Working Guys: A Transmasculine Sex Worker Anthology

by Jack V. Parker

Working Guys is a collection of essays, personal narratives and interviews about the lives of transmasculine sex workers, in our own words. Joyful, traumatic, or somewhere in between, this book preserves nuance and highlights a range of experiences. From selling sex under a female persona to taking advantage of the rise in popularity of trans men in porn, the pieces within provide a snapshot of moments in various transmasculine sex workers' lives.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, Sex Work, Transgender, Short Stories, Adult, LGBT

186 pages, Paperback

Published September 27, 2024

About the author

Jack Parker (he/they) is an author and sex worker activist who writes about sex work and transness and the intersection between the two, among other things.

Reviews

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is super interesting: Parker has assembled 21 texts by transmasculine sex workers and contextualizes the experiences conveyed by providing short essays on the main topics the anthology tackles. The objective is of course to give a platform to marginalized voices, with transmasc people being a minority within a minority that is already at risk and discriminated against. The book is structured in the clusters "female personas", "popularity in porn", "transphobic violence against transmasculine sex workers", "the cost of medical transition", "role models for transmasculine people" as well as "outside views: radical feminists, progressives, and the right", thus covering a lot of ground for a relatively short volume.

I have to admit that as a white cis het woman who has no experience in sex work, I've never thought much about the reality of trans sex workers and how it differs from the cis experience in the sex work industry, which is, you know, NOT GREAT for someone who deems herself an intersectional feminist, so this book taught me a lot. It's also great to get a variety of viewpoints, because as any group, transmasc sex workers don't exist as a monolithic entity, but have individual identities, back stories, and living circumstances, and the short texts provided by some of the people belonging to the group give readers a glimpse into their different worlds.

Great project, very worth checking out.

[Jessie Lapin · Rating 5 out of 5]

this anthology was so packed full of so much info about transmasc SW that even though my partner is one I learned a lot. All the accounts felt so honest and I was worried this would be all just transmasc porn stars but there were actually different types of sex workers and FSSW werent left out. The submission about how nuance is important felt like an intro into why this book is SO needed and each persons writing was interesting and taught me something. I especally loved A's letter about his sex work alongside his girlfriend's and how they support each other, awwww, and the one about the straight trans guy and his not-straight clients blew my mind.

[Orion · Rating 4 out of 5]

A big thank you to the author for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review !

It is very nice to read about trans masculine sex workers, as it is often a really under represented part of the sex workers demography; as talks about sex work tend to gravitate around discussions of misogyny in a way that excludes us (even if transmascs are extremely impacted by it)

This antholgy tackles all kinds of subjects, from gender specifically to race, disability, how all of this plays in how they apprehend sex work, how clients sees and treats them... and sometimes just testimonies of their work and lives a propos of their gender identity and sex work.

The "multiple texts" format is really easy to apprehend for people who's primary language is not english (like me, so sorry for the typos and such), compared to a huge essay in one block.
Being an anthology of multiple essays by all kinds of people, it also truly gives the word of those concerned, in a better way than basic interviews could do.

A little part of me was afraid the anthology would be very western-centered, but some works clearly came from authors of color, and probably a few others who didn't talk about their cultural identity.
I was also a little afraid of how sex work would be depicted, as it is often talked about like some sort of horrible terrible job people are thrown into (often against their will), or in the contrary as some uniquely empowering work (almost always in the context of female empowerment) devoid of side effects. But, as everyone involved in this anthology is directly concerned by sex work, they are all very clear on sex work not being an easy safe job and on not glamorizing it, yet it is really evident that they all have some sort of deep love for their profession and/or the experiences they bring/have brought them

In the end, it was a really interesting book to read, with all kinds of authors and subjects, i liked the short essays format, and i enjoyed it all a lot !

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this very informative. It was structured to allow for many varied perspectives, including not just different types of sex work, gender identities and expressions, and transition journeys and goals, but also commentary on their intersections with race, disability, etc., while maintaining cohesion within each chapter's broad topic. These experiences were never flattened to fit a simplistic narrative of sex work as purely traumatic or empowering or even “just another job” nor was there any sanitization of the complicated experiences of being transgender or transitioning and the way those experiences might not fit the narrative often sold to cis people and the medical establishments. I took a lot away from the discussions about the practical considerations sex workers have to make if they are pursuing transition, whether social or physical, and how common perceptions of and discussions around sex work, even by “supportive” groups, can be marginalizing or contribute to the invisibility of transmasc sex workers.

