Sex Workers With HIV Can Be Branded ‘Violent Sex Offenders’ In 1 State. The DOJ Is Suing To Change That.

The Justice Department sued the state of Tennessee on Thursday, alleging that the state imposes harsher legal penalties on individuals who interact in intercourse work whereas residing with HIV.

The state has violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by criminally prosecuting intercourse employees residing with HIV, “regardless of any actual risk of harm,” the lawsuit says.

Prostitution is often categorized as a misdemeanor in Tennessee. But beneath the state’s “aggravated prostitution” legislation, an individual residing with HIV who’s charged with prostitution should register as a “violent sex offender” for the remainder of their life, no matter whether or not the particular person knew they might transmit the illness or practiced mitigation measures, corresponding to utilizing condoms or taking antiviral medicine.

Tennessee is the one state to impose a lifetime intercourse offender registration requirement on intercourse employees who’re HIV-positive.

Tennessee first developed its legislation to criminalize intercourse employees residing with HIV in 1991 amid widespread panic and misinformation over the AIDS epidemic. Tennessee lawmakers later reclassified aggravated prostitution as a “violent sexual offense” in 2010.

The Justice Department go well with calls on the state to not solely cease implementing the legislation but additionally to take away these convicted beneath the legislation from intercourse offender registries and to expunge their convictions.

“People living with HIV should not be subjected to a different system of justice based on outdated science and misguided assumptions,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke stated in a information launch.

Separately, final fall, OUTMemphis, an LGBTQ+ well being and advocacy group, filed the primary authorized problem to the HIV criminalization legislation, alongside the American Civil Liberties Union and the Transgender Law Center. The LGBTQ+ and civil rights organizations represented 4 cisgender and transgender girls, three of whom are Black, who’re residing with HIV and have been arrested beneath the Tennessee statute.

The Justice Department and OUTMemphis lawsuits each element the story of an unnamed Black transgender girl who was arrested by an undercover police officer who propositioned her and a pal in Memphis. She first realized she was HIV constructive in 2008 and was convicted on the aggravated prostitution cost in 2012. Because of the state legislation, she was required to register as a intercourse offender, which induced her to lose a number of job gives. She skilled homelessness whereas having problem discovering reasonably priced housing that complied with the registry necessities.

“The statute explicitly singles out people with HIV for different treatment based on disability,” the lawsuit from OUTMemphis says.

Many state legal guidelines criminalizing intercourse and different acts ― a few of which can’t even transmit HIV ― are “outdated and do not reflect our current understanding of HIV,” in keeping with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Black and Latino communities, and notably Black transgender and cisgender girls, have been disproportionately affected by legal guidelines criminalizing HIV.

The Williams Institute discovered that Shelby County, residence to Memphis, makes up the majority of the state’s HIV convictions. Memphis has the nation’s third-highest HIV prognosis charge, in keeping with the CDC. Researchers on the Williams Institute discovered that 154 individuals had been on Tennessee’s intercourse offender registry with an HIV-related conviction. Women made up 46% of the HIV registrants, whereas Black individuals accounted for 75%.

Last yr, Tennessee rejected $8.8 million in federal grant cash for HIV testing and prevention so it might refuse to fund Planned Parenthood and the Tennessee Transgender Task Force. The state later allotted a distinct $9 million funds to struggle HIV and wound up with $4 million in state funding from the CDC, although organizations representing LGBTQ individuals and Black and Latinx communities are involved the state funds could not go to those at-risk populations.