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.

Bronx News Roundup, Jan. 21

A collection of Bronx students and their parents are suing the city for alleged abuses on the part of NYPD public safety officers. The plaintiffs allege that the officers, who are supposed to protect students, have been wrongfully handcuffing, assaulting and arresting the teenagers they work with.

The Latin music group Aventura, whose members hail from the Bronx, are set to perform a series of sold out concerts at Madison Square Garden. The Bronx group's new album has been number one on the Billboard's top Latin albums chart for the last 20 weeks.

A would-be scammer has been calling Riverdale residents posing as Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, asking for credit card donations of $10. Recipients of the calls have so far been wary.

A rookie Bronx police officer has been suspended after being caught on a homemade videotape punching and kicking a suspect who was lying handcuffed on the ground on Davidson Avenue near Fordham Road. The cop now faces possible arrest.

Thanks to community pressure, city officials are backing off of their decision to completely close Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School. The vocational school's automotive program will now be spared.

The Monroe College School of Criminal Justice has opened a new courtroom at their Bronx campus which will be used for courses and community workshops.