Shaun Dawson (00:02.798)
Hey y’all, you’re tuned into Assigned Sex: Unarchived.

I’m your non-binary cousin, Shaun Dawson and this is a safe space where we’re honest about what it means to show up as Black, trans, and genderqueer.

Today we're having a conversation a lot of people are scared to have — sex work, survival, and what empowerment actually looks like. My guest goes by Lady.

Let's get into it.

Lady (00:31.438)
So the thing with sex work like I didn't want to do it for one of two reasons. A, all the shame...that we're taught, that's associated with it. All the shame that comes with it. Kinda like with anybody who grows up in a religious household or in the church, you are taught at a very early age to feel shame if you are anything but heterosexual. If you are if you're anything but cisgender heterosexual, you are taught at a very early age to feel shame. And it's the same thing when it comes to sex work. So one of the things that was one of the reasons why I didn't want to do it because of all the shame that's associated with it.

Shaun Dawson (01:11.702)
When you first did it, did you feel shame?

Lady (01:13.432)
When I first did it? I sure did. I sure the fuck did. I felt so I was like, what? I went to school, you know, I have a degree, I was....and I'm not saying that that puts me. Listen, if there's one thing I've learned and I'm not saying I went into the game thinking that I was better than anybody or that but I was thinking, no, you know, I shouldn't do that 'cause you know, people you know, my education was paid for those people and I did all this stuff and you know, I should I should try to do the quote quote right thing. You know, I grew growing up in the religious household and just, you know. That kind of stuff. But I've learned like you can have the degree, you can even have the day job making the money. And you still need that coin from escorting to keep that cushion underneath you. Everybody has a side hustle. And no shade, they say work smarter, not harder. Escorting, if done right, you know, you do it responsibly, you pick and choose your clients the right way. It's working smarter 'cause you come up on some hundreds of dollars in less than an hour. You charge a hourly rate. but the client usually don't stay for that full hour. So you just made hundreds of dollars in like thirty minutes.

Shaun Dawson (02:21.048)
What were like some of the biggest mistakes you made in the beginning?

Lady (02:25.528)
I don't know. I was always really careful about it. I've never really...I feel like escorting and oh I didn't finish my one point. With escorting I feel like you kinda go into it wanting to be as careful as possible because you know the risk. High key, it be my personal life where I'd be risking shit and being messy and it's like Lord, why did I let that nigga smash raw? Or why did I fuck him with no condom and that's more like the person. But when you're doing it for work, you kinda go into it with a different...you going into it with the mentality like, yo, I have to make sure I don't catch nothing because this is how I make my money. Again, I kinda really eased myself into it because I was Scary Mary. But yeah, so I didn't want to go I didn't want to go into it really for the main reason of like all the shame. And again, it's that same shame that we're taught if you grew up in religion that like if you're not a cis heterosexual, you are your existence is wrong. You should not basically you shouldn't be alive. and then you're taught to just kind of reject and all this other stuff. And so I felt that same. And I and what I really wanted, I really wanted a boyfriend. And you know, at what, twenty nine? When that when that didn't come at twenty nine I was like, Okay, forget it, like I'll just I'll just do this. This is not working out. I'm not...I'm not getting the guy. The guy hasn't come. Many guys have come and gone for free. Sometimes it was under casual with casual expectations. Other times there was it seemed as if it was going in the romantic direction. And every time I thought I was getting closer to that , it just didn't come. And then when I finally had that final straw at the age of twenty nine, I was like, okay.So I eased myself into it. And then I had a homegirl who did it and she made all this money. And I was like, I know I can make...I may not be able to make as much as she makes because I don't look like her. But I know I can make some of that. I know I can make some of what she makes. And so I started smooth with, you know, happy ending body rubs, et cetera. And then eventually I graduated to we can start with this massage. And if you wanna upgrade for like three hundred more dollars, you can do that. And then when you start making that money and you see your financial stress start to decline, you're like, I can do this.

