Fifteen Minutes To Fame

Text

April 05, 2012

262 notes

dance-thrusting:

Murder of a Transgender Woman in Detroit

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) has learned of the murder of Coko Williams, a transgender woman, [Tuesday] morning on the 100 block of Parkhurst Street northeast of Woodward Avenue and McNichols Road in Detroit, Michigan. Witnesses stated that suspects in the killing may have fled the scene. No arrests have yet been made in connection with Ms. Williams’ death. It has been widely reported that the murder occurred near Palmer Park in an area of Detroit known for sex work. However, it is not known if Ms. Williams was engaged in sex work at the time of her murder.

NCAVP’s most recent report, Hate Violence Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-Affected Communities in the United States in 2010, documented 27 anti-LGBTQH murders, the second highest yearly total ever recorded by the coalition. Transgender women made up 44% of the 27 reported hate murders in 2010, while representing only 11% of total survivors and victims. Among transgender murder victims,42% of transgender women killed last year were engaged in sex work at the time of their murder. NCAVP denounces violence against LGBTQ and all sex workers and seeks to raise awareness of the violence faced by LGBTQ-identified sex workers.

NCAVP is working with its member organization in Detroit Equality Michigan to offer our assistance with their efforts to support the community during this critical time. NCAVP encourages anyone who has experienced violence to contact a local anti-violence program for support and to document this violence. For help locating an anti-violence program in your area, please contact us or visit www.ncavp.org.

Join NCAVP in our efforts to prevent and respond to LGBTQH violence. To learn more about our national advocacy, receive technical assistance or support, contact us.

If you are a member of the media and wish to speak with an NCAVP representative, please contact Nusrat Ventimiglia at Equality Michigan at 313-505-6035.

NCAVP works to prevent, respond to, and end all forms of violence against and within lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and HIV-affected (LGBTQH) communities. NCAVP is a national coalition of local member programs and affiliate organizations who create systemic and social change. NCAVP is a program of the New York City Anti-Violence Project.

SIGNAL BOOST. Please reblog.

Dimetrez Griffin and Coko Williams were both killed in less than a week of each other. This is a disgrace. Don’t let them be overlooked. Detroit has lost so many people.

(Source: transfeminism, via polerin)

Tags: trans trans women trans women of colour sex work

Text

April 04, 2012

70 notes

guerrillamamamedicine:

champagnecandy:

guerrillamamamedicine:

yeah. ive actually read that article a while back. and its basically arguing that rather than decriminalizing sex work, we ought to work to offer alternatives to sex workers. its incredibly tone deaf when it comes to the experiences of sex workers.

stuff like: The reason for a man to buy sex from a woman is, without a doubt, because he desires pleasure without having to give anything in return.

i dont think she actually talked to any sex workers…just smh at how this was allowed to even be published…

and to be said, one of my main critiques of where the mena revolutions is heading is that some of those who are most vulnerable to violence (aka refugees) are left out of the conversation. refugee women of course being a good number of the sex and domestic workers…

right? domestic labor is extremely gendered work, done by immigrant women, who are sometimes trafficked, and it’s HARD AS HELL and opens up so much potential for abuse because you are alone in the home of your employer. and yet there’s no one handwringing about how we should ELIMINATE ALL DOMESTIC WORK! or GIVE THEM OPTIONS! or SAVE THE POOR TRAFFICKED WOMEN WHO SCRUB YOUR TOILETS.

I think, I forget who made the point a while back (s.e. smith? abbyjean?) that it’s because women benefit from the labor of domestic workers and so they don’t like to point out the systems they’re complicit in, but they can claim to be outside of and not benefiting from the systems that sex workers operate in—nevermind that as Melissa has pointed out to me approximately a million times, sex work is embedded in the entire global economy too and just like everything else, we’re all complicit in that.

but it’s much easier to elide the sex part into the work part because that lets us continue to analyze how MEN ARE THE ENEMY and never think about a world in which we somehow all have to figure out how to live together.

and the thing is sometimes sex work is the SAFER of the two options. the women who do a lot of the domestic work come from the same communities and families of women who do sex work. getting rid of sex work - even if you are doing so by criminalizing the johns only - wont necessarily make women safer.

(via so-treu)

Tags: sex work domestic work racism feminism employment economics

Text

March 01, 2012

14 notes

New York State Rape Shield Law

audaciaray:

Thought I’d blog the NY state rape shield law and its exceptions, since my last post about the condom bill has gotten people steamed up about that aspect of the fucked up laws in New York.

I would also like to take this opportunity to state that this is why I don’t think blanket “decriminalization” actually works in a practical application. I definitely oppose criminalization of sex work and related activities. However, it’s not really possible to wave a decrim wand; this shit will always have laws around it. Furthermore, decriminalizing prostitution-specific crimes often does not get at the racism, classism, sexism, and transmisogyny embedded into the enforcement/imagining of criminal codes. Prostitution decrim would just mean that more poor people of color and trans women get arrested for other bullshit. It’s painful and slow and often discouraging, but necessary to root out all the individual laws that are harmful and get rid of them through legislative advocacy work and activist lawyering.

That said, here’s a piece of law to get mad about, and hopefully one to organize around in the coming years.

