Overview

This study examines the intersection of systemic racism and transphobia in the criminal legal system by analyzing the criminalization of Black, trans individuals for sex work. While doing so, I explain how the stigmatization and policing of Black, trans sex workers reflects racist, transphobic fictionalizations of Black and trans bodies as inherently sexually deviant. I further explain how these fictions are rooted in the U.S.'s history of White supremacist colonization. After recording, transcribing, and analyzing the oral histories of four Black, trans individuals who have been criminalized for sex work, I discern four main themes regarding their experiences and insights. These themes include patterns of systemic racism and transphobia that increase their likelihood of relying on sex work for survival, direct forms of violence perpetrated by agents of the criminal legal system, indirect forms of violence perpetrated by the system, and the various institutional, social, and political changes necessary to secure the safety and rights of Black, trans sex workers. This study reveals the criminal legal system as an institution which functions less as an arbiter for justice than an institution that forwards the biopolitical interests of hegemonic society. By disciplining non-heteronormative bodies, in this case those of Black, trans sex workers, the criminal legal system reinforces White, cis-heteropatriarchal dominance and maintains marginalized communities' positions at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

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