How the Other Half Lives

Don't hold me to the percentage of transgender sex workers around the world. Probably way short of 50% but I did encounter a trans sister of sorts almost a week ago a couple blocks from my house.

I live a couple blocks away from a less than upscale neighborhood corner known for it's bar (home to a fatal shooting last summer) drug deals and of course prostitutes.  Just a little insight into why I'm cleaning out and moving.  I've been here for the greatest part of the years between 1978 and now and the area has come and gone with it's inhabitants- now this time-I'm going.

Going I was, when this person walked across the cross walk ahead of me in the street, wearing a red "hoodie" jeans and matching red lipstick.  Obviously a cross dressed or transgender hooker of color. Nothing was coming and as I slowly rolled through the stop sign our eyes met for a moment.  My first impression was to feel total disgust until I thought of one particular young trans woman I met last summer at the Trans Ohio Symposium who grew up on the streets of Detroit and LA when her parents kicked her out. Again I felt disgust-on how she had been treated.

It's likely I won't see her again and even more likely to learn anything of her life.  Just seeing her for that brief second though gave me a brief glance into how the other half lives- and how helpless I felt.