Why decriminalising sex work is a queer issue

Words Eliel Cruz

On June 7, 2019, Layleen Polanco died alone while being held in solitary confinement in the notoriously deadly jail on Rikers Island in New York City.

The 27-year-old Afro-Latinx trans woman was sent to Rikers Island stemming from a prostitution charge in 2017 in which undercover police in the vice squad arrested her in a sex sting operation. That charge would entangle Layleen in the criminal legal system in a web that criminalised her survival and ultimately led to her death.

I learned about Layleen’s death just a few hours after she passed. At the time, I worked as Director of Communications at the New York City Anti-Violence Project and regularly scanned the news and social media for instances of violence or homicides against LGBTQIA+ people in New York City and across the country. The four-sentence news article in the infamously racist and bigoted New York Post launched me into a year-long campaign working closely with the Polanco family, organising rallies, and crafting a media campaign to make Layleen’s name and story nationally recognised. The campaign also further radicalised me in how I viewed police, prisons, and sex work.

Layleen Polanco’s Story

As is the case with a number of trans people, Layleen faced employment discrimination and her inability to land a job is why she turned to sex work as a means to provide for herself.

Melania Brown, Layleen’s sister, told me a story once about Layleen walking into a McDonald’s with a “hiring now” sign out front. Once Layleen was clocked as trans by the manager, she was laughed out of the store. According to the Williams Institute, 70% of trans Americans report “being fired, not hired, or not promoted” for their sexuality or gender identity. A number of them also turn to sex work as a way to feed, clothe, and house themselves and those they love. This was the case with Layleen, who used sex work to make her coins. But a sex sting operation by the New York City Police Department forced her into the system.

In New York, District Attorney’s offices can direct sex workers, who they often see as human trafficking victims, into an alternative court, a practice which started in the state the same year Layleen was arrested for prostitution. The Human Trafficking Intervention Courts are coercive in that they require sex workers to accept what the state deems as helpful services, and if they don’t, they go to jail. They require sex workers to see themselves as victims and attend court-ordered mandatory meetings that function almost as sex workers anonymous. While the programming for these meetings may be helpful for some, forcing sex workers to attend or be sent to jail removes all agency and is a one-size-fits-all approach to sex workers, who trade sex for a variety of reasons including coercion, but also choice and circumstance. Layleen skipped out on these meetings, leaving her with a warrant that, next time she encountered police, sent her to Riker’s Island. 

Layleen was held at Rikers Island for 52 days because she could not afford her $500 bail. During those 52 days, she was sent to a psychiatric hospital twice while experiencing distressing behaviours including hallucinations. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia and epilepsy, conditions she made Rikers aware of when she was arrested. While incarcerated, she had physical altercations with other inmates, and, despite her disabilities which would typically preclude her, she was sent to solitary confinement.

Layleen died alone in her cell while experiencing an epileptic seizure. Correctional officers, as required, did not make their rounds every fifteen minutes to check in on her. A video released a year later showed two of the correctional officers laughing outside of her cell where her, presumably already dead, body lay. This was the gruesome, deadly result of the criminalisation of Layleen’s sex work.

Cecilia's Act for Rights in the Sex Trades

The late Cecilia Gentili – a trans activist who led the charge on sex work advocacy, immigration rights, HIV prevention, and so much more – emcee’d the very first rally after Layleen’s death. She was a mentor of mine, who taught me so many lessons about organising, and led the DecrimNY Coalition which works to destigmatise, decarcerate, and decriminalise sex work in New York.

The Stop Violence In the Sex Trades Act, recently renamed in honour of Gentili to Cecilia's Act for Rights in the Sex Trades, is the most comprehensive bill to decriminalise sex in the United States. Introduced in 2018, the bill would repeal sections of the penal code that prohibit prostitution, and amend other sections so that others who sell sex together, or simply live together, are not criminalised. It also expunges previous convictions for sex work, which removes barriers they may face to access housing, employment, and healthcare, all while still upholding all criminal charges for sex with a minor and protections for those who are trafficked. 

The DecrimNY coalition of former and current sex workers and their allies hope that New York will be the first state to fully decriminalise sex work, leading the way for the rest of the country.

Decrim vs End Demand Model vs Legalisation

In New York and areas all around the world grappling with how to address the selling of sex, there are two main models that arise: a full decriminalisation of sex work and an end-demand mode, often named the Nordic Model.

“The whole logic behind the end demand model is that if we get rid of demand for the services then it won’t exist anymore. That logic is really flawed. It’s not a surprise to me that in New York, the bill was written by rich white women,” Jared Trujillo, a CUNY Law Professor and former sex worker tells me of the end demand bill in New York, saying these individuals often have a view of sex workers more like the film trilogy series Taken. “They don’t consider the fact that cops are oftentimes the people that perpetuate the most violence against sex workers, they're really relying on cops for this vision of liberation that just does not exist or that isn't consistent with reality. And they also don't take into account the very real reason people do sex work. You take away someone's client, they still need a sandwich. They still need to pay rent.”

Indeed, these efforts that would still criminalise clients or buyers of sex prohibit sex workers from selling sex. It’s not only a model that allows sex workers to make money, but it also drives sex work into the shadows and keeps sex workers from being able to negotiate things with their clients like condom use. “They’re prohibitionists,” Truillo says. “We know just like alcohol or drug prohibition, it doesn’t go away. It just drives it underground and makes it less safe.”

On the other end of the spectrum, most sex work advocates don’t want full legalisation of sex work either, because of the way it adds even more surveillance from the government and creates a bunch of rules and barriers to entry. For example, if you’re a trans or undocumented person without the proper IDs, these individuals are still criminalised under a legalisation framework.

Sex work advocates like Truijillio understand decriminalisation efforts as harm reduction which must go hand in hand with services offered. “How are we assuring sex workers have housing? How are we assuring they have healthcare? If we have millions and millions of dollars to police people, we have it to care for people, but it’s a matter of actually doing it.”

Layleen Should Be Alive Today

In the summer of 2020, a year after Layleen died, the City of New York settled a civil lawsuit with the Polanco family for $5.9 million dollars, the largest settlement the city had ever paid for a death in incarceration. Then-Mayor Bill DeBlasio promised to end solitary confinement, a commitment that has yet to be fulfilled, and 17 correctional officers were disciplined – none were fired as was demanded by the Polanco family.

I went to Layleen’s funeral and grew close to her family over the years. When I paid my respects to Layleen, I promised to fight for her and bring her justice. Despite the historic financial settlement and the discipline of the guards, I’ve never fully felt like we got her or her family true justice. To me, we will not see justice for Layleen until we decriminalise sex work, end cash bail, end the practice of solitary confinement, and abolish police and prisons. We must end the conditions and abolish the systems that led Layleen to her death.

If sex work was decriminalised, it’s possible Layleen would be alive today. She would have never been arrested by police and then subjected to the violence of the criminal legal system. In another world, where universal basic income, housing, and healthcare were provided to everyone, Layleen may have never chosen to do sex work. Or maybe she would have still traded sex for money. But she would have had the choice, support systems in place, and the ability to determine her life as she saw fit, one that would have been much longer than the short twenty-seven years she had on earth before the criminalisation of her survival ended with her death.