DSW Newsletter #12 (March 2020) Archives

Sex Worker Rights Community Rallies Around COVID-19 Crisis

The COVID-19 virus is a global crisis. There is not a single community that hasn’t been impacted by this pandemic. Businesses are shutting down, people are being laid off in droves, and the systems many of us depend on for survival have been suspended for the foreseeable future.

Sex workers are a financially vulnerable and criminalized community, and thus their lives are greatly impacted by times of uncertainty and strife. In the same way that the financial crisis has endangered the vocations of gig workers, street vendors, performers, and service workers, sex workers have seen their livelihoods turned upside-down in a matter of days.

Sex workers are incredibly resilient. Many are pivoting to online content, finding other ways to hustle and to survive. Community members and allies are sharing resources and establishing grant funds, organizing to prepare for the coming months. Organizations like SWOP Brooklyn, Lysistrata Mutual Care Collective, and the Butterfly Asian and Migrant Sex Worker Support Network are working to provide emergency relief to those most in need. Others have created harm-reduction guides and social support resources for sex workers and allied communities.

DSW has created a database of relief materials, offering critical support in these uncertain times. Our COVID-19 Resource Guide can be accessed here. We urge you to email us additional resources and share the guide with your networks and anyone who might be in need.

From the DSW community to yours: stay safe, stay inside if you are able, and support one another. Now more than ever is a time for sex workers and allies to come together and show the world our strength.

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Our Bodies, Our Labors, Our Streets: International Women’s Day in NYC

The International Women’s Strike, also known as Paro Internacional de Mujeres, is a global movement of coalitions in more than 50 countries, organizing around International Women’s Day each year. The movement began in 2017 to honor the work of women across the world, organizing against femicide, gender-based violence, and the criminalization of abortion. This year’s New York festival was co-hosted by the Street Vendor Project and many others, underscoring the importance of feminist labor empowerment and the anti-colonialist values of the movement.

DSW participated in the New York City Women’s Strike Street Fest in honor of International Women’s Day. Titled “Our Bodies, Our Labors, Our Streets,” the event highlighted the intersection of labor and gender justice. Music, performances, exhibitions, and workshops centered on four main workstations: reproductive justice, the battle over labor, systematic violence over women and feminized bodies, and reclaiming the commons.

At the festival, DSW hosted a table to educate attendees on sex work as a labor issue, and how criminalization creates systemic violence within the sex industry. Dominatrix Ashley Paige and DSW’s J. Leigh Brantly ran a workshop on consent, negotiation, and power in relation to work, sexuality, familial relationships, and gender. Kaytlin Bailey also gave a short speech on DSW’s work, her podcast “The Oldest Profession,” and her new one-woman show, “Whore’s Eye View.” The show is running a reading series at Zinc Bar in the West Village every third Wednesday of the month this summer. Bailey was joined onstage by TS Candii from Decrim NY, who educated the crowd on the importance of passing S2253/A654, to repeal Walking While Trans, this legislative session.

This powerful alliance is an illustration of the interconnected nature of our movements. Reproductive justice, labor, migration, citizenship, race, and state surveillance, to name a few, all function to monitor and criminalize particular identities. Thank you to the Women’s Strike and the Street Vendor Project for such an inspiring event and the chance to highlight our message!

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DSW Rallies With Activists To Pass the #WalkingWhileTrans Repeal

On International Sex Worker Rights Day, the Walking While Trans Coalition gathered at the Million Dollar Staircase in the Albany Statehouse to speak out about trans rights in New York state. DSW’s J. Leigh Brantly joined activists representing the New York Transgender Advocacy Group (NYTAG) and the Sharmus Outlaw Advocacy and Rights (SOAR) Institute.

The coalition has been advocating tirelessly for the repeal of section 240.37 of New York’s state law. The statute criminalizes loitering for the purpose of prostitution, and its overbroad and vague language has led to discriminatory enforcement. Since §240.37 was enacted in 1976, its implementation has overwhelmingly relied upon profiling and false arrests of cisgender and transgender women of color, as well as feminine gender-nonconforming people of color.

