Elisa Crespo

Elisa Crespo
Photo credit: Courtesy of Elisa Crespo

Elisa Crespo is fighting for a world where all people feel “included, safe, seen, and heard.” In 2021, she ran for NYC city council, where she would have been the first transgender woman of color to occupy a seat on the council. Now the Executive Director of the New Pride Agenda, Crespo fights to seek protections for incarcerated individuals and advocates for the decriminalization of sex work. In March 2023, she joined DSW and hundreds of allies in Albany to lobby in favor of the Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act, which would decriminalize consensual adult sex work in New York state.

Elle Stanger

Elle Stanger
Photo credit: Courtesy of Elle Stanger

Elle Stanger describes herself as “a queer, mid-thirties nonmonogamous, parent, sex worker, AASECT Certified Sex Educator, and media producer.” Stanger has been published nude online since 2005 and has worked in adult entertainment and touch-work since 2009. Based in Portland, she is a leader of Oregan’s decriminalization movement, where she serves as a local Commissioner on the state’s Sex Worker Human Rights Commission and an as active advocate in Multnomah County, holding the DA’s office accountable for their promise to stop prosecuting sex workers. Stanger has made a career as a sexuality educator, telling stories of consent, gender identity, pleasure and boundaries. Her ultimate goal is to encourage people to learn and feel good in their bodies, understanding that what people want varies for everyone.

Kiara St. James

Kiara St. James
Photo credit: nytag.org

Kiara Saint James is a community organizer and public speaker who has been promoting equity-building policies in New York and beyond for over 20 years. St. James is the co-founder and executive director of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group (NYTAG). She founded NYTAG in 2014 along with T​​anya Asapansa-Johnson Walker, Celine St. John, Armani T. Taylor, and Cheryl Clancy. Their mission is to “advocate for more inclusive gender-based policies that benefit Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming/Non-Binary (TGNCNB) individuals through building community.” NYTAG builds equity for TGNCNB individuals using training and education programs designed to dismantle stigma and violence, and build bridges between communities.

Gwendolyn Ann Smith

Gwendolyn Ann Smith
Photo credit: Tristan Crane/Here, Portraits

Gwendolyn Ann Smith is a writer, computer programmer, graphic designer, and activist for transgender, non-conforming (TGNC) rights. The inaccurate and disrespectful reporting around the tragic deaths of TGNC individuals, such as Rita Hester, inspired her to create the Remembering Our Dead project, an online chronicle of violence committed against transgender people. She also lobbied America Online (AOL) to adopt policies allowing discussions of gender issues on their service, which led to the creation of the first public forum centering transgender issues on a major online service — the Transgender Community Forum. Smith also organized the first-ever Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) in San Francisco while fellow activist Penny Ashe Matz coordinated an event in Boston. From there, TDOR multiplied into the iconic occasion we know today.

Joaquin Remora

Joaquin Remora
Photo credit: Courtesy of Joaquin Remora

Joaquin Remora has been committed to harm reduction in transgender, sex worker, and housing rights spaces for over a decade. He built San Francisco’s first transitional housing program for homeless Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming (TGNC) adults, and now serves as the Director of Our Trans Home SF, a coalition of organizations addressing housing instability for Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex (TGI) people in the Bay Area. Remora has also been involved with St. James Infirmary, the first occupational health and safety organization for sex workers in the country. Rather than identifying as an activist, Remora says he sees himself as an advocate or a friend to the community and sex workers.

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou in 1969 (Chester Higgins, Jr./New York Times, 2014)
Photo credit: Chester Higgins, Jr./New York Times

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, MO in 1928. Angelou is a cultural icon that is renowned for her revolutionary writing and work in the civil rights movement. Her second memoir, Gather Together in My Name, details her experiences as a sex worker and madam in her early adulthood. While sex work was only one of Angelou’s many professions, the experience was important enough for her to dedicate space to it in her writing. She did this purposefully, to demonstrate that humans are messy, imperfect, and multi-faceted. We make personal choices every day to survive, to get ahead, to do the “right” thing, and these choices, particularly those that have to do with our own bodies, are ours to make.

Brianna Titone

Rep. Brianna Titone
Photo credit: Courtesy of Brianna Titone

In 2022, Colorado State Representative Brianna Titone (D) introduced The Safe Reporting Assaults Suffered by Sex Workers Act, HB22-1288, which allows sex workers to come forward to report a crime or access medical or emergency services if they are in need or witness another in need of help, without fear of arrest for prostitution. Titone felt inspired to pursue the legislation when a dear friend of hers could not seek help after suffering a brutal attack while engaged in sex work. The bill passed through CO Legislature at lightning speed, with unanimous bipartisan support.

Scott Wiener

Scott Wiener
Photo credit: Todd Johnson/San Francisco Business Times

Elected in November 2016, Senator Scott Wiener represents District 11 in the California State Senate. In 2022, he introduced SB 357, otherwise known as the Safer Streets for All Act, which repealed the California Penal Code that criminalized the act of loitering with “intent to commit prostitution.” The bill went into effect in 2023, officially securing the safety and autonomy of sex workers across California.

Mandie Landry

Mandie Landry
Photo credit: mandielandry.com

Representative Mandie Landry was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 2019. She is the author of Louisiana HB 67, the first-ever bill proposing the statewide decriminalization of sex work. In 2021, Landry voluntarily deferred the bill after it was clear the House Criminal Justice Committee was going to kill it on a vote. Still, we applaud her trailblazing effort to improve the health and safety of sex workers in her state.

Tiffany Cabán

Tiffany Caban campaigns in New York City on the day of the DA Primary election. (Photo by Seth Wenig from City and State NY 2019).

In 2019, Tiffany Cabán ran for Queens DA on a platform of decriminalizing and decarcerating nonviolent offenders such as sex workers. She specifically pledged her support to the sex work community. Despite her loss, Cabán pushed the message of decriminalizing and destigmatizing sex work. She succeeded in sparking conversation among Queens residents, urging them to rethink how we police our communities.