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This episode contains references to sexual violence. Please use discretion. When I was a child I thought I was an
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extraterrestrial, that I was an UFO. Uh and I told my grandmother that it was a really funny story.
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And uh What did she say when you said you were a you >> Yeah. My brother told me that they found
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me in a railroad. Right? One day we were like crossing a railroad and my brother told me, "That's where we
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found you and my um took you with us because you were naked on the railroad as a baby."
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And around the same time I I was kicked out of the bathroom in the girls' bathroom in school.
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And um I'm from an area of Argentina where is a lot of UFO activity in the '70s.
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So I put two and two together and I went to my grandma and I said, "Grandma, I think I know what happened.
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I am an alien that I was left by mistake here, but I belong to a country where to
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a a planet where all the girls have peepees like me." And my grandmother, being the great
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grandmother that she was, she says, "That makes sense. I'm pretty sure that's true." And uh we
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slept under, you know, outside in the in a huge patio with uh trees that she fruit trees that she had. And we spent
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the night outside waiting for, you know, for my family from another planet to come and
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and rescue me. And of course that didn't happen. Cecilia Gentili was born in 1972
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in a very small town in Argentina. I you know, I I was always, you know, using the girls' bathroom.
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Um you know, I always had a tendency Sometimes I didn't say that I was a girl, but I always said that I wasn't a
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boy. That was a a constant for me. And around um my teenager years and adolescence,
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uh I I I started being attracted to to other boys and I thought like I guess like being gay
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is the closest thing to what I feel, you know, at the time. It wasn't conversation about trans people and it
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wasn't a conversation about being trans. There was no internet, you know, so I thought I was crazy for a long time.
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And when I when I went to the big city, you know, to go to college at age 17, I met the first trans person that I ever
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met in my life. And it was like this huge realization of like, you know, first of all, I'm not
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crazy. Second of all, I may not be a UFO person. I I may not be an extraterrestrial.
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And and there is like, you know, it is people like me in the world, you know. So,
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I just verbally almost assault this woman cuz it was like, "Please, please, please help me,
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help me, help me. I need you, I need you. I'm like you. I I need help." She was like, "Oh, calm down."
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And uh I you know, she said, "Okay, you know, I'll help you." She said, "I'm working
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right now." She was in the street. She said, "I'm working right now. Go Go the bar and when I finish working, uh
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we'll meet and we talk more. And that's what I did. I waited all night in the bar and
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then she told me, you know, "Yeah, you know, you you can be trans. Um there's three things that you need to
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know. You're going to be a [ __ ] You're going to get high and you're going to die young.
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Those are the three things that you need to know and be clear about before making
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the decision of uh transitioning. And I didn't doubt it for a minute. I said, "Yes, yes, and yes. I'm okay with
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all of those." I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. I thought that uh you know, that
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that was the only way to survive, right? Uh it it was, you know, it wasn't like the idea of having a job while being
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trans was not possible. Uh the idea of you know, uh being a housewife, you know, uh and
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having a husband that takes care of you, uh it wasn't possible because like anybody
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uh you know, uh usually all the um men that I uh dated at the time were dating me under
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these extreme shaming, you know, cloud were like uh they used to say that they were my boyfriend just
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in a in between, you know, four walls in in in a room, but nobody would hold my hand
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in the street, you know? So, uh it was like, "Hey, you know, all these guys wants to have sex with me.
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Nobody wants to be my boyfriend. So, I may as well just get some money out of it, you know, so and survive."
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So, it was more like organically came with the idea of being trans, the idea of being a sex worker. So,
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it was like, you know, it it for me it was like "This is what the life of a trans person is, and
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I am trans, I and this is what I have to do." It was also a lot of reaffirmation with sex work.
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You know, when you have like all these the rest of the world telling you that, you know, that you are wrong, that you
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are an abomination, that you know, you your body is a mistake. And at the same time, you have all these
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people paying for your body and for your time. So, it was it was very reaffirming.
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How was the money? Um the money was good. Um I work a lot, you know, I um I I make decent money in in the street,
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enough to survive. Uh but not enough to go ahead with certain uh surgeries that I wanted.
