Personal Narrative: My Experience As A Sex Worker

Early Life I was born on March 10th, 1983 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Because of the body I was born in, the doctor’s proclaimed me a boy. I lived with this term in my early life. Though this term is still used to describe me in my younger years, it is one I wish I could change. I have always been a girl, all my life, not only since my genital reconstruction surgery (Mock, 2011b). My parents allowed me to be myself from a young age, as long as I did well in school. Though concerned, and therefore resistant at times, they never questioned me. They never encouraged me to express my feminine side either, however. Despite this, they always let me know, however silently, that I was exactly who I was suppose to by and I will always love them for that. My siblings were always the greatest, allowing me to be their sister and not hesitating when I sat them down and asked for them to call me Janet (Mock, 2011a). Even with my family, growing up as a trans is always a struggle. The vision I had of myself was not the way I was perceived by others. Constantly, I struggled to understand why I wasn’t like other girls (Mock, 2011b).

Experience as a Sex Worker …show more content…
I used the money I earned to pay for the health care my family couldn’t afforded. A year before beginning, at age 15, I just had started my transition. Merchant Street, where you could find trans women who were involved in street-based sex work, was a place were younger girls would hang out. These women, the ones involved in sex work, were the first trans women I ever met. This led to a belief that trans women and sex work interconnected, and while I perceived sex work as a rite of passage for a trans girl, I also knew it to be degrading, as portrayed by the media. This led to me finding a connection meaning being trans is being shameful (Mock,