Factors associated with sex work involvement among transgender women in Jamaica: a cross-sectional study

Logie, Carmen H.; Wang, Ying; Lacombe‐Duncan, Ashley; Jones, Nicolette; Ahmed, Uzma; Levermore, Kandasi; Neil, Ava; Ellis, Tyrone; Bryan, Nicolette; Marshall, Annecka; Newman, Peter A.

doi:10.7448/ias.20.1.21422

Cited by 15 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The high probability of HIV-1 acquisition in transgender people is related to the legal and economic marginalisation that limit their employment options to sex work 7. The findings from Logie e t al 25 suggested that transgender women who are sex workers have a HIV-1 infection rates ninefold higher compared with transgender women not involved in sex work 25…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contribution of transgender sex workers to the complexity of the HIV-1 epidemic in the metropolitan area of Milan

et al. 2020

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ObjectivesTransgender people are disproportionately affected by the HIV-1 epidemic. We evaluated the origin of HIV-1 variants carried by South American transgenders living in Milan by combining accurate phylogenetic methods and epidemiological data.MethodsWe collected 156 HIV-1 pol sequences obtained from transgender patients engaged in sex work (TSWs) followed between 1999 and 2015 at L. Sacco Hospital, Milan, Italy. Phylogenetic analyses were conducted by HIV-TRACE, MrBayes, MacClade and Beast programs. Reference sequences were retrieved from Los Alamos and local databases. Last negative testing or proxy data from clinical records of infected individuals were used to investigate the country of infection.ResultsAmong South American TSWs, the most represented HIV-1 subtypes were B (70.5%), F1 (12.8%) and C (4.4%). Gene flow migrations of B subtype indicated significant fluxes from TSWs to Italians (21.3%) belonging to all risk groups (26.4% to heterosexuals (HEs), 18.9% to men who have sex with men (MSM), 15.1% to injecting drug users). The largest proportion of bidirectional fluxes were observed between Italians and TSWs (24.6%). For F1 subtype, bidirectional viral fluxes involved TSWs and Italians (7.1% and 14.3%), and a similar proportion of fluxes linked TSWs and Italian HEs or MSM (both 15.8%). Significant fluxes were detected from Italians to TSWs for subtype C involving both MSM (30%) and HEs (40%). Country of HIV-1 acquisition was identified for 72 subjects; overall, the largest proportion of patients with B subtype (73.5%) acquired HIV-1 infection in South America.ConclusionsOur results indicated that South American transgenders largely contribute to the heterogeneity of HIV-1 variants in our country. The high number of clusters based on all subtypes indicated numerous transmission chains in which TSWs were constantly intermixed with HEs and MSM. Our results strongly advocate interventions to facilitate prevention, diagnosis and HIV-1 care continuum among transgender people.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contribution of transgender sex workers to the complexity of the HIV-1 epidemic in the metropolitan area of Milan

et al. 2020

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“…Another study showed 36.9% of female sex workers suffer from partner physical abuse and are associated with higher rates of mental health problems [59]. Higher rates of sex work were found in African female sex workers facing intimate partner violence [61,62]. In fact, a study conducted in India on female sex workers showed that many young married girls are beaten and abused.…”

Section: Physical Abusementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, a study conducted in India on female sex workers showed that many young married girls are beaten and abused. This sexual and physical exploitation could be a motive for being a sex worker [61,62]. The emotional stress and the resulting mental health illnesses faced by women can consequently influence their choice of becoming a sex worker.…”

Section: Physical Abusementioning

confidence: 99%

Factors influencing women’s sex work in a Lebanese sample: results of a case-control study

