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

Captive Genders“The Hustler” marks with melancholy a particular intersection ofhomophobia and economic marginalization often articulated by Vanguardyouth in their more overtly political writing on sex work, whichoften denounced the businessmen who refused to hire drag queens andeffeminate boys in their offices and stores during the day but who benefitedfrom the presence of cheap, easily available hustlers on the streetsat night, and who would then turn around once again in the morning tocomplain about the “filth” on the streets where they were trying to operatelegitimate businesses. We see this argument made quite forcefully ina Vanguard flyer:We protest being called “queer,” “pillhead,” and being placed in theposition of being outlaws and parasites when we are offered no alternativeto this existence…. We demand justice and immediate correctionsof the fact that most of the money made in the area is madeby the exploitation of youth by so-called normal adults who make afast buck off situations everyone calls degenerate, perverted and sick. 14Here we see that Vanguard, unlike the homophile movement fromwhich it sprung, framed their position as sexual outsiders in terms of classstruggle and economic justice. The group’s centralization of the sex workeras the typical Vanguard youth produced a strong sense of identity amonggroup members not only as homosexual and transsexual, but also as economicallymarginalized by their sexuality. This outlook helped to producea radical class analysis of public space, of sex work, and of queerness itselfthat is reflected in Vanguard’s demonstrations and publications.Transgender street sex-workers were particularly vulnerable to encounterswith the police while they worked because drag itself was treatedas a criminal offense. This is made clear in another poem from Vanguard’s“Night Songs” section, “The Fairytale Ballad of Katy the Queen” by MissShari Kenyon:She’s a Queen, oh Maryand you know it.She’s a Queen, my luvand she shows it.She thinks she looks and acts so fairBut she’s only a fakeand we know it!46