Tax expert Maya Forstater fired for saying trans women aren’t women

My girlfriend’s job as a stripper has made me better at relationships

1. I knew Annie was a stripper when we started dating, and I didn’t think much about it. From when we first got to know each other through to when things got serious, she talked about her job like you talk about any other job – the good and bad customers, the slow bonds you make with co-workers, the occasional issues with management – and I felt like it wasn’t having any negative impact on our relationship.
   
   In fact, about a year and a half later, it’s helped strengthen it.
   
   I gave Annie a key to my house late last year, and since then she’s come over early in the morning most weekends after finishing her shifts. A routine has started where as I start to wake up, she falls asleep telling me about the night she just had.
   
   Learning more about her work, I get the sense that Annie makes most of her money through bookings and her ability to engage people in conversations. I hear about nights spent listening to men destress, unload, and in general complain about friends, family, work, or any other part of their lives that bother them. In turn, I hear about Annie reassuring them, holding up their self-esteem, and validating their feelings, emotional labour in a very literal sense.
   
   Constantly providing this emotional labour at work has made Annie hyper-aware of how often she is also expected to provide it outside of work, and of a crucial difference that marks the two spaces. Her club is a setting where emotional labour is explicitly sought by men and its value is clearly laid out in an hourly rate. The world and men outside it, however, often expect that work for free without even realising we are receiving it. Just like any other kind of labour, that could be alright if it was reciprocated or returned in kind, but that’s not always the case.
   
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