Meet Steve Gower, human slime
Jan 23rd, 2008 by Rebecca
God, some people are entitled assholes. Via Ren and Kim, meet Steve Gower, harasser of Atlanta sex workers, transphobe, and general repulsive creep.
In short, Gower is a middle-aged man who gets his jollies by going around his Atlanta neighbourhood with a video camera, harassing sex workers - and especially transgendered sex workers - in the vicinity. He first tries to scare customers away with his truck lights, and if that fails, videotapes the client and puts the video on YouTube, thus publicly revealing the identity and location of the sex worker, putting their safety in danger. After all, it’s not like she’s human or anything, is it? Which brings me to this charming quote to an Atlanta website: “What’s really fun is catching [the prostitute] getting in the car with a john,” he says. “You flip on the light and most of the time the john dumps the prostitute. I’m hitting prostitutes in the pocketbook.”
What sort of psychopath thinks that robbing the destitute of even the proceeds of having to have sex with people to survive is “really fun”? Apparently, Steve Gower. Never mind that the money that sex workers don’t get when he chases off clients and has them thrown out of cars into the street might be to, oh, pay for food, housing, nothing really important of course. Kim put it pretty damned well in her post:
Sittin‘ there in his car with his expensive camera and going home to comfortable house, feelin‘ all … smug.
What does he know about homeless?
Or hungry?
Or addiction?
Gower seems to have a particular obsession with transgendered sex workers, who he oh-so-charmingly terms “transvestitutes”. The article reports him randomly stalking transfolk who he suspects might be prostitutes in his truck, to the point where one transwoman, after being repeatedly followed, got so scared of him that she pepper-sprayed him, and is now up on charges. He then has the sheer gall to complain that he gets cursed at, spat at and has things thrown at him. Gee, maybe it just might have something to do him randomly stalking them, mightn’t it? Here’s a hint: if anyone started stalking me in a truck for having the gall to walk around my neighbourhood in a short skirt, you can bet that I’d be fucking pepper spraying them too.
Rusty did a bit more digging on this creep and finds that Gower has some more charming habits, such as “sightseeing” after homicides and natural disasters, and turns up a lovely little photo of him dressed as an East German police officer, and looking every little bit like the creepy scumbag he is.
God, this sort of creep makes me angry. The entitlement, the sheer lack of empathy, just…fuck you, creep, fuck you.
Thanks for the link Rebecca. What’s been amazing to me is how many people are willing to portray this creep as a victim, and how people don’t mention that he was pepper-sprayed because he was stalking this person.
Yeah, there’s been a bit of that going around. It never ceases to amaze me how folks who see themselves as somewhat progressive in other contexts still don’t seem to comprehend the idea that sex workers are, y’know, human and all, or have any comprehension of why they might be *in* sex work apart from to screw with the neighbourhood’s property values.
[…] Burning Words » Blog Archive » Meet Steve Gower, human slime ‘Here’s a hint: if anyone started stalking me in a truck for having the gall to walk around my neighbourhood in a short skirt, you can bet that I’d be fucking pepper spraying them too.” (tags: important atlanta prostitution sexwork assholes blogs crime transgender hate) […]
This guy is a real prize winner of an asshole, that is for certain.