‘In the eyes of the law I might be a man but what do I look like?’: trans women and sex work in 1980s and 1990s England

This article considers the precarious position of trans sex workers in 1980 s and early 1990 s England by examining the ambiguities of medico-legal interpretations of their identities and labour. Despite being hypervisible to state policing, trans women were largely invisible in sex work legislation that adhered to binary gender norms. Through an analysis of existing oral histories and newspaper reports of court cases, this paper explores trans women’s experiences in the context of the emerging HIV/AIDS epidemic and highlights the systemic violence, criminalisation, as well as the ‘everyday activisms’ that characterised trans sex work in this period. I argue that the history of trans sex work sheds light on broader themes of economic marginalisation and gender, asserting that this analysis is crucial for understanding the interplay of sex work and the politics of sexuality in late twentieth-century England. By doing so, this article considers trans sex work in late twentieth-century English history for the first time.