I was also intrigued by the section on female personas. It was no surprise to hear that they would often be necessary from a business perspective. But Working Guys also delved into the way these personas could play a different psychological role for transmasc individuals than seemingly similar constructed personas might for women selling sex. The differences in how transmasc people developed this persona and related to it, as well as the trade-off where the female personas could protect from dysphoria or perpetuate it, were very thought-provoking topics explored well.

[Meabeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given a free ebook copy with the request that I leave a review.

An introduction and 6 chapters, each having their topic introduced by the author. There are then 1 to 5 submissions related to the topic by various people. There are 2 appendix chapters. The first is selected survey responses, and the second is safety and information tips for trans masculine sexworkers.

I've been struggling to find resources on trans masculine sexworkers. I am writing a book that has a side character that is a trans masculine sexworker, and I have really been struggling to develop their personal world. This book gave me numerous avenues to develop them and the people around them. They are only going to be in a chapter or two, and I was thinking about scraping the whole character because I wasn't confident in my portrayal of them. Now, I'm full of all kinds of ideas and may be expanding their role in the story.

The wide range of topics and voices makes this a valuable resource for anyone who has even a passing curiosity on the topic.

[Chun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cracked this open while the power was out and I could not put it down. Absolutely love the way each section was organized, the themes really came through and ended up way more relatable than I was expecting them to. Each glimpse of life felt like a perfectly curated insight into an experience that was somehow both completely different from my own and yet had an undercurrent that was similar and relatable. Even if you're not transmasc I recommend this, as a transfem I thoroughly enjoyed this anthology and it made me feel not so alone in a way only literature can.

My only note is that the list of content warnings is near the back of the book. If you're reading about sex work you can kind of expect what's going to pop up and nothing in there bothered me too much but for those of you who have topics you want to avoid I'd check the ToC and head back there. I'm personally not bothered by the decision to do it that way but just wanted to let people know in case they care about that type of thing.

[Wincenty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very happy I got this anthology recommended as it offers a new perspective for me. Great read.

[Lucas Ztardust · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the outcome of a very relevant research project lauched from within and for the communities involved. Jack Parker, his editor and one of the authors, has put a lot of effort and passion through the premise of not only ​amplifying and putting into circulation transmasculine voices in sex work, but also, above all, making space for a plurality of experiences within that intersection that are very significant. As a fellow transexual and a proudly Leather bi pervert, here are my three main reasons of why I LOVED this book so much:

1. Historically, the biomedical paradigm could only separate our transsexual lives from the deviant fate by pushing a systematic sanitization of our desires, drawing an inseparable gap between sex and gender. According to that paradigm, and like Harry Benjamin put it out, "gender is the non-sexual side of sex", and thus, gender could not be a eroticized experience, and during our transitions we were subjected to the promise of a full sexual life later, after an ordeal of years of self-hatred, loneliness and erotic distancing, when "we could finally be complete, those of us who did make it", now reducing sex to the horizon of coupledom and family structures. This book is a treasure for many of us who believe that gender can be a deeply lustful experience, just as sex can be an affirming experience for our current genders and for many of us, desire implied some source of initiation, a transformative contact with another reality that is possible or pending for us.

2. The book is very careful to not romanticize sex work and transform it into a liberal fantasy, always committing itself to the need to highlight the material context of people instead. Sex work is, after all, work within the framework of 21st century capitalism, and yet, at the same time, it isn't necessarily comparable to any other type of work. The non-moralistic approach of the whole book, based on a commitment to harm reduction, is very close to my heart. There is also an interesting link to be explored beyond regarding the affinities with other marginalized, criminalized, informal or popular economies.

3. I find particularly powerful the aim of building a complex prism on the intersection of gender and sex work (sex work is also working with gender), placing a lot of emphasis on an aspect of transmasculine sex work about which very little has been written, but which is very frequently presented and discussed within our communities: having to develop a feminine person, and the type of psychic and material relationship that is established with that impersonation. I love how the book highlights this specificity of transmasculine sex work also because I imagine it must really bother truscums (who have a big issue with femininity, multiplicity, ambiguity or gender experimentation), and even reveal the coincidences that they have with a swerf positioning (as if this forced feminization were one of the many forms of violence that "the state of prostitution" implies).

