Transgender Awareness Week

For a week in November events and protests will highlight the voices of trans activists and organisers in most capital cities. This is an opportunity for the sex worker movement to stand up alongside other movements, calling for an end to incarceration of black and trans folk, decriminalisation of sex work, and justice for members of our community who died in custody.

Veronica Baxter was a black trans sex worker who died in custody in 2009. Her passing and subsequent coronial inquest are an ongoing reminder of the ongoing physical and political violence perpetuated by the colony against black and trans bodies.

CJ Palmer is a trans woman living with HIV who experienced “manifestly excessive” sentencing in 2018 (reduced on appeal) and held in a maximum security male prison including in solitary confinement for four years. After release she was sent immediately to an immigration detention facility. In 2023 her lawyers challenged her deportation. CJ’s strong and lasting connections to the HIV, trans and sex worker communities were expressed.

Both Veronica and CJ were denied access to hormones while incarcerated in male prisons.