Shaun Dawson (05:04.066)
Whenever you tell me about it, I'd be like, that shit just seems so unsafe because I just know how fragile masculinity is. How do you screen these people?

Lady (05:15.294)
Well, people have different methods. My homegirl she requires you send a picture. If you don't send a picture, she ain't gonna see you. And now I used to not...I used to not do that 'cause I ain't gonna hold you. You know, pretty privilege is a thing. And there are different tiers of pretty. Pretty and there are different tiers of pretty privilege. My friend is fair skin, long silky hair et cetera, et cetera. So men are more likely to tolerate her bullshit. And some don't. But some do. Most of them do, I feel like. But some of them don't. So she could get away with a lot more. I kinda felt like I was like, well, you could pull that off because you ain't Black. So her thing was if you don't send a picture, I'm not seeing you. And so at first I didn't do that. I was too afraid to actually do that. It made sense and I understood why. But I needed the money. I was like, I need the money. So and when it comes to this kind of work, discretion is paramount. You know. These men are public figures. They maybe they have families or, you know, whatever, whatever. Or they're, you know, important figures at work, etcetera. So discretion is key and they're not finna have their pictures put out there. And, you know, some of some of these quote workers be out here scamming people and they fish for pictures and they use it to blackmail people. So everyone's guard is up. Everyone's guard is up. So I never thought I didn't think that that would be the move to just have someone send me a picture. So you kinda go based off of phone call. How do they talk when they speak to you? Does it sound like someone that's educated? Does it sound like somebody that's gonna give you a hard time?

Does it sound like someone who could be troubled? Are they high? Are they are they or are they sober? And you can kind of see it in the text too. You know, so there they're just ways to kinda look at it. Now I've kinda gotten into the habit of asking for pictures 'cause I I blur my face now. I blur my face in my ass and I say if you want to see a picture of me, you have to send a picture of you. It's an easy exchange. And that works. Or sometimes there's a phone call or you just kind of check the text message to see how they text, how they message you. And you can pretty much you can you can pick up on the riffraff.

Shaun Dawson (07:48.962)
Has there ever been an instance where somebody tricked you or you've been in like a super dangerous situation?

Lady (07:55.202)
You mean like a robbery or something like that?

Shaun Dawson (07:58.124)
Like a robbery, like a fight, like something that your safety was...you weren't safe and you had to get out of it.

Lady (08:10.605)
Thankfully no. There was a time where this client was potential client, I ended up not seeing him. He sounded sketchy, but I went and met with him anyway 'cause he was close by and I went to I met him at his place and he just seemed too sketched and I declined him. But he harassed me for like two months and he would hit me up from different numbers, I'm gonna call my people on you. You know, all this other stuff. He was all like "you're racist, da da da" and I was like, no, I just I pick and choose. I don't have to I don't have to entertain you. Another security aspect, another thing you do, if you can, if you have an apartment where you can see outside your window, you give the client the address to whatever building you can see outside your window. Have them go there and then have them call you when they arrive. So then you can see them from your window. And you can determine you can kinda screen them and determine whether this is someone you wanna service. And there hasn't been an occasion where someone showed up and I had to turn them away or like that hasn't happened.

Shaun Dawson (09:20.974)
I feel like that's just very, very lucky.

Lady (09:23.062)
Well it depends though, Shaun. I screen. I screen. I'm paying attention. How do you talk? How are you texting? There is a screening process. And sometimes you don't know. You don't know. Sometimes you have no idea. Sometimes they don't want to call. Sometimes you just going based off of a text messaging. You just hoping for the best. But again, you look out that window, you make sure and you have them call you when they get there, when they arrive. And then you can direct you can see them out your window. And then you can either direct them to the building that is yours or you say, You know what, I'm sorry. Today is not a good day for me to provide services to you.

Shaun Dawson (10:08.334)
Okay, so it’s time for a little Black trans and genderqueer history. Today, we’re centering the story of CeCe McDonald. CeCe is somebody who got put through the machine and came out the other side with something to say about the machine itself. CeCe’’s story is not history in the distant sense. It’s a pattern we’re still watching play out in real time. This year, 2026, a trans woman named Paulina Poe is filing a lawsuit from inside a men’s prison, challenging the same kind of treatment CeCe survived.

