Beyond stigma and compassion: trans women sex workers resistance and community building

Trans women sex workers in Lido Tre Archi, Italy, live with multiple marginalised social identities as “trans”, “women”, “sex workers”, and in some cases “migrants”. As they struggle to access basic local services, they constitute the main voice of the research project we ran and present.
This presentation will explain how in two years of coalition building we accessed trans women sex workers as research participants and community agents of social change. The preliminary work, also entailed reframing narratives based on mere stigmatisation or compassion for sex workers in general, and trans women sex workers in particular.
We will explain how the social, policy, and physical contexts intersect to create a spiral of isolation as well as how trans women sex workers express their resistance to the ongoing oppression of their selves and their bodies. We will conclude showing what social change they ask for, and how we are working as community psychologists to see this happen.