Sex Workers With HIV Can Be Branded 'Violent Sex Offenders' In 1 State. DOJ Is Suing To Change That.

The Justice Department sued the state of Tennessee on Thursday, alleging that the state imposes harsher criminal penalties on people who engage in sex work while living with HIV.

The state has violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by criminally prosecuting sex workers living with HIV, “regardless of any actual risk of harm,” the lawsuit says.

Prostitution is typically classified as a misdemeanor in Tennessee. But under the state’s “aggravated prostitution” law, a person living with HIV who is charged with prostitution must register as a “violent sex offender” for the rest of their life, regardless of whether the person knew they could transmit the disease or practiced mitigation measures, such as using condoms or taking antiviral medication.

Tennessee is the only state to impose a lifetime sex offender registration requirement on sex workers who are HIV-positive.

Tennessee first developed its law to criminalize sex workers living with HIV in 1991 amid widespread panic and misinformation over the AIDS epidemic. Tennessee lawmakers later reclassified aggravated prostitution as a “violent sexual offense” in 2010.

The Justice Department suit calls on the state to not only stop enforcing the law but also to remove those convicted under the law from sex offender registries and to expunge their convictions.

“People living with HIV should not be subjected to a different system of justice based on outdated science and misguided assumptions,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a news release .

Separately, last fall, OUTMemphis, an LGBTQ+ health and advocacy organization, filed the first legal challenge to the HIV criminalization law, alongside the American Civil Liberties Union and the Transgender Law