ACLU Jumps to the Defense of Prostitutes Who Knowingly Spread HIV, Arguing That Tennessee Law ‘Unfairly Targets Black and Transgender Women’

The American Civil Liberties Union, along with the Transgender Law Clinic, says it is “suing Tennessee” for seeking to punish prostitutes who knowingly spread HIV/AIDS. “This law is unconstitutional and disproportionately affects Black and transgender women,” the ACLU claims. The law, which has been on the books in the Volunteer State since 1991, upgrades the crime of prostitution to a “violent sexual offense” from a misdemeanor and requires lifetime sex offender registration should prostitutes ply their trade while knowing they are HIV-positive. Thirty-four other states have similar measures in place to criminalize knowingly concealing a positive HIV/AIDS diagnosis from a sexual partner. The ACLU’s challenge to the law comes in the wake of recent efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to discourage the criminalization of HIV/AIDS concealment and to pressure states to repeal their “aggravated prostitution” laws. Under the Biden administration, the CDC has issued a “legal and policy assessment tool” that argues “HIV criminalization laws and policies increase stigma, exacerbate disparities, and may discourage HIV testing.” Instead, President Biden stated, in late 2021, that the country should work to “end the harmful stigma around HIV and AIDS.” According to the most recent statistics, 14 percent of transgender women in the U.S. have HIV. Of these transgender women with HIV, 81 percent are Black or Hispanic, leading to the discrimination claims against laws criminalizing “aggravated prostitution.” The CDC, in similar claims to the ACLU’s, points out that Black and Hispanic men, and not just transgender women who are biological men, are disproportionately infected with HIV and, therefore, should not be “discriminated against.”In response to these efforts by the ACLU and the CDC, many states have already repealed laws that criminalize aggravated prostitution. In 2021, Illinois and New Jersey repealed all HIV-related criminalizations on their books. There is no cure for HIV/AIDS, but the virus can now be controlled as a chronic condition by taking medicine daily for the duration of one’s life. The CDC points out, though, that transgender women of color are often low-income and lack access to effective medical care.The ACLU also claims that being on the sex offender registry is too burdensome for Black and transgender women convicted of prostitution while concealing their HIV/AIDS status in Tennessee, as the stigma of being a registered sex offender may compel them to continue to prostitute themselves. “Jane Doe 1 has felt she had no option but to continue to engage in sex work to survive,” the account of one anonymous woman discussed in the trial reads, “since it was too difficult to find stable employment, particularly as a transgender woman.”A separate plaintiff in the ACLU suit, Jane Doe 2, is incarcerated for violating the sex offender registry requirements. There are 83 sex offenders registered for aggravated prostitution in Tennessee. The majority of them were convicted at Memphis, the fifth-poorest city in the U.S. The complaint filed by the ACLU blames undercover sting operations by the Memphis Police Department, which helped expose prostitutes with the virus. The ACLU referred the Sun to its X post when asked for comment.

ACLU Jumps to the Defense of Prostitutes Who Knowingly Spread HIV, Arguing That Tennessee Law ‘Unfairly Targets Black and Transgender Women’

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