<story><title>Canada&apos;s top court has overturned all restrictions on prostitution</title><url>http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/12/canada-lifts-all-restrictions-prostitution-2013122015318412319.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tw266</author><text>Given the immense distress that most trans people seem to experience, I wonder if we (and they) wouldn&amp;#x27;t be better off if the culture were less supportive of those lifestyles.&lt;p&gt;I had some inclinations that way as a teenager, and I am SO glad I wasn&amp;#x27;t living in San Francisco or some other place that would encourage me to &amp;quot;be me&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>undoware</author><text>Fun experiment for you. Go out and get a facial tattoo. Now try to get work. That&amp;#x27;s still easier than finding honest work when you&amp;#x27;re transsexual. Don&amp;#x27;t believe me? I can think of an even more decisive experiment...</text></item><item><author>sergiotapia</author><text>There is a middle ground. It&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;either I work using my brain, or I whore myself out.&amp;quot; Many women are waitresses, shopping mall sweepers, store attendants, cashiers, you name it.</text></item><item><author>undoware</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m heartened by the response to this, both on Hacker News and elsewhere.&lt;p&gt;Being a trans woman in IT is a bit weird -- because I can do incredible things with my mind, I&amp;#x27;m off the hook my sisters are on, that makes them have to hook.&lt;p&gt;Several roommates ago, I literally came home and found that my (also trans) roommate, who in addition to being trans was also dealing with immigration and had recently lost her job and had begun turning tricks at home. Had I not come home early from the university, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t have known.&lt;p&gt;And I&amp;#x27;ve always hated the Canadian legal system for making me kick her out. Because just being her roommate, under the previous legislation, would have classified as &amp;#x27;living off the avails&amp;#x27; and would have made me legally indistinguishable from her pimp. Just for being her roommate.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s the sort of pauperizing, soul-crushing bullshit that you never, ever forget.&lt;p&gt;Also, I&amp;#x27;m a big fan of Katrina Pacey, the lawyer mentioned in the article. I&amp;#x27;ve worked with her a few times on activist stuff (I got into sex worker advocacy after my up-close-and-personal. They can&amp;#x27;t do it themselves, they go to prison when they try. Well, before today. Go Katrina Pacey! Go Canadian legal system!)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tesseractive</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m going to give you an alternate perspective. I&amp;#x27;m in my 40s. I &amp;quot;had some inclinations that way&amp;quot; too. I listened to everyone who told me that people like that are disgusting freaks, and I tried to keep it suppressed for a long time now, denying it to myself and trying to act &amp;quot;normal,&amp;quot; like society expects me to be.&lt;p&gt;Now it&amp;#x27;s way later and I&amp;#x27;m kind of at the end of my rope with long-term clinical depression. I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure that within the next few years it&amp;#x27;s going to come down to a choice between killing myself and transitioning. Only now, my transition options are way worse and I picked up some dependents along the way who are going to be incredibly hurt either way.&lt;p&gt;Maybe I can keep it going like this somehow until I reach the natural end of my miserable life, and for the sake of the people depending on me, I will keep trying. But every year it gets harder and harder to make myself get out of bed and face life hiding inside the shell of a person I&amp;#x27;m pretending to be.&lt;p&gt;So, in my considered opinion, no, I don&amp;#x27;t think anyone would be better off if there were more people like me.</text></comment>
<story><title>Canada&apos;s top court has overturned all restrictions on prostitution</title><url>http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/12/canada-lifts-all-restrictions-prostitution-2013122015318412319.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tw266</author><text>Given the immense distress that most trans people seem to experience, I wonder if we (and they) wouldn&amp;#x27;t be better off if the culture were less supportive of those lifestyles.&lt;p&gt;I had some inclinations that way as a teenager, and I am SO glad I wasn&amp;#x27;t living in San Francisco or some other place that would encourage me to &amp;quot;be me&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>undoware</author><text>Fun experiment for you. Go out and get a facial tattoo. Now try to get work. That&amp;#x27;s still easier than finding honest work when you&amp;#x27;re transsexual. Don&amp;#x27;t believe me? I can think of an even more decisive experiment...</text></item><item><author>sergiotapia</author><text>There is a middle ground. It&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;either I work using my brain, or I whore myself out.&amp;quot; Many women are waitresses, shopping mall sweepers, store attendants, cashiers, you name it.</text></item><item><author>undoware</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m heartened by the response to this, both on Hacker News and elsewhere.&lt;p&gt;Being a trans woman in IT is a bit weird -- because I can do incredible things with my mind, I&amp;#x27;m off the hook my sisters are on, that makes them have to hook.&lt;p&gt;Several roommates ago, I literally came home and found that my (also trans) roommate, who in addition to being trans was also dealing with immigration and had recently lost her job and had begun turning tricks at home. Had I not come home early from the university, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t have known.&lt;p&gt;And I&amp;#x27;ve always hated the Canadian legal system for making me kick her out. Because just being her roommate, under the previous legislation, would have classified as &amp;#x27;living off the avails&amp;#x27; and would have made me legally indistinguishable from her pimp. Just for being her roommate.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s the sort of pauperizing, soul-crushing bullshit that you never, ever forget.&lt;p&gt;Also, I&amp;#x27;m a big fan of Katrina Pacey, the lawyer mentioned in the article. I&amp;#x27;ve worked with her a few times on activist stuff (I got into sex worker advocacy after my up-close-and-personal. They can&amp;#x27;t do it themselves, they go to prison when they try. Well, before today. Go Katrina Pacey! Go Canadian legal system!)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pessimizer</author><text>Since the distress is solely caused by the the culture being &amp;quot;less supportive of those lifestyles,&amp;quot; I think that will do the opposite of help.&lt;p&gt;Also, we&amp;#x27;d become less supportive of minority religions according to that rationale - and ignore racial discrimination as an impossible problem.</text></comment>