the queer movement won’t judge you. There’s a lot of self-destruction in that movement that is glorifying experiences that are not good for you and that goes for the gay movement, too.”

Pro-prostitution campaigners are well aware of the advantage to them of aligning themselves with a wider group of ‘subversives’. In the same way that a very small transgender community attached itself to the Lesbian and Gay Liberation Movement at the beginning of 2000, the ‘sex workers’ rights’ movement saw an opportunity for wider support from this new and ever-growing rainbow alliance. The lesbian and gay movement had become the LGBT movement, and then continued to expand until it encompassed pretty much every letter of the alphabet leaving out very few groups including, it would appear, the majority of heterosexuals.

One of those activists who reaped the benefits of the new alliance is Irina Maslova, founder of the Russian project Silver Rose. During our interview she told me that in recent years Silver Rose has succeeded in bringing together a very diverse range of people “who are either directly in sex work related to sex work”.

According to Maslova, those people comprise of people in street and off-street prostitution, drug users and “those who work for themselves independently and those who work for third parties.” She continued: “We have women, men and transgender, and those who are doing different types of sex work like stripping or BDSM and so forth. So they managed to create this united movement by finding the common denominator.”