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Sold In America

5. Survival Sex

Sold In America

Stitcher Studios

Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.63.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2018

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Noor meets Laya, a trans woman of color who became a sex worker after she was shut out from her family and job. It’s called survival sex -- sex work done purely to survive. What makes sex work dangerous for people like Laya is that she can’t report violent buyers to the police without fear of being arrested. Now, she’s trying to get a new law passed by the Washington, D.C. city council to decriminalize the buying and selling of sex. Is this the solution Noor has been searching for, or just a band-aid? You can hear ad-free episodes of Sold in America only on Stitcher Premium. For a free month of premium, go to stitcherpremium.com and use promo code 'AMERICA'.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi everyone, before we begin, please be advised that this podcast does contain adult themes,

0:06.7

and it is intended for a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised.

0:17.8

There's this intersection in the heart of downtown DC that I've been to so many times.

0:23.6

It's close to high-end hotels and my favorite restaurant called Bus Boys and Poets where I'm

0:29.2

always at brunch. I've walked up and down these streets for years, but today I'm seeing these

0:35.8

streets through completely new eyes, through the eyes of Lea Monatus. I'd come here occasionally,

0:44.1

and during that time a lot of these buildings were not here. A lot of this has built up in the last

0:48.8

like 10 years and it's been super-gender-fied, but at the time it was a little more rundown,

0:55.2

more quiet, and a lot of the girls would come here and do work. It's this newly-gender-fied part of

1:03.2

town, and to be honest, most people would never think this was a hotspot for sex work.

1:10.8

As Lea and I walked down the sidewalk, I look at all of the new high-rise buildings under construction.

1:16.9

People wander in and out of dozens of new restaurants that keep popping up in the past few years.

1:22.4

I start to look at this block differently than I ever have before.

1:29.6

If you want to see a picture of us on the street together, text Lea to the number 202 804 2480.

1:37.8

That's LA YA to the number 202 804 2480.

1:45.1

Lea has always been an artist. She wears her dark brown hair just below her shoulders with bangs and

1:53.5

black rim to glasses. Right now she has on a short dress and flats and she's wearing a black

1:59.1

leather backpack. She has a great job. She's the membership outreach coordinator with the Human

2:04.7

Rights Campaign. That's a group that fights for the rights of the LGBT community. But years ago,

2:11.6

things weren't so stable for her. The sun is just beginning to set as Lea brings me back to a time

2:18.5

when this street looked very, very different. The time I was a schoolteacher, I was teaching art

2:25.6

at a middle school. Couldn't have been happier. Absolutely loved it. But the assistant principal

...

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