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Uh you know, money was enough to pay rent and to eat. Um but I wasn't making money. Uh
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my transition wasn't going where I wanted to go. Um my life wasn't going where I wanted
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to go. And um interactions with police and um overall, you know, really um it really really bad experiences.
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Sex work was so heavily policed in Argentina that at this point uh uh last year uh a group of trans women from the city
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that I'm from were given a reparations pension for all the suffering that the law enforcement
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uh made them go through. I hope that gives you an idea of what kind of oppression we were going through
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at the time. It is like, you know, trans women receiving a reparations pension. That's how bad the government
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feels about the treatment that they gave us. And you know, it wasn't only just like,
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you know, being arrested. It was like, you know, being you know, uh asked for sexual favors and and asked
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for bribes and money and uh being humiliated. So, you know, I would do anything not to be arrested. I would do
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anything basically anything not to be arrested. When Cecilia was growing up in Argentina, trans people could be
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arrested for just walking down the street. As she got older, she moved around trying to find a place where she felt
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safe and could do her job. And I guess neighbors started calling the police because I was around.
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And I you know, for a moment I thought like, you know, I found a place where I can
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just do what I do without being um bothered. And um you know, the police started stopping
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me. And they um they um sexually I saw I was sexually assaulted by two officers and um
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And I said like, you know, it's never it's never going to be a place where I can
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do what I do and not have to go through these things. Um it was like this sense of like it's not
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a safe place for me in this anywhere in this city. And uh I am just going to die here.
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Um so I thought like, you know, I have to do something with my life now. Uh and that was, you know, when the idea
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of leaving Argentina, trying to build a future came about. And that's how I came to Miami.
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Did you think it would be easier to be a sex worker in America? Oh, I thought like it would I thought it
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was going to be people at the airport waiting for me offering me jobs. That's That was
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That was my idea of the United States. I thought like it were people waving an American flag and saying like welcome
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and offering me all their jobs, so I didn't even have to do sex work anymore. And that wasn't the case.
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I have to say that was not the case. Cecilia says that when she arrived in Miami, she started looking for jobs
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right away. She looked for a job in a hair salon, but she didn't have a license and she was undocumented.
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This was in 2000. She was 27. So, uh you know, whatever got better in terms of me
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being trans in the United States, got worse in terms of being undocumented. And of course, the only thing that I
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knew how to do was sex work besides hair and that's what I did. Her plan was to work for 3 months in the United States
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because as much money as possible and then fly home to Argentina just before her visa expired.
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But 4 days before her flight home, Cecilia was arrested. I got arrested on Washington Avenue in Miami.
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And I remember um you know, I remember like the girls that you know, the other girls taught me like certain
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tricks that they're not even true. It's just it's just you know, things that you do
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and say like you know, if you touch the client, if it's a police officer, it's is supposed to let you touch him.
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This is totally [ __ ] I you know, I touch I even had oral sex with police officers and after we had oral sex, they
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arrested me. You know, or if you ask them if they're police officers, they have to tell you
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if they're police officers. So, you know, I did my whole like you know, list of things to make sure that this guy
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who stopped me in a taxi in a yellow taxi wasn't a police officer. He was a the passenger in the taxi. So, I went in
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the taxi and I said, "Are you a police officer?" And he said like, "No, I'm not."
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And then I touched him and and he allowed me to touch him. So, I said, "Well, he's not a police officer." And
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he said, "How much is you know, for a date?" So, I told him how much it was. He says like, "Do you have another
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friend that you can bring with us?" And I said, "No, none of my friends are in the street
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right now." And um then he stopped the the taxi and we got out of the taxi. And the taxi driver came out of the
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taxi, too. And I thought that that was weird. And they arrested me and I said, "But you
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told me that you're not a police officer." And he said, "I'm not a police officer. The taxi driver is."
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And I got arrested and I was uh um I went to the the precinct, I guess. And uh uh of course, they put me there with
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the men. Uh I saw the judge and the judge let me go uh with the I needed to surrender my passport.
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So um I was not able to take my flight. And at that point, I overstayed my my visa.
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So I made a decision to just stay stay here in the United States uh fully as an undocumented person.
