In India, sex workers in brothel-based settings, especially in big, well-renowned red-light districts in metropolitan areas like the Sonagachi in Kolkata [16] and the Kamathipura in Mumbai [17] are supported by community led structural interventions and development projects. They have access to healthcare information—including information pertaining to safe sex practices—provided by government and non-governmental agencies and community-based peer outreach projects. They enjoy the social support of their peers to negotiate healthcare systems and voice their demands for collective rights and resistance against oppression [18,19].

Research however highlights that a significant percentage of sex workers in India operate clandestinely from non-brothel-based settings [20]. However, there is a serious gap in research on the differences of the impact of stigmatization on identity negotiation and support-seeking among brothel-based and transient sex workers and for the visibility of stigmatization of transient, non-brothel-based sex workers as well the effect on the patterns of health information access, support-seeking and service uptake [18,19]. It is important to note here that brothel-based sex workers and non-brothel-based sex workers are not mutually exclusive categories, as considerable overlap exists between these groups [21]. However, the variations in the work setting have significant implications on their health and overall well-being. Non-brothel-based sex workers have no fixed place and time of operation. They solicit their clients from varied public places, such as cinema halls, parks, bus stands, railway stations, hotels/lodges, streets and highways. They are a transient, peripatetic population and use their mobility strategically to escape being labeled as sex workers and the stigma associated with residing in brothels [20,21,22].

Unlike their brothel-based counterparts, studies have found that non-brothel-based sex workers are more vulnerable to contracting sexually transmitted infections (STI)s. Their frequently changing work environments render access to STI preventive equipment challenging, and they are more likely to experience sexual violence due to their clandestine operations [18,19,23]. Sex workers’ unions require their members to self-identify themselves as a ‘sex worker’ in order to become a member of the organization and to avail themselves of critical support services. Brothel-based sex workers who are union members often have access to health care clinics, co-operative banks providing loans for community business enterprises (e.g., in Sonagachhi), residential schools and children’s day-care shelters set up in close proximity to the brothels (e.g., in Sonagachhi and Kamathipura). On the contrary, individuals operating from non-brothel-based settings and living with their families are reluctant to seek membership in support groups that require them to register as sex workers. Several studies show that the targeted programs or sex worker support groups have had a limited outreach and impact on transient sex workers [18]. The latter avoid these services due to fear of being labeled as sex workers and the resultant stigmatization. Transient sex workers thus negotiate visibility and stigmatization differently from brothel-based sex workers. Hence, in this context the study of location and visibility is simultaneously the study of stigmatization, agency and health.

The location of sex work and the resultant visibility or invisibility of the sex workers themselves have only sporadically appeared as a relevant concept while studying stigmatization. Kotiswaran (2011) shows that sex workers operating from designated brothels or red-light areas in India are more visible than transient sex workers and often form a unique and distinct labor force [20]. However, they are more readily recognized as sex workers owing to their location, and consequently they face intense scrutiny, surveillance and stigmatization. Ham and Gerard (2014) noted that brothel-based sex workers often register themselves as members of their professional group in order to gain access to externally provided support services including harm reduction programs [24]. However, registering as sex workers exacerbates the stigmatization against them. Such stigmatization often intersects with their location within red-light areas and increases the chances of eviction during occasional gentrification drives especially in urban areas [24]. Anticipated transactional sexual activity within these designated spaces create an intersection between spatialization and stigmatization, by varying socio-legal and moral surveillance and condemnation, besides creating an intersection between location, gender and sexuality. Additionally, the different groups within sex worker populations—e.g., brothel-based versus transient or cisgender versus transgender—often face structural racism and discrimination at multiple levels that further shape their daily survival strategies. Hence, an application of an intersectional lens to understand stigmatization among the diverse populations of sex workers is necessary. Intersectionality theory posits that multiple social identities intersect at the micro level of individual experience to reflect multiple interlocking systems of oppression at the macro, social-structural level [25]. Intersectionality thus refers to the multiple and complex ways in which systems of oppression and inequality connect.