By Dionna Duncan <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Urban Health Media Project <\/p>\n\n\n\n
WASHINGTON, D.C.– At 15, Tamika Spellman got a girl pregnant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Born a boy in Buffalo, N.Y., she\u2019d had a pretty \u201ctypical childhood\u201d growing up with her parents, she said. But it was around the time Spellman\u2019s girlfriend got pregnant when she realized the male body, she was born into was not her true identity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI always felt I was supposed to be a girl,\u201d said Spellman, 53, a Black trans woman who is now an advocacy director at Honoring Individual Power and Strength<\/a> (HIPS), a D.C.-based organization that provides harm reduction services, advocacy and community engagement for those engaged in sex work, sex trafficking and drug use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n HIPS executive director Cyndee Clay says Spellman is the \u201cperfect example of what happens when you give people a chance and support them doing this kind of work.\u201d Her \u201clived experience\u201d combined with her talent bringing people together makes Spellman \u201ca great community organizer,\u201d Clay added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Relationships with her own family weren\u2019t always so good. After she began to live her life as a young woman, despite her gender identity, Spellman said she began to lose relationships with relatives who disagreed with the decision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While she wasn\u2019t kicked out or disowned, Spellman moved out of her parents\u2019 home at 16. She was too young to receive government assistance, and being transgender made it difficult for her to find a good-paying job, she said. She was also supporting her child and the child\u2019s mother, whom she maintained a relationship with during her transition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sex work was best money available<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s when Spellman decided to become a sex worker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Spellman said the move \u201cjust kind of happened,\u201d but was aided by the fact she already knew about that world; an uncle worked as a pimp and other family members were involved in the sex trade, she said, and she \u201cknew where the sex work areas were.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n To Spellman, this type of work meant fast money and a way to provide for her son, and for a daughter born four years later with the same woman. \u201cIt was a good bit of money for that time period,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most people, though, including law enforcement authorities in every U.S. state but several counties in Nevada, consider sex work to be illegal and dangerous. Where Spellman lived in the Buffalo area, this work could get her arrested at any time if caught by the police. <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Or worse: “I have been raped by police in D.C., Alabama, New York, Detroit,” Spellman said. Many police officers feel they have a right to sexually assault sex workers, she said, and take advantage of them during arrests, when pat-downs can turn into assault. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Spellman\u2019s experience of trauma as a transgender Black teen and then as a sex worker also included being robbed, shot, and spending time homeless. Her trauma led to mental health and drug use disorders, she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if it was an act of God that saved me,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, therapy helps her help others<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n It took her a long time to get help to cope with her traumatic past, she said, but she started therapy in the 1990\u2019s. \u201cIt\u2019s something we don\u2019t do and don\u2019t talk about,\u201d Spellman said, but it helped save her life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After many years of fighting to survive, learning to heal from the traumatic experiences of her past made her realize she needed to be a voice for change, she said, and to stand up for people who have experienced the same kinds of pain and suffering. It led to her vocation as a fierce advocate for those who have chosen, or been forced, to become sex workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As an advocacy specialist at HIPS, she uses her voice and experience to challenge the prevailing notions about sex workers and works to stop the criminalization of sex work and the violence that is often directed towards Black and brown women who do this work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike white women who often end up selling sex online, Black and Brown women usually work on the streets, exposing them to more danger of violence from customers and even police, Spellman said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Current laws are \u201cnot keeping us safe,\u201d she said. \u201cIn fact, it\u2019s doing the absolute opposite. Police tend to not have respect for sex workers…instead of the protective force or watchful eye they could be.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Advocating for harm reduction for sex workers<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, criminalizing sex work can often make it far harder for people to escape the work and make money another way, she said. At times, when Spellman tried to work in other industries in order to secure health insurance for her family, she ended up stuck in low-wage jobs, such as fast-food restaurants, with no chance of increased pay or advancement, she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMe being criminalized caused me to be stuck,\u201d said Spellman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The harm-reduction approach to sex work recognizes that sex workers will continue to do the job regardless of it being illegal and seeks to make the work as safe and risk free as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To that end, Spellman distributes condoms, clean needles and injection supplies and helps provide access to overdose prevention supplies such as naloxone. She\u2019s spoken out in favor of decriminalizing sex work on many panels, conferences and functions, and has authored articles on the topic<\/a>. Spellman is also a member of the Sex Worker Advocates Coalition (SWAC)<\/a>, a group that wants to advance and promote the human rights and wellness of sex workers in the Washington, D.C. area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While Spellman works hard to change the laws about sex work, she also wants the world to be a better place for people like her and for those who follow in her steps. Spellman has five grandchildren and a great grandchild. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat kind of society are we trying to leave them?\u201d Spellman asked. \u201cI can\u2019t leave my grandkids what we have today.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Editor\u2019s note: Dionna Duncan is a junior at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C. She was a participant in the <\/em>Urban Health Media Project<\/em><\/a>\u2019s fall 2020 workshop \u201cSurviving and Thriving Despite Trauma,\u201d sponsored by The <\/em>National Council for Behavioral Health<\/em><\/a>. Photo and videographer Sierra Lewter, a 2018 graduate of Benjamin Banneker High School, is a UHMP intern and junior at New York University\u2019s Tisch School of the Arts. <\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Dionna Duncan Urban Health Media Project WASHINGTON, D.C.– At 15, Tamika Spellman got a girl pregnant. Born a boy in Buffalo, N.Y., she\u2019d had a pretty \u201ctypical childhood\u201d growing up with her parents, she said. But it was around the time Spellman\u2019s girlfriend got pregnant when she realized the male body, she was born […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lgbtqa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}