Trans people and sex work: data and reality

Among the most deeply rooted prejudices about transgender people is the idea that they are all involved in sex work. This automatic association is false, reductive, and harmful: it not only distorts the public perception of an entire community but contributes to justifying discrimination and violence. At the same time, ignoring the fact that some trans people do engage in sex work — often as a consequence of economic marginalization — would mean denying a reality that deserves attention and respect, not judgment.

This article examines the available data to dismantle the stereotype while simultaneously analyzing the structural causes that push some trans people toward sex work.

What the numbers say

The first step to dismantling a prejudice is to compare it with data. And the data tells a very different story from the stereotype.

According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey — the largest survey of transgender people conducted at that time, with over 27,000 participants — about 12-13% of trans respondents reported having engaged in sex work at some point in their lives [8]. This means that about 87% had never done so. The vast majority of trans people work in the most common sectors: education, healthcare, retail, technology, food service, public services.

The finding was confirmed and expanded by subsequent studies. A 2024 analysis published in the Journal of Homosexuality examined sex work patterns in the trans and gender-diverse community, confirming that it is a minority experience not representative of the entire transgender population [12].

The percentage of participation in sex work varies significantly by subgroup: trans women are about twice as likely as trans men to have engaged in sex work at some point in their lives, and trans people of color are overrepresented among those who have had this experience [8][12]. These data indicate that sex work is not linked to being trans per se, but to the specific conditions of marginalization that affect some segments of the community more than others.

Where the stereotype comes from

If reality is so different from the prejudice, why is the association between trans people and sex work so deeply rooted in the collective imagination? The reasons are multiple and intertwined.

Distorted media representation

The media play a central role in constructing and maintaining this stereotype. As documented by the Beck Institute, nearly all trans people interviewed in studies on media representation report having been exposed to negative and reductive messages in the media in the previous 12 months, and greater exposure to these messages is correlated with higher levels of anxiety and depression [9].

The dominant meta-stereotypical representation of a transgender person in Italian media is that of a trans woman who engages in prostitution, with a life described through the lens of excess [9]. In crime films, TV series, and news reports, trans people are often shown as murder victims or involved in illegal activities. This overexposure of a single narrative — concerning a minority of the community — is mistaken by the public for the norm.

As observed in The Vision, the first form of violence that trans people suffer is precisely the way they are talked about: a narrative that reduces them to marginal characters, when not openly stigmatizing ones [13].

The Italian historical context

In Italy, the stereotype also has concrete historical roots. In the 1970s and 1980s, for many trans people — especially trans women — prostitution was one of the few means of livelihood in a context of total social and employment exclusion. In those decades, being trans often meant being expelled from one’s family, not having documents consistent with one’s identity, and being subjected to police raids.

That reality, while historically documented, has crystallized in the collective imagination as if it were immutable. But the context has changed: trans people today access a wider range of career paths, even if significant barriers remain, as we will see.

Selective visibility

There is a cognitive mechanism underlying many prejudices: selective visibility. Trans people who engage in street-based sex work are visible; trans people who work in offices, hospitals, laboratories, or businesses are not. The eye sees what confirms its expectation and ignores everything else. This confirmation bias feeds the stereotype and makes it resistant to data.

The reality of employment discrimination

If we want to understand why a percentage — minority but real — of trans people engage in sex work, we must look at the structural conditions that limit their alternatives.

International data

The international picture is unequivocal. According to the 2024 Williams Institute report, 82% of transgender workers in the United States have experienced discrimination or harassment at work over the course of their lives [2]. This includes terminations, hiring refusals, promotion denials, and verbal, physical, and sexual harassment.

Some specific data: trans people are four times as likely as cisgender LGB colleagues to not be hired (20% versus 5%), twice as likely to be fired (12% versus 5%), and three times as likely to not be promoted (15% versus 5%) [2]. Seventy-one percent adopt masking behaviors in the workplace to avoid discrimination [2].

The unemployment rate for trans people is about double that of the general population, and 29% live in poverty — more than double the U.S. national average [11].

Italian data

In Italy, the 2023 ISTAT-UNAR survey on employment discrimination against trans and non-binary people paints an alarming and specific picture [3].

66.1% of trans and non-binary people whose identity was visible or recognizable during their studies experienced discrimination at school or university due to their gender identity [3]. The problem worsens in the workplace: one in two people experienced at least one episode of discrimination in their job search. 46.4% gave up attending an interview or submitting an application despite being qualified, because they knew their gender identity would compromise the outcome [3].

57.1% of employed or formerly employed people believe that their trans or non-binary identity constituted a disadvantage in working life in at least one area: career, professional recognition, or pay [3]. 40.6% experienced at least one discriminatory episode in the workplace, with an even higher incidence among trans women (54.3%) [3].

The 2022 Inclusion4All report confirmed the existence of two main discriminatory dynamics: discrimination at entry into the labor market — which translates into direct exclusion — and horizontal or vertical bullying in the workplace, which pushes many trans people to leave their jobs [4].

