Journey into the Heart of Transgender Prostitution in the Bronx

Ed. note: This story appears in the latest issue of the Norwood News, which is out on the streets now. Pick up your copy today.

It’s a slow Monday night for Bianca, a transgender prostitute who operates on the corner of East 192nd Street and Davidson Avenue -- a quiet residential intersection near St. James Park, a place where the “tranny” sex trade has flourished, to the chagrin of local residents, for more than a decade.

“What are you doing here?” Bianca asks a potential customer, smiling coyly. “You’re looking good.”

Bianca’s hair is pulled back tight against her skull, a frizzy, kink of thick dark hair puffs out into a pony tail. Her heavily made-up face is highlighted by voluptuous dark red, almost purple, lips, and big dangling, gold-colored hoop earrings.

“I’m slumming it tonight,” she says, looking down at her baggy, gray-hooded sweatshirt, tight black skinny jeans and high tops. She is tall, but slender. Her sharp jaw line and wide shoulders give off just a whiff of masculinity.

Like the majority of the dozen or so prostitutes who ply their trade here, Bianca has male genitalia, but lives her life as a woman. Off and on, she takes hormones, but for the time being isn’t interested in having full gender re-assignment surgery.

Bianca is 27, she says, and has worked as a prostitute near Davidson and 192nd ever since she was 16.

“My best friend got me into it,” Bianca says. “She was doing it and was making a lot of money at it.” She’s thought about trying to get out, she says, but the money is too good. She earns enough to afford her own apartment on the Grand Concourse and usually only works a few hours a day.

On this Monday night, it’s 11:30 p.m. It’s been two hours and still no customers.

News Roundup, Feb 24

Here's some interesting news going on in the Bronx:

Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson predicts that the merging of Bronx Criminal and Supreme courts will bring nothing but chaos.

The convictions of the two former owners of a Bronx building where two firefighters were killed in 2005 were overturned yesterday due to the lack of evidence. A judge ruled that the owners were not aware of illegal partitions within the apartments. Read more here.

Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada, Jr. and the Bronx Board of Elections were served with another subpoena by AG Andrew Cuomo in search of 2008 senate petitions.

Nine-year veteran Officer Frank Palestro is now known as an NYPD whistle blower for reporting allegations of corruption at the 42nd precinct. "I was the PBA delegate, and now I'm labeled a rat for doing what I was supposed to do."

A long-awaited 18-hole PGA-level golf course at Ferry Point, the site of former dump, is said to be ready by fall of 2011. Mayor Bloomberg has handed the project over to the Parks Department, which is now looking for a firm to manage the course once it's completed.

Yankee fans lost another battle in trying to save Gate 2 from being demolished in June. After it's gone, the Parks Department will then begin the building of the long-delayed Heritage Field Park.

Bronx politcal leaders are gathering their petitions to begin the election war for state assembly, Senate and district leadership slots.

Bronx News Roundup, Feb. 11

Larry Seabrook, the indicted Bronx councilman, has been asked to step down from his position as vice co-chair of the Black, Latino and Asian caucus. Meanwhile, the behind the scenes jostling to succeed him in the Council has already begun. Names being tossed around include Assemblyman Carl Heastie, the chair of the Bronx Democratic Party.

Still on Seabrook, the media has been lifting the lid on his messy love-life. In 1993 he divorced his wife but somehow neglected to tell her. She found out seven years later.

Bronx Republicans J.C. Polanco and Jay Savino have been served with subpoenas by federal prosecutors investigating a $50 million voting-machine contract the city's Board of Elections awarded a Nebraska company. Polanco is the Bronx Republican commissioner; Savino is the chairman of the Bronx Republican Party. More here.

The Bronx Democratic Party has endorsed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

A man is suing a Bronx co-op complex for discarding his deceased father's possessions.

The police are hunting five men suspected of robbing a parking garage in Morrisania last week. After tying up an attendant, the men stole cash and a BMW.

Yesterday's snow storm was welcomed by tire shop owners on Jerome Avenue.

An ice-skating rink has opened on East 161st Street.

BoogieDowner clears up some erroneous information floating around cyberspace about two local supermarkets.

Joshua Clottey, a world-class boxer, has quietly made the Bronx his home these past seven years. Next month, the Ghana-born welterweight is scheduled fight Filipino phenom Manny Pacquiao.

In Throgs Neck, near the Whitestone Bridge, a new golf course is being built. Ferry Point Golf Course is scheduled to open in 2011. Golf legend Jack Nicholas had a hand in the original design - previous plans to build here fell through - and continues to be involved.

A Riverdale couple recently celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary.