12 July 13th–July 19th, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | music | cafe | film | culTuRe | NighT+Day | feaTuRe | NeWs | OPiNiON | feeDBacK | cONTeNTs | example of the dangers of “walking while trans.” Laverne Cox, the trans actress and star of “Orange Is the New Black,” came to her defense. “The goal should be overturning laws like this and really understanding the kind of environment that we all are creating as citizens of this country for trans women, particularly trans women of color,” Cox said in 2014. Ultimately, the charges against Jones were dismissed, which ended an appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court before it had a chance to review the law. Now, Jones is based in Tucson and serves as executive director of Outlaw Project, a nonprofit that provides housing support and other aid to trans women of color and sex workers. Lately, the Outlaw Project has been working on building tiny homes and creating a community space. Jones said that she sees her work as an answer to the way trans women and sex workers are pushed out of communities and denied access to housing — some- times as a result of measures such as the manifesting prostitution ordinance in Phoenix. Jones wasn’t surprised that the city is still arresting and prosecuting people nearly a decade after her case. “They just waited till everything died down to pick it back up,” she said. “It doesn’t surprise me. This is what our government does.” ‘A clear racial disparity’ The typical manifestation case in Phoenix follows a pattern. Most people are cited at night in the area of 27th Avenue and Indian School Road, according to dozens of recent citations obtained by New Times. The area, often colloquially called “the track,” is known as a hub for sex work. Some people are ticketed and given a court date, while others are arrested. More than half — 53% — of the 122 people charged in manifestation cases from January 2022 to February 2023 were Black, according to data from the Phoenix city prosecutor. Yet Black people make up just 7% of the city’s population. Another 44% of those charged were listed as “white,” though the data did not indicate whether a person was Hispanic or Latino. “There’s a clear racial disparity there,” Bell said, calling the numbers “incredibly disproportionate.” Data from the city’s prostitution diver- sion program — which is available for people facing a range of prostitution charges — also shows significant racial disparities in who is getting cited for pros- titution crimes. From May 2019 to November 2021, 38.9% of program partici- pants were Black, according to a program report obtained by New Times. Another 15.3% were Hispanic or Latino, and just 16.7% were white. “We cannot speculate on demographic data,” Patton, the city of Phoenix spokes- person, said in response to questions about the disparities. The data supports claims by activists that vague laws such as mani- festation often are used disproportion- ately against people of color. “Black and brown bodies are being targeted because of the neighborhoods that this ordinance is being enforced in,” Jones said. The enforcement around 27th Avenue is a good example of this, she explained. “That’s a low-income area,” Jones said. “Yes, there’s street-based sex work there. But [the law] is criminalizing everybody that’s walking down that street.” Patton said that the city considers the area “a known location for human traf- fickers,” and for that reason, it was a focus for Phoenix police’s Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit. Yet human trafficking cases, which generally are handled by county prosecutors, are distinct from misdemeanor prostitution citations. Laws like the one in Phoenix, according to critics, also are used by police to target trans women and label them as sex workers simply for walking down the street. “Unfortunately, a lot of transgender women, particularly transgender women of color, are profiled under these laws,” Bell said. The data on arrests under the ordi- nance did not track how many trans people were prosecuted in the years since Jones’ arrest. The police reports and cita- tions obtained by New Times also did not Matt Hennie Dress Code from p 10 “ARRESTING PEOPLE FOR SEX WORK IS NOT GOING TO GET THEM OUT OF SEX WORK.” Phoenix police have issued more than 450 manifesting prostitution citations since 2014.
