Keeping Up with the Transition: Sex for Compensation and Women with Asylum and Transgender Experiences in Sweden

Sammanfattning: This thesis focuses on the practice of sex for compensation performed by women with transgender and asylum experiences living in Sweden. It aims to explore the complexities of sex for compensation by positioning this practice as both strategy and a tactic for obtaining income used for gender affirmation, considering that gender-affirmative healthcare is not available for asylum seekers in Sweden. The thesis analyzes the multiplicity and intersections of nine women’s narratives derived from nine semi-structured interviews and three hundred twenty-six hours of participant observation, including autobiographical elements of the author. The focus of this study does not lay on legal or ethical aspects of sex for compensation but on lived experiences and acts within positionalities of women with transgender and asylum-seeking identities in Stockholm, Malmö, and Gothenburg. Their narratives are structured in the thesis around their accounts on waiting, the dimension of appreciated accessibility in selling sex, the derivation of empowerment and pleasure from it, as well as a dimension of vulnerability. The thesis concludes that sex for compensation practiced by interviewees is sometimes agential, sometimes precarious, and sometimes paradoxically both at once. This practice is cherished by them due to being relatively easy to access, being able to give social confirmation to their female identities and being able to give sexual gratification. The author concludes that sex for compensation can be seen as a consequence of waiting for approval from authorities to access transgender healthcare, the highest priority and acute necessity of the women in focus.