Mr. Michael Quinlan:

It is has been hard to distinguish, but there is no doubt that over the years there were cases of discrimination against people who sold sex within the community. Some of it was based on class and whether one was a drug user. The other day President Obama spoke about the Stonewall riots, but who would have thought that people who had fought against oppression for three days were gay, drag queens and sex workers? In the history of the LGBT movement there has been a close association between men and women sex workers. In London, for instance, the police used to arrest the women sex workers. If they were carrying condoms, they were under threat; therefore, the men would carry the condoms, while the women would carry jars of Vaseline. That was one of the associations between them. Within the community and the broader community, in many cases, sex workers, in particular women sex workers, feel safer among members of the gay community and have taken part in LGTB pride events. Who is able to say who is the buyer and who is the seller?