The Walking While Trans Ban Coalition — which is composed of sex workers, human rights organizations, and advocates in New York state and beyond — is fighting this unconstitutional law. Senate Bill 2253 and Assembly Bill 654, to repeal § 240.37, are being sponsored by State Senator Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) and Assemblymember Amy Paulin (D-Westchester), respectively.

In a legislative memo endorsing the repeal, the New York Civil Liberties Union describes how the statutes make it a violation for anyone to publicly and repeatedly “‘beckon’ to, stop, or attempt to stop passers-by; to try to engage them in conversation; or to signal to motor vehicles ‘for the purpose of’” engaging in, patronizing, or promoting prostitution. The discriminatory application of this law is based on perceptions of what a prostitute “looks like,” according to stereotypes of dress, perceived gender identity, sexuality, race, and place of activity. This classification unconstitutionally codifies into law racist, sexist, and socio-economically coded ideas of criminality.

DSW was honored to participate in this historic event. There is no better way to honor International Sex Worker Rights Day than to fight for the human rights of our most vulnerable community members. When merely “looking like a sex worker” means you can be arrested arbitrarily, no one is free.

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Honoring Our Movement: International Sex Worker Rights Day

Sex workers and allied communities celebrated International Sex Worker Rights Day, a holiday that commemorates the tireless efforts of harm-reduction advocates around the world. The holiday began in India in 2001 when over 25,000 sex workers from around the world gathered there for a festival organized by Durbar Mahila Samanwaya. The Durbar is a Kolkata-based group that translates to “The Unstoppable Women’s Synthesis Committee.”

Every year on March 3, sex workers and activists organize protests, gatherings, art shows, and lectures across the globe to raise awareness about the human rights abuses sex workers face. Events shine a light on the resilience of the sex work community, the strides activists have made, and the battles to come.

This year, DSW collaborated with several organizations to honor the work of NYC-based groups. J. Leigh Brantly, of DSW and the New York State Gender Diversity Coalition, joined the #WalkingWhileTrans Coalition in Albany to advocate for S2253/A654. This bill, endorsed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), would repeal the criminalization of loitering for the purpose of prostitution.

DSW’s Kaytlin Bailey was a featured guest on the Twitter chat #SexTalkTuesday discussing #sexworkerrights on International Sex Workers Rights Day. The conversation is a weekly inclusive dialogue around sex and sex-positive topics hosted by Sssh for Women (@ssshforwomen).

DSW also attended “Our Right to Thrive,” a pop-up art show and silent auction featuring the artwork of sex workers from around the world. The event benefited the outreach initiatives of Sex Worker’s Outreach Project Brooklyn (SWOP Brooklyn) and Lysistrata Mutual Care Collective’s crisis fund for sex workers. The show was a fantastic way to conclude the commemoration of sex worker rights and to celebrate such a resilient community.

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Hero of the Month: Seema Fokla, International Symbol of Sex Worker Unity

This month, DSW honors Ms. Seema Fokla as our Sex Worker Hero of the Month. Ms. Fokla is the current president of the Durbar Mahila Smanwaya Committee (DMSC or the Durbar), which translates to “The Unstoppable Women’s Synthesis Committee.” The Durbar is a collective of 65,000 sex workers, which functions as a forum for female, male, and transgender sex workers in West Bengal, India. DMSC is managed exclusively by sex workers and their children to create solidarity and collective strength within the sex worker community and other marginalized groups.

Since its founding in 1995, DMSC has been a beacon of collective citizenship and shared empowerment within the international sex worker rights community. It was the Durbar that established March 3 as International Sex Workers Rights Day. In 2001, the collective organized a festival that brought together more than 25,000 sex workers from around the world in Kolkata. DMSC’s mission is to integrate sex worker rights into the broader human rights movements.

