When you’ve been a sex worker for as long as I have, you begin to notice that the stigma against us isn’t just limited to cops, anti-sex fundamentalists, politicians, Puritans, busybodies and the Great Unwashed who swallow every lie they’re spoon-fed by all of those other groups; it extends to many, many people who should know better. The ACLU, which in former times even stood up for the rights of despised groups like Nazis and the KKK, largely remains silent on the topic of sex work; oh, they’ll throw us a bone now and again, like a low-effort editorial, an amicus brief in a case somebody else is struggling to pay for, or the signing of a group letter in opposition to an insanely anti-whore law which just happens to create fallout that will hurt good people and not just dirty whores. But most of the time, despite decriminalization being part of the group’s official platform since 1975, when an ACLU member opens her mouth on the subject in public it’s to vomit out prohibitionist shit like “people don’t choose to become prostitutes” that they need to have their faces forcibly rubbed in until they learn better. The rest of the time, they’re too busy with Very Important Issues like the “right” of wealthy white queers to force bigots to bake $500 cakes for their displays of conspicuous consumption, or the “right” of women to beat, rob & murder people with impunity by putting on a magic costume. But when it comes to the actual civil rights of people to have consensual sex and do the work of their choice without interference from armed thugs trying to stalk, entrap, rob, rape, brutalize and cage them, and otherwise destroy their lives? Crickets.
And then there’s Gay, Inc, my term for the coalition of powerful organizations that have been instrumental in winning rights for queer people. One would think, given that a very large fraction of sex workers are GLBT in one way or another; that more than 10% of transwomen admit to having done sex work (the real number is probably much higher); that in the early days of gay rights transactional sex was not only accepted, but celebrated; that before the ’90s many closeted gay men’s only sexual outlet was with sex workers; that even a very large fraction of female sex workers are lesbian or bisexual; and that the fucking riots which started the whole fucking gay rights movement in the first goddamned place were started by black trans sex workers, that Gay, Inc would be not only duty-bound but enthusiastic to support sex worker rights. And one would be wrong; with the exception of a short-lived, chauvinistic and breathtakingly ignorant explosion of anger after the Rentboy raid, picket-fence gay boys and buttoned-up-to-the-neck lesbians have devoted all their energy and money to causes most gender and sexual minorities don’t give a flying fuck about, such as government-issued fucking licenses; the “right” to be a pig, screw or grunt; corporate sponsorship of “Pride parades” that cost enough to feed a small impoverished nation for a month; or the “right” to force bigots to bake the aforementioned overpriced cakes (one wonders what kind of unexamined privilege is necessary to trust eating food prepared by someone who hates you and is only complying at virtual gunpoint). Oh, and let’s not forget the “right” to send the pigs after streetwalkers who dare to enter their gentrified neighborhoods; you know, the same pigs that used to raid their fucking nightclubs, back when they used to go to nightclubs to pick up guys (including, oh yeah, rentboys & hustlers). The “leaders” of Gay Inc even openly compare sex workers to “killers or psychopaths”, and participate in the demonization of our clients.
And then there are “feminists”, whose idea of supporting women’s rights is infantilizing us, getting us evicted from our homes and killing us by slow starvation, when they’re not openly advocating for us to be murdered. And I don’t just mean the mainstream ones, who have always been religious fundamentalists since the beginning; I mean whitebread feminists like Jill Filipovic with no real agenda intellectually more complex than the average Sex and the City episode.
To be sure, there are yellow, lily-livered followers in all of these groups who absolutely know that it’s wrong to persecute people for consensual sex; some of them were even given a little bit of the courage they otherwise totally lack by the announcement of Amnesty International’s backing of decriminalization. But until the majority of the members of these groups grow a spine and start standing up for what they absolutely know in their hearts to be right, their deafening silence is just as damaging to us as are the cops and the laws which enable their depredations.
“The ACLU, which in former times even stood up for the rights of despised groups like Nazis and the KKK, largely remains silent on the topic of sex work”
Oh, I think this is an understatement. They aren’t just not defending sex workers, they are openly accepting donations from admitted sex work hater Dan Satterberg in King County.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/trump-drives-two-prominent-state-republicans-to-the-aclu/
“After the election, my wife and I went and joined the ACLU!” Satterberg told a crowd at a forum on police issues last month.:
If this is the new standard for the Seattle ACLU, perhaps they can now start taking donations from White Nationalists David Duke and Richard B. Spencer to to defend civil rights for people of color?
Come on Seattle ACLU, you you are going to sell out to those who have no respect for the Constitution and use their political power to piss on the 1st, 4th and 14th Amendment, you should go all in!
Maggie, I agree with you that more people need to step up as allies. That being said, I’ve also noticed sex workers being so mistrustful, even paranoid, that they shoot themselves in the foot. Here in Boston, a good friend of mine (who has a mind like a steel trap and lots of activist creds) was summarily excommunicated by the sex worker group, no details given as to why, no attempt to get his side of the story or try to straighten things out. I later learned from him that someone accused him of “propositioning” them. I know this man VERY well, and I know that would be impossible. But no, he was tried in absentia and declared “dangerous” without giving him a chance. Even the Amish practice shunning better than that!! The biggest weakness of the anti side is how their members just believe any garbage their leaders say without question, and here the sex worker group in this city is doing the same crap. How do they expect to win behaving like that??
Well said Maggie. What I find disappointing is the lack of camaraderie among providers. I don’t particularly care for the way our local SWOP chapter is run, but it’s still a way we can get together and further our profession. If nothing else, the non-profit status of SWOP can be used to further individual activist goals. But instead everyone just quits. Sola and I are often the only two who show up for the “committee” meetings. And she isn’t interested in learning how to lead.
When I started in 2009 I fell in love with the women providing up here. They are the most remarkable women I’ve ever met. But since TRB was seized they’ve changed. I can feel the fear–the lack of trust. So reading your blog gives me some hope. We aren’t any good in a group (yet) but individually we can still make a difference. Just like we do in the lives of our clients. Thanks for being a uplifting reminder of our value.