The European context

The third EU LGBTIQ Survey by the FRA (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights), conducted in 2023 with nearly 140,000 participants, found that 21% of LGBTIQ+ people in Italy felt discriminated against at work or in job searches in the year preceding the survey [6]. The report highlighted that trans and intersex people face even higher levels of victimization compared to the rest of the LGBTIQ+ community [6].

Sex work as a consequence, not an identity characteristic

When data on employment discrimination is placed alongside data on sex work, the picture becomes clear: sex work in the trans community is not an identity choice but very often a consequence of economic marginalization.

A 2013 study published on PubMed systematically analyzed the roots of trans women’s involvement in sex work, identifying three levels of discrimination that contribute to it: systemic (laws and policies that fail to protect), institutional (schools and employers that exclude), and interpersonal (violence and rejection in everyday relationships) [5]. The intertwining of these three levels creates a spiral in which economic alternatives progressively narrow.

The Trans Income Project documented that 69.3% of trans people who have engaged in sex work experienced some form of employment discrimination in the formal sector, and that these individuals are more than twice as likely to live in extreme poverty compared to the rest of the trans community [10]. The data is eloquent: this is not a “predisposition” but a chain effect of discrimination.

Among the most frequently cited reasons by trans women who engage or have engaged in sex work are “better pay compared to available alternatives” and “inability to find employment due to gender discrimination” [10]. Forty percent attempted — unsuccessfully — to leave sex work, a sign that for many it is not a free choice but a condition imposed by circumstances [10].

Violence as an aggravating factor

Trans people who engage in sex work are exposed to enormously higher levels of violence compared to the rest of the community. According to the U.S. Transgender Survey data, 72% of trans people who have engaged in sex work experienced sexual violence in their lifetime, compared to 44% of those who have not engaged in sex work [8] — an already dramatically high figure.

The monitoring of trans people’s murders conducted by TGEU (Transgender Europe) in 2025 recorded 281 murders of trans and gender-diverse people globally in a single year [7]. Thirty-four percent of victims whose employment was known were engaged in sex work. The previous year, this percentage reached 46% [7]. Ninety percent of recorded murders were of trans women or transfeminine people, and 88% of victims were people of color [7].

Italy, in this European context, holds a concerning position: it is the EU country with the highest number of documented murders of trans people after Turkey [7].

These data make it clear that the issue is not moral — whether sex work is “right” or “wrong” — but one of safety and human rights. Trans people in sex work are among the most vulnerable people in the world and deserve protection, not judgment.

Why the stigma harms everyone

The stereotype associating trans people with sex work does not only harm those who actually do this work. It has cascading effects on the entire community.

For trans people who do not engage in sex work, the stereotype fuels prejudices in job interviews, social settings, and daily life. Being viewed through the lens of sexualization makes it harder to be recognized as professionals, colleagues, neighbors, ordinary people.

For trans people who do engage in sex work, the double stigmatization — being trans and doing sex work — renders them invisible in the public debate except as subjects of crime news or moralism. Anti-trafficking policies, when formulated without considering the specificity of the trans condition, can paradoxically increase the vulnerability of trans sex workers rather than protecting them.

For society as a whole, the stereotype simplifies a complex issue and prevents addressing the structural causes: employment discrimination, lack of specific legal protections, absence of adequate professional reintegration programs.

What is needed to change things

Countering this stereotype requires action on multiple levels.

On the cultural level, it is necessary to promote media representations of trans people that reflect the real variety of their lives and professions [13]. This is not about hiding the topic of sex work, but about ceasing to treat it as the only possible story.

On the legislative level, Italy needs explicit anti-discrimination protections based on gender identity in the workplace. The 2023 ISTAT-UNAR survey clearly shows that workplace discrimination is not an exception but a rule for many trans people [3]: without an adequate legal framework, cultural change remains fragile.

On the services level, specific employment programs for trans people are needed, accompanied by training for employers and diversity management policies in companies [4]. The Inclusion4All report documented existing best practices in Europe and their applicability to the Italian context.

On the solidarity level, it is essential that countering the stereotype does not come at the expense of trans people who actually engage in sex work. Defending trans people’s rights does not mean distancing oneself from those who do sex work, but recognizing that every person — regardless of their occupation — deserves respect, safety, and access to their rights.

Conclusion

The idea that trans people are “all in sex work” is a prejudice disproven by data [8]. The vast majority of trans people work in the same sectors as the general population. When a trans person engages in sex work, it is far more often the consequence of discrimination that has deprived them of alternatives, not an identity choice [5][10].

Addressing this issue honestly means holding two truths together: the stereotype is false, and the reality of employment discrimination that pushes some trans people toward sex work is a serious problem that requires concrete responses, not moral judgments. A society that claims to be just cannot merely “debunk the myth” without committing to removing the structural causes that fuel it.