CeCe McDonald (10:39.422)
I can just say it's a really, really good feeling to be back with everyone and to actually use this platform that I have now to educate people and to inform people about the violence against trans women, about the prison industrial complex.

Shaun Dawson (10:58.648)
CeCe was born in 1989 on the south side of Chicago. She knew who she was from early on, and her family made her pay for it. She ended up out of her house as a teenager, homeless, surviving on the streets of Chicago's Boystown.

CeCe McDonald (11:14.54)
I pretty much had a hard life. I was out on my own since I was fourteen. And, you know, from sleeping on park benches and couch hopping and trying to figure out what I was gonna do with my life. I really wanted to get a leg up, but it seemed like there was no opportunities for trans women in Chicago. And it seemed like every place I went into turned the backs on me or slammed the door in my face and it was really hard for me to like figure out what I was gonna do with my life and then after some major consideration I decided to move to Minnesota. After a friend had invited me...

Shaun Dawson (11:56.204)
June twenty eleven..

Juan González (11:57.824)
A transgender African American woman is facing trial for murder after an incident outside a Minneapolis bar where she was reportedly harassed and then physically attacked. Chrishaun "CeCe" McDonald, who is twenty-three years old, is scheduled to stand trial later this month for second-degree murder. But supporters say McDonald was the victim on June fifth, twenty eleven, after two women and a man, all of them Caucasian, began harassing her and her white friends outside a bar, calling them racial and homophobic slurs.

Shaun Dawson (12:25.12)
It starts with slurs, the kind that let you know exactly what somebody thinks you are, and then one of the women in the group smashes a glass into CeCe's face. Eleven stitches. One of the men in the group, Dean Schmitz, had a swastika tattooed on his chest. This is an important detail because a lot of coverage of this case sits in the background. During the fight CeCe defended herself with a pair of scissors, Schmitz died, and when the police showed up the person they arrested was CeCe.

Prosecutors went after her for second-degree murder, which carried up to 80 years. She took a plea deal for second-degree manslaughter, 41 months. The man with the swastika on his chest was dead, and the Black trans woman with glass in her face was going to prison for it. And because Minnesota decided to classify her by anatomy rather than identity, they sent her to a men's facility. A woman who had just survived a white supremacist hate crime, was placed in a men's prison, and the state called that a policy decision.

CeCe McDonald (13:25.228)
Yes, I was put in a man's prison.

Amy Goodman (13:28.076)
You chose not to fight that? To be put in women's prison?

CeCe McDonald (13:31.326)
Yeah, and my reasoning behind that was because after I did some educating myself on the prison industrial complex and the history behind African Americans in incarceration, I felt like sending me to any prison wouldn't solve my issue. men's prisons, women's prisons, they're prisons and they're not good.

Shaun Dawson (13:58.4)
Inside, CeCe wrote letters to the people fighting for her on the outside that got published and read across the country and eventually around the world. She was building an intellectual and political argument from inside a men's prison about why the whole system needed to come down, not get reformed, but abolished.

CeCe McDonald (14:16.152)
To ive in a like literally a ten by ten room and your toilet is by your bed and like it's it's really a...I can't even put into words that feeling, but it's just like the worstest, grossest, grimiest feeling that you could ever feel and it's like, you know, and like I said, I was fortunate enough to be able to get out. You have to remember some people d are never going to get away from that. Some people have to deal with that for the rest of their lives.

Shaun Dawson (14:48.312)
The Free CeCe campaign became one of the most visible trans justice campaigns the country had seen. Laverne Cox, before "Orange Is The New Black" made her a household name, got involved, and eventually produced a documentary about the case

Laverne Cox (15:01.238)
Well the moment I heard about CeCe McDonald's story, I felt it was a microcosm of what so many trans women of color experience every day living our lives is ourselves. Cece was just walking down the street with her friends, they were going to the grocery store and she experienced violence. She had to fight for her life. And when she survived, which a lot of trans women don't always we don't always survive. When she survived, her gift of survival was a prison sentence. She was she was criminalized for being Black, for being trans and for surviving. I believe.

