Stanley-Eric-Captive-Genders-Trans-Embodiment-and-Prison-Industrial-Complex

Identities Under Seigethat sex work is simply “immoral,” social systems that force many queersof color into sex work for mere survival and that maintain inequalitiesbased on race, class, gender, and sexuality are erased. Similarly, the criminalizationof sex work forces many queers of color to remain silent aboutviolence committed against them for fear of legal indictment. LGBT personsof color often feel isolated and vulnerable because of the ongoingviolent relationship between their communities and police departmentsdue to racism, community policing in poor areas, and anti-gay violenceat the hands of law enforcement. Criminalization thus leaves sex workersmore vulnerable and subject to greater exploitation, violence, and harm.Jessica Mercado, Shelby Tracey Tom, Christina Smith, Selena Álvarez-Hernández, and Donathyn Rodgers are just a few examples among thecountless transgender victims of color that are frequently unnamed, unknown,or their murders unsolved. Gender transgression and materialand economic conditions enable a disproportionate amount of violenceto occur against transpersons of color. Racism within the LGBT community,homophobia within communities of color, and racialized economicinequality, force transgender persons of color into extremely vulnerableand volatile positions, lacking access to resources, social services, and oftentimespushed into streets, where homelessness, sex work, and drugsbecome the only means for survival.Hate Crimes Laws = Emancipation for Whom?In theory, hate crimes legislation has been created to protect the rightsof individuals who have been victimized by hate-motivated violence.However, this legislation also enforces extremely narrow, binary views ofidentity. Because of the interconnectedness of racism, classism, and heterosexism,hate crimes against queers of color are not individual acts ofviolence but larger structural inequities that disproportionately target specificgroups of people. Hate crimes do not just affect the individual who isattacked, but also generate a message of violence that spreads communitywide.When transpersons of color are murdered, the effects of these crimesdo not just spread within the racial or ethnic population or the queercommunity, but through both, including the various ways in which thesecommunities intersect. 52The legal system enacts its own form of violence against LGBT personsof color, and this has direct implications on how hate crimes are triedand which cases are publicized. Andrew Sharpe highlights how one of themajor theoretical problems in transgender legal reform is determining the153