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And I'm going to fully dedicate myself to sex work. And um that's what I did. And I kind of stopped working in the
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streets mostly. And I focused on um ads. I had ads in the paper. I had ads in a special magazine in Miami called
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Unique Encounters. Uh really funny name, Unique Encounters. And um I you know, you put pictures there and
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your phone number, people would call you. And then I found the internet, you know,
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and uh I found the internet and uh and uh money started being good and I had, you know,
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my first breast implants and I had a couple of like facial surgeries. I had laser. I had laser in my face. So like
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now not having facial hair was a such a like uh amazing moment in my life. So you know, I started being happy.
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Plus you know, I was starting like I started making, you know, relationships here. I had friends. So um uh it was you
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know, it was hard. It was hard, but um I it was better than in Argentina. So I I wanted to stay here.
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It was a a beautiful community, you know, all my friends that were doing sex work, you know, with me at the same
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time, you know, they were really good people, you know, they were help we were helping each other all the
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time. Uh we were supporting each other. Uh we were like, you know, in constant um communication, like, you know, this
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number is going to call you, don't answer, it's a waste of time, or this guy is going to try to come and see you,
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uh don't see him because he's violent. So, we had a network uh where we we, you know, were all
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co-workers, I guess, and uh and friends, you know, and we spent time and we cooked together. It was like
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really nice. So, um uh it was times where I say like this is too much, but it was also good times
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with the with community. And how did life get better when you could start getting your clients
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online so that you weren't out on on the streets, but rather Yeah, at home, you know.
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>> at home. At home. So, for me it was the you know, it was like, oh, this is great, you know, I just can be at home.
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I can making, you know, be making my own meals. And if I have a client I mean, I
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just stop and do my client and then eat the food that I cooked myself, you know.
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Uh you know, things are different when you're home, it's, you know, you're in your place, things are yours. Um so, uh
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for me it it was uh better. Again, you know, um you know, I was always worried that, you know, uh uh
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a police officer could come and arrest me, you know, it was very common in South Beach that uh you know, police
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would make themselves look like clients uh sign, you know, in the phone saying that they were clients.
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And um um they um they would come and arrest you. So, you know, sometimes like, you know, uh
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I would, you know, be looking in the window to see, you know, who my client was and like sometimes I would just
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think like, this guy looks like a looks like a police officer. Um and um every time I would see a client with a
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shaved head I I associate that with police officers, I guess. So, I would never see them, you
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know, they I never opened the door. She says the internet helped a lot. Cecilia could now look someone up before
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deciding whether to meet them. And sex workers in Miami could communicate on forums and warn each
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other about police, violent clients, or clients that wouldn't pay. They would ID clients by phone number in
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case they'd given a fake name. So, it was great, you know, life was much better.
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Of course, all of that ended with SESTA FOSTA. SESTA and FOSTA would stand for the Stop
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Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act are a set of bills that were signed into law
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last April. Under the law, website publishers, including sites like Craigslist, would
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be responsible if anyone posts ads for sex work on their platforms. The bill's supporters framed this as an
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important way to curb sex trafficking online. Critics argue that it makes no distinction between victims of sex
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trafficking and consensual sex workers. One of the immediate effects of the law was that those sites that sex workers
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used to find clients and communicate with each other started shutting down. Are sex workers less safe without these
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types of sites? Of course. You know, we don't have the opportunity to, you know,
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uh look in there, you know, in our forums and like to see if, you know, the the clients that are coming to see us
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are, you know, uh not good, you know? Um and also, like where, you know, many of
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us are not able to advertise. You know, people had to go back to the streets, you know?
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Uh people that were not used to the streets anymore, you know? And also, like, you know, the fact that it was
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more more sex workers in the streets, it gave clients a certain, um l- level of leverage, right? Because,
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you know, sex workers had to, you know, take clients, you know, that they wouldn't otherwise, just because, you
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know, they needed to work. So, uh system forced that, you know, and shutting down
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the websites, you know, was terrible for the sex workers community. It's really terrible, really, really terrible.
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It seems like not many people understand just how common sex work is. Do you think that's right?
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Absolutely. After living in Miami for 5 years, Cecilia started getting threats that
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she'd be reported to the police as an undocumented immigrant. So, she moved to New York. I used to
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live on Mott Street and uh me and a friend of mine, you know, had apartments right across the hall.
