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A Sisterhood of Hope: How China’s Transgender Sex Workers Cope with Intimate Partner Violence
Transgender sex workers (TSWs/TSW) face considerable challenges that affect their mental health and make their situations more vulnerable and precarious. TSWs often experience violence from clients, police, and others, but it is estimated that 50% of these acts of violence are at the hands of their...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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MDPI
2020
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7672577/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33138225 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17217959 |
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author | Tsang, Eileen Yuk-ha |
author_facet | Tsang, Eileen Yuk-ha |
author_sort | Tsang, Eileen Yuk-ha |
collection | PubMed |
description | Transgender sex workers (TSWs/TSW) face considerable challenges that affect their mental health and make their situations more vulnerable and precarious. TSWs often experience violence from clients, police, and others, but it is estimated that 50% of these acts of violence are at the hands of their intimate partners. The marginalization of TSWs is fueled by abuse through isolation and shaming which prevents them from seeking help through formal channels like police or counselling services. There is limited research on intimate partner violence (IPV) involving transgender sex workers (biologically male at birth who transition to women) and their partners who are typically heterosexual/bisexual men. In China, stigmatization, homophobia, heterosexism, and transphobia structurally disadvantage TSWs and this power structure tacitly supports violence and abuse against them. To survive, TSWs rely on informal networks with their ‘sisters’ for advice and emotional support which is more effective at combatting IPV than criminal justice or social policy efforts. Ethnographic data from in-depth interviews with 25 TSWs provide insight about IPV and how informal social support is a protective factor that helps them cope with routine acts of violence. The findings identify the importance of the ‘sisterhood’ and how it protects and helps TSWs manage their physical and mental health. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7672577 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-76725772020-11-19 A Sisterhood of Hope: How China’s Transgender Sex Workers Cope with Intimate Partner Violence Tsang, Eileen Yuk-ha Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Transgender sex workers (TSWs/TSW) face considerable challenges that affect their mental health and make their situations more vulnerable and precarious. TSWs often experience violence from clients, police, and others, but it is estimated that 50% of these acts of violence are at the hands of their intimate partners. The marginalization of TSWs is fueled by abuse through isolation and shaming which prevents them from seeking help through formal channels like police or counselling services. There is limited research on intimate partner violence (IPV) involving transgender sex workers (biologically male at birth who transition to women) and their partners who are typically heterosexual/bisexual men. In China, stigmatization, homophobia, heterosexism, and transphobia structurally disadvantage TSWs and this power structure tacitly supports violence and abuse against them. To survive, TSWs rely on informal networks with their ‘sisters’ for advice and emotional support which is more effective at combatting IPV than criminal justice or social policy efforts. Ethnographic data from in-depth interviews with 25 TSWs provide insight about IPV and how informal social support is a protective factor that helps them cope with routine acts of violence. The findings identify the importance of the ‘sisterhood’ and how it protects and helps TSWs manage their physical and mental health. MDPI 2020-10-29 2020-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7672577/ /pubmed/33138225 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17217959 Text en © 2020 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Tsang, Eileen Yuk-ha A Sisterhood of Hope: How China’s Transgender Sex Workers Cope with Intimate Partner Violence |
title | A Sisterhood of Hope: How China’s Transgender Sex Workers Cope with Intimate Partner Violence |
title_full | A Sisterhood of Hope: How China’s Transgender Sex Workers Cope with Intimate Partner Violence |
title_fullStr | A Sisterhood of Hope: How China’s Transgender Sex Workers Cope with Intimate Partner Violence |
title_full_unstemmed | A Sisterhood of Hope: How China’s Transgender Sex Workers Cope with Intimate Partner Violence |
title_short | A Sisterhood of Hope: How China’s Transgender Sex Workers Cope with Intimate Partner Violence |
title_sort | sisterhood of hope: how china’s transgender sex workers cope with intimate partner violence |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7672577/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33138225 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17217959 |
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