And also a pending topic for keep on thinking the transmasculine experience, the question of public and free access, de-stigmatization and personal autonomy from different contexts outside the Anglo-speaking countries. We as trans people, are used to challenge categories, assumptions, certain forms of societal verosimiles. Why not challenge the clinical and cultural hegemony of the category "gender dysphoria"? While I respect the right of people to name their experience based on discomfort or illness, I would also like to meet dissenting voices on this matter, who can question how widespread and normalized expressions like "gender dysphoria" (I prefer naming it "internalized cissexism") are in our communities, and think in a non-moralistic, non-clinical, non-pathologizing way, other ways of naming the complex, sometimes painful, ambivalent but in many cases extraordinary relationship that we establish with bodies and gazes changing over time. Just my two cents to add to the discussion :)

Above all, this book, the way it is written and how it moves between communities, does a lot for the autonomy (decisional, bodily and sexual) of transmasculine people. It has been a beautiful read, and I can only imagine the amount of space, debate and emerging epiphanies it can spark through time and places. Please read, buy it, support research projects like this, and pass it around, share it with a friend. It is very important that visions change, spread, and that we can contribute to living a full life, through the path of access and desire, with as little pain, shame and suffering as possible.

[Seva Volkov · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a diverse collection of work - from cutting analysis of the camming industry, statistics on violence against transmasculine sex workers, to personal stuff that reads like prose poetry. Care was taken to include minorities within the minority, especially people of color.

One thing I was really disappointed in was the intro, where the editor expresses his anxieties that he's taking the spotlight away from trans women. I never liked that rhetoric.

First of all, the existence of this book isn't going to stop transfeminine people from writing about their own experiences.

Second of all, I'd like to see fewer trans men apologizing for not being women.

Third of all and most importantly, I think that when the queer community says "trans men should sit down and shut up and listen to trans women" they're enforcing the status quo of trans women's hypervisibility and a reputation for their having won the "oppression Olympics" - I feel like we've got trans women on some kind of pedestal as Queens of All Suffering and this is both unsustainable and a drastically unhealthy thing to keep reinforcing. Trans women aren't doomed to suffer until they're beaten to death in a dark alleyway the way many are afraid of, especially early on in their transition, why are we telling them they are? I shouldn't have to tell you that I know many who love themselves and are happy, including and especially my own sister, who I'm dearly proud of. Why are we encouraging trans women and girls to believe that they're ALWAYS going to be the ones who are most miserable and most in danger, even if we're doing it to justify "giving them the spotlight"? It makes my teeth itch, and it's not healthy for the transfeminine community OR the transmascs. There is just so little in the current narrative regarding the possibility of transfeminine love, contentment, and joy.

(This is a bit beyond the scope of a few lines in the introduction, but you get what I'm saying here.)

My only other complaint is that the list of trigger warnings in each submission might have better gone in the front of the book. If you're worried about triggers, be aware it's there.

All in all I really believe it's an invaluable and fascinating collection.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology was really well collected, and did a number of great things. First, I really admire Jack for seeing the gap in literature and lack of visibility for transmasculine sex workers, and writing to do something about it. With a sample size of 112 and a number of experiences and perspectoves, it appears to me (from outside the community) that representation really was the goal and was followed through on, from a British perspective.
I really enjoyed the diversity of form in a lot of the chapters, and it really centers what the people want to say, and I find that lacking in studies like this that would come from The Academy ™️. Allowing for true anonymization (or advertising) I thought was very nice, and all the submissions felt very comfortable.

I really enjoyed reading this book, all the emotions that it provoked in me, and all the knowledge I feel like I'm walking away with. It was also very easy to read, because though the chapters are frequently (but not always) heavy, they are short, and I got a lot out of just reading a chapter or two every few days.

[Ben G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first started reading this book, I thought it would just be about the experiences of transmasc people doing sex work. Instead I was pleasently surprised by reflections on gender,race and sexuality, all instersecting to make up a myriad of experiences. There were a lot of experiences I had never thought about, specially since a lot of these identities arent represented when talks about sex work come up.

This book contains lived realities of many types,from sex work being a liberating force,something mundane or something oppressive.

I genuinely think anyone who wants to talk or form an opinion about sex work needs to read this book, since it not only offers thoughts about transmasc people but also reflects about what sex work means in a society like ours and what reasons does someone have for engaging in it.

It has been a very captivating and informative experience, allowing me new perspectives into the overall transmasculine experience.

[Daniel Falco · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great and nuanced anthology with an excellent variety of perspectives and writing styles. Very informative.