Slim

Haddad²,

Sfeir

et al. 2020

BMC Women's Health

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Background: Many constituents contribute to the rise of sex work in Lebanon such as the socioeconomic situation in the country (poverty, increased unemployment rates, and religious divisions), as well as the political and social instability. Several emotional and psychological factors such as depression, stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, emotional abuse, may force some people to rely on trading sex as a coping strategy for persevering. Therefore, it was deemed interesting to explore and understand factors that are correlated with sex work in Lebanon where no study, to our knowledge, has been written on this critical point. The objective of the study was to assess factors (such as trauma, child abuse, partner abuse, depression, anxiety, and stress) associated with women joining sex work among a sample of the Lebanese population. Methods: A case-control study was conducted on a group of women (60 sex workers recruited from a prison for women) involved in sex work matched for age and sex with a control group (60 non-sex workers). Controls were chosen from the same prison population as the sex workers. Results: A logistic regression was conducted, taking being a sex worker vs not as the dependent variable; independent factors were sociodemographic characteristics, child (psychological, neglect, physical and verbal) and inter partner violence (physical and non-physical), depression, anxiety and stress. Higher anxiety (aOR = 1.08) and higher inter partner physical violence (aOR = 1.02) were altogether related with higher chances of being a sex worker. Conclusion: This study proposes an association between child abuse, inter partner violence, alcohol consumption, anxiety, and sex work. Future research may also need to contemplate other factors not examined here, including parental substance use, personality traits, and many others.

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“…There is no paucity of research articles on transgender women who work in the sex industry, and researchers have conducted studies around the globe and in countries such as China (Cai et al, ; Wang et al, ), Colombia (Bianchi et al, ), the Dominican Republic (Budhwani et al, ), India (Chakrapani, Newman, & Noronha, ), Jamaica (Logie et al, ), Malaysia (Nemoto, de Guzman, The, Iwamoto, & Trocki, ), Mexico (Infante, Sosa‐Rubi, & Cuadra, ), Pakistan (Collumbien et al, ; Usman, Khan, Bashir, Amjad, & Amjad, ); Peru (Degtyar et al, ), Portugal (Oliveira, ), South Africa (Samudzi & Mannell, ), Thailand, (Nemoto, de Guzman, et al, ), Turkey (Engin, ) and the United States (Nemoto, Operario, Keatley, Han, & Soma, , 2011; Sausa, Keatley, & Operario, , Wilson et al, , Hoffman, ). In much of this research, researchers focused on condomless sex between trans women who exchange sex for money with cisgender men, and how this high‐risk behavior contributed to high rates of HIV among transgender women in regions as diverse as China, Jamaica, Peru, and the Dominican Republic (e.g., Budhwani et al, ; Cai et al, ; Degtyar et al, ; Logie et al, ; Wang et al, ). Chakrapani et al, (2018) used a social exclusion framework that, without using the language of cissexism, examined the role of gender discrimination and marginalization as a motivation for trans women to trade sex.…”

Section: The Absence Of Transmasculine and Non‐binary People In Sex Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where The Trans Men and Enbies At?: Cissexism, Sexual Threat, and the Study of Sex Work

Jones

2020

Sociology Compass

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In this article, I examine the existing research on transgender sex workers and explore how cissexism and sexism overlap and shape this work. Overall, researchers assume that all trans sex workers are women, and all male sex workers are assumed to be cisgender. Transmasculine and other gender non-conforming sex workers are absent from studies of sex work. Researchers in public health and criminology dominate the literature and this research is limited because it focuses only on trans women and because it focuses primarily on disease and trauma, and almost exclusively on HIV. The literature I examined treats transgender women as a public health "problem" to be solved, rather than addressing their experiences and needs as workers and as people in our society. I argue that in order to have useful applied and policy implications aimed at harm reduction, researchers must use a sociological lens to document what structural conditions push and pull people of various genders into sex markets in the first place. Finally, I advocate for the use of queer, intersectional, and transnational frameworks in future lines of inquiries as a way to push the sociological and public health literature on sex work forward in a way that will benefit all sex workers, their advocates, and service providers.Enbies is a plural term for non-binary people. Throughout this article, I distinguish between trans people and non-binary people. It is critical to note that while some do, not all non-binary people identify as transgender.

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Factors associated with sex work involvement among transgender women in Jamaica: a cross-sectional study

Cited by 15 publications

References 46 publications

Contribution of transgender sex workers to the complexity of the HIV-1 epidemic in the metropolitan area of Milan

Contribution of transgender sex workers to the complexity of the HIV-1 epidemic in the metropolitan area of Milan

Factors influencing women’s sex work in a Lebanese sample: results of a case-control study

Where The Trans Men and Enbies At?: Cissexism, Sexual Threat, and the Study of Sex Work

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