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In an article published on September 15th on the pro-LGBT+ website Advocate, Biden’s latest top nuclear hire dives into a defense of the “Rentboy.com” website, which shuttered following an August 2015 illegal prostitution raid. “Rentboy” is a colloquial term for young men who have sex with older men in exchange for money, often under dubious circumstances.
The article followed Department of Homeland Security officials raiding Rentboy’s Manhattan offices and arresting chief executive Jeffrey Hurant and six employees on charges of promoting prostitution. The following year, the CEO of the site, which connected male prostitutes and escorts with potential clients, was indicted on a charge of promoting prostitution which he ultimately pleaded guilty.
The U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of New York’s indictment also revealed the site’s negligence regarding underage sex work, particularly across Asia.
It detailed how Rentboy employees described the age verification process as a “gray area,” as they “did not always remove advertisements when the advertisers failed to provide identification.”
A man who now has the chance to affect nuclear policy at the U.S. Department of Energy once excoriated the federal government for raiding a website that trafficked young, vulnerable boys as escorts.
"The raid on its headquarters has thrown many gay, bisexual, and transgender young adults into turmoil as their main source of income has been ripped away due to irresponsible and archaic views of sex work," Brinton wrote at the time.
Brinton argued that taking these young boys out of the care of Rentboy and returning them to their families would endanger them.
The federal government’s recent attack on Rentboy.com is a devastating assault on some of the most vulnerable members of our community — young adults who, for the first time in their lives, were able to earn a secure living safely through Rentboy after surviving family rejection and homelessness because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Rentboy.com may or may not have broken the law. I don’t know. But I do know, from the frantic emails filling my inbox, that the raid on its headquarters has thrown many gay, bisexual, and transgender young adults into turmoil as their main source of income has been ripped away due to irresponsible and archaic views of sex work.
Because sex work disproportionately affects the LGBT community. Transgender people engage in sex work at a rate 10 times that of cisgender (nontrans) women. And many LGBT youth engage in sex work just to survive. A 2013 Center for American Progress report suggests that LGBT youth are more than three times as likely to have engaged in survival sex.
Democrats, is this really the high standard of the individuals you want working in our government?
originally posted by: MikhailBakunin
What's next? Infant bisexual basketball league?
The federal government’s recent attack on Rentboy.com is a devastating assault on some of the most vulnerable members of our community — young adults who, for the first time in their lives, were able to earn a secure living safely through Rentboy after surviving family rejection and homelessness because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Rentboy.com may or may not have broken the law. I don’t know. But I do know, from the frantic emails filling my inbox, that the raid on its headquarters has thrown many gay, bisexual, and transgender young adults into turmoil as their main source of income has been ripped away due to irresponsible and archaic views of sex work.
Because sex work disproportionately affects the LGBT community. Transgender people engage in sex work at a rate 10 times that of cisgender (nontrans) women. And many LGBT youth engage in sex work just to survive. A 2013 Center for American Progress report suggests that LGBT youth are more than three times as likely to have engaged in survival sex.