No one has fought harder for the collective’s values than Seema Fokla. Under her leadership, the organization has pioneered sex work as a labor issue, incorporated transgender/non-conforming and LGBTQ rights into its work, and championed the separation of sex work from the environment of discrimination that surrounds it. Ms. Fokla is a former sex worker, as are all of the members of DMSC’s executive board. She sees the organization’s primary mission as one of fundamental respect. “If our profession becomes legal, then we will be treated with dignity. People will stop harassing us. Our children won’t be looked down upon,” Ms. Fokla said to a BBC reporter in a 2015 interview.

India has one of the largest sex work markets in the world. Prostitution itself is not illegal in the country, but the act of soliciting a client is. With more than 3 million sex workers working across Indian cities, more and more are participating in protests to demand licenses to work. Much of this organized activism is credited to the work of the Durbar.

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DSW Travels To Nairobi to Meet With the African Sex Workers Alliance

DSW’s Kaytlin Bailey sat down with the African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA) at its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. ASWA is a Pan-African alliance of sex worker-led organizations. The group was formed in 2009 and has grown to include members from 33 countries. Bailey and ASWA discussed the overlap between what sex workers around the world are seeking in their collective fight for recognition and safety.

The discussion with ASWA centered around the power of personal storytelling within the sex worker rights movement and beyond. The conversation also explored how various legal models in different African countries impact sex workers and the LGBTQ communities there.

Later that evening, Kaytlin Bailey performed her new one-woman show, “Whore’s Eye View,” to a sold-out audience at the BaoBox in Nairobi. After the show, Rose Wanjiku told the audience about ASWA’s work, handed out literature, and educated people about efforts to decriminalize sex work in Kenya.

Decriminalization campaigns are gaining momentum across the continent, bolstered by ASWA’s support and international collaborations. Proceeds from the performance benefited the organization. To learn more about the work of ASWA, particularly the Sex Worker Academy Africa, their groundbreaking community empowerment program, visit their website here.

March 30, 2020

This was the Red Umbrella Installation from the Sex Workers’ Pop-Up in New York City. The exhibition closed early to support NYC’s containment effort around COVID-19. (Photo: DSW, 2020)

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March 8, 2020

DSW’s Kaytlin Bailey appears onstage with TS Candii from Decrim NY shortly after she spoke.

The festival spectators hear from a representative of Women First.

L to R: J. Samantha Johnson, Zoe West, Ximena Garcia Bustamante, and DSW’s J. Leigh Brantly, organizers of the NY Women’s Strike Coalition, are pictured with Dominatrix Ashley Paige after a public workshop on negotiating power and consent taught by Paige and Brantly.

Kaytlin Bailey and Frances Steele are pictured at DSW’s booth.

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March 3, 2020

State Senator Jessica Ramos (D-Queens) speaks at the March 3 press conference, endorsing the repeal of Walking While Trans. (Photo: Vince Marrone, 2020)

Attorney and activist Jared Trujillo of the Walking While Trans Coalition delivers a statement. (Photo: Vince Marrone, 2020)

TS Candii and fellow #WalkingWhileTrans activists read aloud personal stories of people who have been harmed by §240.37. (Photo: Vince Marrone, 2020)

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March 3, 2020

DSW’s J. Leigh Brantly is pictured with a story from the Walking While Trans Coalition at the March 3 press conference. (Photo: DSW, 2020)

L to R: DSW’s Melissa Broudo, Ryan Wall of Legal Aid Society’s Exploitation Intervention Unit, Jillian Modzeleski of Brooklyn Defender Services, and DSW’s Kaytlin Bailey are pictured at “Our Right to Thrive.” (Photo: DSW, 2020)

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March 1, 2020

Leaders of DMSC appear with the Mayor of Kolkata, India. (Photo: DMSC, 2017)

Seema Fokla speaks to a BBC reporter on the Durbar’s work in Kolkata and beyond. (2015)

DMSC activists demonstrate on the streets of Kolkata. Their collective includes male, female, and TGNC sex workers, as well as the children of sex workers who also face stigmatization.

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February 13, 2020

DSW’s Kaytlin Bailey performs “Whore’s Eye View” for a sold-out audience in Nairobi. Proceeds benefited ASWA.

DSW’s Kaytlin Bailey (center) poses with Rose Wanjiku (right) and a fellow ASWA activist (left).

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