Shaun Dawson (15:31.916)
What CeCe's story put into plain language was something activists had been saying for years without being heard: the system does not recognize a Black trans woman's gender until it is time to punish her. They will not put her in a women's shelter, will not hire her, will not protect her from the man with the swastika, but they will send her to a men's prison when she survives him.

She got out in January 2014 after 19 months and kept going. I think this is an important piece of the story because a lot of people would have needed years just to breathe after what she went through. CeCe came out and immediately got back in the work. She became a speaker, an organizer, and a voice in the prison abolition movement.

CeCe McDonald (16:13.868)
I never wanted this. You know what I'm saying? Like I never, you know, thought that I could say I'm you know, a leader. You know what I'm saying? Like, I never wanted that. And I was literally sitting in my jail cell and be like, I don't wanna be a leader. What do they want from me? I don't know. What do they want? And then it took for me to do my own self, you know, assurance and self-awareness and and self-identifying to know that if I'm gonna take this challenge, I'm not

I'm just doing it for myself. And that's what the overall bigger picture was, that it wasn't even just about me anymore.

Shaun Dawson (16:50.146)
CeCe has been clear that her goal is not a more trans-friendly prison. She does not want a softer version of the horrible thing she experienced. She wants the conditions that funnel Black trans women into cages in the first place to stop existing. She has made that argument in college classrooms, at conferences, in documentaries, and in interviews, for over a decade now. Refusing to soften it to make people more comfortable.

CeCe McDonald (17:15.264)
Do I wanna talk about the prison industrial complex? Is that something that people wanted to know? And then a part of me was just like, fuck it. I don't care if they don't wanna know. You gonna know. So You gonna know So, you know it really took me to ha go through all these different stages of educating and you know questioning and trying to figure out what's my place in this. And once I figured that out, that gave me the courage to kind of speak on those issues because a lot of times people don't want to speak about it. Even people who've been in those situations, it kind of makes them feel uncomfortable. And so, you know, I felt like there's no room for uncomfortability because I'm already uncomfortable for the last twenty five years I've been uncomfortable.

Shaun Dawson (18:00.834)
When we talk about Paulina Poe filing a lawsuit from inside a men's prison in 2026, we are not talking about something new. We are talking about a pattern that CeCe McDonald survived, documented, and has been warning us about ever since. She gave the movement her own life as a case study and kept showing up. That is not something that gets taught enough, and that is exactly why we are talking about her today.

Shaun Dawson (18:30.732)
I said, can you fight?

Lady (18:32.824)
Can I defend myself?

Shaun Dawson (18:34.57)
Yeah, I mean like do you carry like weapons? Like would you go head to head with like fist or do you carry pepper spray?

Lady (18:40.526)
Yeah, I like to think that I can defend myself and I have pepper spray, but I keep that in my purse and I have a cutter that I know... I know where like all of my sharp objects are in my home if I ever need to do something. And if I have to throw hands, like I have my gloves for that 'cause I can't be scraping up my fingers, my knuckles. But it's never come to that. Also I mean you kinda hope the dude that I just told you about that was like threatening me later on, he came from this site. Typically like you you post on a website that is more like higher it attracts more higher end clientele and you just kinda hope that you don't attract any riffraff, but sometimes that's not always the gatekeeper from the riffraff. Like this last dude, he was from that site and I was like, you found me on this website. It's a respectable site. I don't know why you're coming at me with this crazy riffraff trash. I don't deal with trash, I dåon't deal with riffraff, and you're giving me trash behavior right now. Like that website is not for you. Go look somewhere else, you know what I mean?

Shaun Dawson (19:42.476)
So most of these men aren't Black? Got it.