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And um police went once and um uh they raided her apartment and arrested her. And they were knocking on
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my door and knocking on my door and knocking on my door and I just didn't open. I was terrified.
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And you know, and I looked through the peephole and I you know saw how they were taking her and they were really
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they really wanted me too. And I just didn't open. Nobody should have to work or do what they do for living with this
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terrible fear of being arrested all the time. Are there fewer clients now? Um I I couldn't tell you. Um
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uh I haven't uh been actively working for uh a couple of years now, but you know
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uh I am in touch with most of my friends and like you know it is a lot of consensual sex uh nowadays in forums
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like Grindr, Tinder and all of that. So uh I I notice that you know, it's less clients because it's more opportunities
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to have sex uh consensual sex for free. But of course that is not regulated. It does not does not criminalized, right?
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But once you exchange money for sex, you are a criminal. So uh you know when you
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play football you are selling your body for money. Right? Just in a way that you know, you're
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selling your the strength of your body to catch a ball, right? It's nothing different, right? If you
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know how to cook, you become a chef. I know how to have sex, so that's why I became a sex worker.
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Um so uh I think like because of the idea of sex it has been uh painted as something that is sinful and
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not moral, you know, uh had created this idea that sex work should not be allowed.
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How much of sex work is talking, making people feel good about themselves and not
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actually having >> Yeah. A lot. A lot. A lot. A lot of sex work is is a lot of therapy.
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I always said that, you know, I should have a social um work degree because I have
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counsel and uh listened to uh an incredible amount of uh people, you know, who, you know, hire me uh
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through sex work and in reality sex was the least that we did uh in our encounters.
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Um I uh you know, I I encounter all kind of people and you know, with some of them
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was also a lot of sex, you know, uh but uh with most of them was just that human
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connection, right? People have need to be connected and to feel comfortable about who they are, you know, uh
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so it is a lot about the connection and sometimes it's about sex, too. Cecilia now lives in Queens. She was
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granted asylum in 2011. She plans to apply for citizenship next year. And I have a very, uh, I don't know
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what's normal, but in my idea of normality, I have a very normal life. I have a partner. He's, uh, wonderful and
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I love him very much. Um, we we get up at 7:00. I make some breakfast or or coffee. And he goes to work and I
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get ready and I start with my, uh, work. And, um, uh, what I do is advocacy. Um, and then I
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would do all kind of, uh, you know, after work activities and I would come back home
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tired and have dinner with my partner and go to sleep. So, that's my life. That's my life nowadays. Um,
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you know, it's another kind of busy. Today she's active in efforts to decriminalize sex work in New York.
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She runs a policy reform organization called Trans Equity. And she leads a support group for
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undocumented trans Latinas. What do you want to say now to that little girl thinking that she was an
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alien, um, uh, seeing all that you've seen now and where you are in your life. What would
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you say Uh, I think I think that we are all aliens until we find our communities.
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You know, I think, uh, you know, some of us find our community with our own family.
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And some of us don't. So, for those that don't find their own community with their own families,
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it is a family out there and you just have to look for them and when you find them,
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you will find your family and you will find your planet somehow where you don't feel like a like
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an extraterrestrial. Um so, it is a hard but beautiful journey. Uh but the reward of finding your
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community is wonderful. In our next episode, we go to one of the only legal brothels
00:29:43
in the United States, the Bunny Ranch, where we spoke with the top earning legal sex worker in the country.
00:29:54
Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.
00:30:00
Audio mix by Rob Byers. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of
00:30:06
Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. We're on Facebook and Twitter at
00:30:12
Criminal Show. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC.
00:30:19
We're proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collection of the best podcasts around.
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Shows like The Truth. They've just released a five-part series called The Body Genius. It's a dark
00:30:34
comic mystery about a fictionalized Hollywood where looking the part might cost you your life.
00:30:42
A few days ago, Wesley Stern, an actor that I was helping to get huge for an action movie called Immortal Cop, was
00:30:48
found dead in my private gym. Crushed inside a high-tech weight machine. Even worse, the cops think that I had
00:30:57
something to do with it. Now, I need to clear my name. Somebody out there killed Wesley, and I'm going
00:31:05
to do whatever it takes to find them. Go listen. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
00:31:22
Radiotopia from PRX.