*Disclaimer: I speak from a US-based point of view.
As queer and trans* people and as immigrants or recent descendants of immigrants, we must acknowledge that sex work has been a vital part of our history. This continues today, as those with our shared identities are engaging in sex work all over the world. These truths seek to point out that, for us, the rights of sex workers should be regarded as our own rights and that action should be taken to fight for them. In spite of this, our communities have almost always come up silent on this matter; with the only people speaking up generally being those involved or those opposed.
Despite this silence in the greater LGBT movement, sex workers have never been silent for us. For example, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, both transwomen of color who worked as full-service sex workers, are revered as heroines of The Stonewall Riots, which are credited as the birthplace of the LGBT rights movement. They created STAR (Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries) as a shelter for young transgender individuals who were facing violence or homelessness and funded it through sex work so that others would not have to. Many at this time engaged in sex work in order to live radical lives as full time activists, and many others engaged in sex work due to the job discrimination that was more prevalent than it is now. Sex work was directly funding the activism of our predecessors; it seems just that we use the rights they gained to fight for theirs.
Today, members of these groups of people are still working in a variety of types of sex work, which has increased in diversity alongside the development of the Internet and various other technologies. While it is true that people of almost every different background, race, and class status are participating in this line of work, it is also true that those that face the most and heaviest consequences are those that are queer, trans*, POC, poor, immigrants, etc. In America, where sexuality is heavily policed alongside immigration, we see so many sex workers facing violence at the hands of police, lovers, clients, and others.
As we have come together to devote our activism and feminisms to intersectionality, we have to understand how whorephobia works as oppression and stand for the lives and voices of sex workers. With so many sex workers afraid of being outed by speaking out, we need allies who will also stand for them so that they may become faceless in a sea of others. We need to make asserting the needs of sex workers to be done by more than just those involved. There are so many of us that are out and speaking about our lives, our needs, and our work. It is important to support those people and direct others to them. It is vital for them to be the ones directing the movement and work that grows around them.
I am hoping that this monthly column will help aide you in forming opinions and directing you in educating yourself. I will provide information on a variety of topics surrounding sex work with a focus on race and sexuality and how they shape sex workers lives and options. I also hope that my voice empowers others to speak about their lives as sex workers, anonymously or not, and shows them that their voice is important and that they are valued. So thank you for reading this and I look forward to where this goes.