Lady (19:45.258)
Hell no. But I don't I don't post I don't you know, like it might be now listen, this might be different for the for the girls in the south. Like the Atlanta girls, I don't know what that world is down there. Maybe the the Black men down there, they cool and stuff and they're not gonna give you a hard time. But no shade, like Black clients are usually like the most difficult clients. Like I would say I mean it's maybe a testament to the historical...the domino effects of history and, you know, how this group of people how one group of people had golden spoons and silver spoons and the others kinda had to work a lot harder for it. So with Black clients, they're usually more difficult. They want you to do more. It's like they're gonna give you a hard time about the rate or it's typically it's not like a smooth exchange. Whereas with like Caucasian clients
it's usually a lot smoother of an exchange. Hispanic men that aren't like ghetto or hood, they're also smooth. But, even like with just like not all, but just even like some of the educated Black men, it just be like it'd be too much. It's too much back and forth. Oh why is it so much? Just like this is the price, you know. But I will say in New York, when I did a little bit of it there the Black clients that I had there they didn't give me one of gave me a hard time when he came back the second time. But I had like maybe three, two or three, no problems. I was like, okay, this was smooth and easy and simple. But typically even with stripping, it was just like the Black men they just they didn't want you to do too much. While the other clients are a lot easier to please or impress or it's just a smoother, easier transaction. Not even trying to stereotype, that's just what it is. No, it's generalizing, it's how it works. It's just it's how it works.

Shaun Dawson (21:43.512)
It's definitely a stereotype.

Lady (21:44.834)
No, it's in relevant. It's how it works. It's just it's how it works. No, it's and it's not...That's what I'm telling you. And I don't. Again, there's a screening aspect to it. Some girls can just take just anybody. I pick and choose.

Shaun Dawson (22:06.082)
That's scary, taking anybody.

Lady (22:08.862)
Listen, when you let me tell you something. When you need that coin, I know them girls. I know girls from the from the night life. A client was a client. They ain't care. They will get their coins. Sometimes they will even lessen they price and I get it. It's smart. If you if you go through like three or four guys for a lower rate than your usual rate, you still coming up. You still making way more money. I get it.

Shaun Dawson (22:38.048)
What do you think people that are looking in from the outside they don't really know about it, what do they get wrong about the emotional labor that's involved? 'Cause I feel like that's why your price should be high, because of the emotional labor.

Lady (22:51.116)
There is emotional labor. It can be draining. It can especially be draining if you're not like into a guy a person, the person that you're servicing. then it's really work. And you know, sometimes they come over smelly and it's like you need to take a shower. You know, so now you gotta accommodate them. You gotta get a towel and shit for them to use your shower and you gotta clean up after, you know, it's like

Shaun Dawson (23:19.692)
You gotta tell them to take a bath?

Lady (23:21.038)
Take a shower sometimes, yeah. If a guy... it's happened. But I put in...you know, also the text that you put in your ad can for the most part...

Shaun Dawson (23:32.662)
I wanna I wanna hear part of your ad. Let me hear how this. I wanna hear this shit. What is the ad? You ain't gotta read it word for word. I'm just curious what's in your ad. Cause I like you gotta be like nigga take a bath?

Lady (23:48.299)
No. I say please be hygienic and cleanly. and then I put for example showering before your session. But I used to not have that there. And sometimes guys would come over smelly and I would have to I'm like, yo, you gotta you gotta go shower. Like you have to take a shower and it's part of the time that you booked with me. But you know, making everything clear, setting your boundaries and making your expectations clear in your ad will help attract who you want to attract and repel who you don't want to attract. So that's a key factor. But then again, sometimes riffraff will find you or try to come your way or whatever. I like explicitly note like I prefer service over gentlemen. I can't do the people that are either drunk or on substances. But I know a lot of girls that make a lot of their money with those people. I mean they're easier to take advantage of. They'll give you thousands and thousands of dollars 'cause they're high and they're, you know, narced up. It's like I get it. It's just I don't want that kind of energy around me. Just because I know I've been around it in my personal life with guys that I dated and I'm just like this ain't for me. So I think this is just an ad, you know, there are girls that just there are girls that do it, they go out, you just wait in the lobby or go to a bar or something like that. And you get your client that way. Which it's easier. It's easier. It's a bit more work, but it's easier from the standpoint of you screen, you know what you're getting, who you're getting for the most part. You gotta hope that he doesn't go batshit crazy on you in the hotel room. And you go from there. But with everything that's a risk. Even with regular hookups. When you bring someone to your home for a hookup or from a date or something, we don't know if they're batshit crazy and they're gonna harm us, you know, during intimacy or anything like that. We don't know. It's there's always that risk factor.

