Comments on: World AIDS Day: a time for reflection /opinion/world-aids-day-a-time-for-reflection/66715 Setting Australia’s LGBTI agenda since 1979 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:18:15 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 By: Sally Goldner /opinion/world-aids-day-a-time-for-reflection/66715#comment-88662 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:18:15 +0000 https://starobserver.com.au/?p=66715#comment-88662 Ryan

I accept the points raised; I offer the following clarifications:

There are still people who turn to sex work because they believe it is the only option for employment. This comes from conversations with people working/recently working in the industry who are trans within the last year. The unwillingness therefore comes froma lack of accurate and up-to-date information about choices (at least in a Melbourne context) rather than seeing sex work as degrading.

Second, my thinking at the time of writing was in a world context, not just a Melbourne/Australian context. Places with different practices or laws to us are likely to therefore run higher risks.

Again, trust this clarifies.

]]> By: Ryan Orion /opinion/world-aids-day-a-time-for-reflection/66715#comment-88633 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:06:23 +0000 https://starobserver.com.au/?p=66715#comment-88633 While its true that there is high rates of discrimination in lots of industries towards trans people I would suggest the way you reword the way you spoke about sex work. Writing about people unwillingly rather than willingly ‘turning’ to sex work further perpetuates stigma against sex workers as desparate and sex work as something that people only do as a last resort [because its ‘degrading’ etc] While some people may feel that the sex industry is one of the few industries that will accommodate their needs maybe this needs to be framed as a problem with other industries in being transphobic and the sex industry being less transphobic and more flexible. It also takes away sex workers’ agency in how they have chosen to make their money because most of us have to work for money under capitilism. Some of us may have few choices but that doesn’t make us instant victims just coz we are doing sex work. (ie we wouldn’t say people turn unwillingly rather than willingly to work in supermarkets, coz even though we say that it might be boring we also recognize that they can make this choice and they may have other motivating factors like money)
Secondly I don’t know if you were talking about sex workers being exposed to HIV risk or other risks, but if it was HIV risk I think its pertinent to mention that sex workers are safe sex experts and we have lower rates of STIs than the general population.

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