KICK Tackles Tough Issues in Weekly Discussion Series
By Crystal A. Proxmire
Originally printed 12/1/2011 (Issue 1948 - Between The Lines News)
http://www.pridesource.com/article.html?article=50485 (http://www.pridesource.com/article.html?article=50485)
Transgender sex workers and Detroit's Red Light District was the topic of discussion at Live and Learn, a weekly discussion group hosted by KICK.
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On Nov. 22 the group heard from Bre Campbell, a 26 year old transgender woman from Detroit who earns her living doing HIV testing for the Horizons Project. Campbell talks with sex workers who come in for testing, and also is friends with other young transwomen who sell sex as a way to earn their living. "In the community I feel like a minority because I don't do sex work. In a way it is glorified and there are a lot of young transgender women that do fall into that stereotype. In the transgender community it is so glorified. I feel that because I don't participate in certain things, I act like I think a lot of myself....And I do. But it's not that I'm up here looking down. I think a lot of everyone who is out there in our community," she said, adding that "while there are a lot of young women that sell their bodies, there are also a lot of transgender women that don't. The majority of transgender people have other jobs and a lot you wouldn't even recognize as transgender. It's just that transgender sex workers are out there and that's what people see on the street and on TV. The rest of us aren't as prominent."