Shaun Dawson (25:52.834)
You seem like you're a pretty good judge of character. Also, I know that you don't drink or smoke. So I know your head is like always like on straight. But I feel like usually people give you like red flags. Like I know of somebody crazy. Like right off. Like I can tell. Yeah. Do you think that escorting is empowering?

Lady (26:12.396)
I think I do believe sex work or what some call spicy work, I do believe it's empowering. We live in a world where especially men, I will always speak in the context of men because that's my life and who I service and who I pursued in my romantic life. I live in a world where there are more men who will use you and take advantage of you for your body and leave you high and dry and broken hearted feelings hurt with no remorse. They will use you and bounce to the next and then wife up who it is they want to wife up and they just go on with your life and you're left to deal with what they left behind. The damage that they left behind in your life. So sex work is a way to take that power back, to get your power back. Yep. It and it creates it creates an exchange where you're not walking away empty handed. You're walking away fiscally better than you were prior. One step financially ahead better than you were before. And when it comes to T girls, yes. I mean, everyone does sex work, not just T girls. Like men do it. There are straight men that are gay for pay, all over, and they are fine. Gay for pay... models, dancers, go-go boys, etc. Everyone does it. Everyone does it. It just so happens that in our community, because we are a minority, it gets more of the spotlight. But when you...especially if you're like pre 2020, if you wanted to transition, it depends on your stand however you want to transition. Some of us want body, some of us want face, some of us want....some of us some of us want a real cosmetic reinvention of ourselves. How the hell are you gonna finance that? Working a job and then dealing with like transphobia and all this other shit on the day to day until you can reach that goal, or you could go do some sex work and make a lot more money, a quicker time, save up, and then get the surge. Get the work that you wanna have done. Now the insurances are covering it which is interesting. But certain insurances are covering everything. They're covering facial fem, they're covering everything. Vaginoplasty. Some are even covering hair transplants. I'm not saying all, but back in the day when I started out, that was not the case. It was not.

But now, yeah, back in the day it was just like, so how you gonna pay for these procedures you want done? 'Cause you need that kind of money. So you gotta do some kind of sex work. Yes, the girls who do it is usually the girls that have it, you know. They look the most extravagant. They got the bodies, they got the face, they got the hair, they got the hair weaves, they got the materialistic things, the hot quote unquote high end, materialistic stuff. Like it's like okay, you definitely you definitely doing it. You're definitely like nine times out of ten you're probably you probably got all of that through doing sex work. And there is nothing wrong with that.

But no shade, everybody's fucking! How many bitches...for something? How many bitches you fuck the guy because he bought you dinner? You fucked the guy because he took you home. You fuck this person because you know, you're married to them and they have the lifestyle that you want. You date this person because you want you want access to.... We're all we all out here hoeing, you know? It may not be as an explicit of an exchange. It may not be as explicit of an exchange as here's cash for my body. Give me the cash for my body. But it there's an exchange there.

speaker-1 (30:14.284)
Alright y'all, that's all I got for today. If you'd like details on the archival audio featured in this episode, check out the show notes. If this episode dragged you a little bit, or if it hugged you a little bit, please share it with someone you love. You can find me, your non-binary cousin Sean Dawson, on all platforms at IMS Dawson. Y'all be safe out there.