NY CLS CPL § 60.42

§ 60.42. Rules of evidence; admissibility of evidence of victim’s sexual conduct in sex offense cases

Evidence of a victim’s sexual conduct shall not be admissible in a prosecution for an offense or an attempt to commit an offense defined in article one hundred thirty of the penal law unless such evidence:

1. proves or tends to prove specific instances of the victim’s prior sexual conduct with the accused; or

2. proves or tends to prove that the victim has been convicted of an offense under section 230.00 of the penal law* within three years prior to the sex offense which is the subject of the prosecution; or

[*A person is guilty of prostitution when such person engages or agrees or offers to engage in sexual conduct with another person in return for a fee]

3. rebuts evidence introduced by the people of the victim’s failure to engage in sexual intercourse, [fig 1] oral sexual conduct, anal sexual conduct or sexual contact during a given period of time; or

4. rebuts evidence introduced by the people which proves or tends to prove that the accused is the cause of pregnancy or disease of the victim, or the source of semen found in the victim; or

5. is determined by the court after an offer of proof by the accused outside the hearing of the jury, or such hearing as the court may require, and a statement by the court of its findings of fact essential to its determination, to be relevant and admissible in the interests of justice.

Tags: rape culture rape sex work sex worker rights law

Text

February 01, 2012

274 notes

Four Detroit escorts who used Backpage to advertise have been found murdered, and a stripper is missing. All of them are black and mid- to late twenties.

sexworkerproblems:

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20111226/METRO01/112260388

http://www.freep.com/article/20120106/NEWS01/201060479/Dozens-pray-for-missing-mom-of-6-other-women-working-in-sex-industry

Signal boost. Please be careful.

An additional note from SWP: they were not “escorts”, and she is not a “stripper”. These were and are PEOPLE who worked in the sex industry as escorts and a dancer. Please do not take our humanity away and replace it with a job title. Be careful, workers in and around this area and elsewhere. Be safe, be vigilant, be well. SWP

Signal boost.

(via bubonickitten)

Tags: sex work

Link

January 30, 2012

23 notes

Trans Coalition, GLAA oppose ‘prostitution free zones’ bill

The D.C. Trans Coalition and the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance are calling on the D.C. City Council to defeat a bill calling for giving the city’s police chief authority to establish permanent “prostitution free zones.”

The two groups have joined civil liberates advocates in charging that a 2005 law creating the zones has resulted in improper targeting of transgender women and others for prostitution arrests. The law allows police to designate any public area a “prostitution free zone” for up to 20 days, allowing police to more aggressively crack down on prostitution in those areas.

The bill currently under consideration, the Prostitution Free Zone Amendment Act of 2012, would make such zones permanent.

“These policies have done little to eradicate prostitution but have succeeded in further marginalizing sex workers, low income people of color, transgender people, lesbians, gays and the homeless,” a statement issued by transgender advocates says.

“We do not need more policy that criminalizes people in our community,” the statement says. “D.C. residents demand that the D.C. Council find solutions to city issues that don’t involve arresting and locking people up because they are homeless, transgendered, or look like they are engaging in sex work.”

D.C. Council member Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7), the lead sponsor of the bill, has said street prostitution has been an ongoing problem in her ward and in other parts of the city and her legislation would help police control the problem.

Alexander’s bill was scheduled for a public hearing on Tuesday before the Council’s Judiciary Committee, where GLAA and D.C. Trans Coalition officials were expected to testify against it.

I marched against this a few months ago. “Prostitution free zones” are an awful thing for trans women especially and in DC, where trans women have been killed with no officials seeming to care and even shot at by police, they’re going in entirely the wrong direction.

(Source: transfeminism)

Tags: trans women sex work trams law politics

Quote

November 03, 2011

764 notes

"

I feel most unsafe not in the room with a client, but in social environments where people make jokes about dead hookers. I feel unsafe when people tell me they feel sorry for me, because the next step is always that they will try to rescue me or save me in ways that completely deny my experience. I feel unsafe when people assume I have a disease that I brought upon myself and won’t offer me non-judgemental treatment options or kiss or hug me. I feel unsafe when people assume that the violence and danger in my life only comes from clients when my experiences of assault and boundary-crossing have primarily been with intimate partners.

Mostly I feel unsafe when I can feel that people don’t respect me, when they think my work and life is less valuable than other professionals, and this feeling can come from clients, yes, but also from doctors, bank tellers, social service providers, therapists, lovers, friends and family.

I stay safe by remembering I have a right to safety, the respect of others, and by talking openly about the challenges I face in being a sex worker. I think it’s important to note that not all workers can be out like that, and some are outed against their will. I have some risks in being out to most people in my life but the benefits have also been so amazing—so many people share their advice and stories with me. I honour and love the stories I have been given access to, and I am so careful with them. I make videos and offer workshops on sex work topics to other sex workers and to the general public and I am on the board of Maggie’s Toronto, a local sex worker organization. These are things that make me feel strong in who I am, and that help me feel safe by working with others to provide safety and a long-term vision of sex worker rights and self-determination.

"

—

Sex in Words: Sexual Spectrum: Lusty Day

Really great interview with Lusty Day. I met her at a conference about a year and a half ago, and she is one rad lady.

(via workingsex)

(via mnome)

Tags: sex work sex worker rights

Link

October 30, 2011

23 notes

Fifteen Minutes To Fame: I've Been Looking at Pics of Naked Trans Bodies for So Long...

skankassqueer:

lucypaw:

skankassqueer:

lucypaw:

skankassqueer:

forever-nevermore:

lucypaw:

that naked (presumably) cis bodies are starting to look wrong. I do not think this is necessarily a bad thing.

(Also, it amazes me how many people send me nude pics of themselves unsolicited. Not that I am complaining. *cough*)

can you please stop posting…

I have written many times and many places about the problematic and shitty nature of how trans people are forced to perform for cis fantasies. If you’re not aware of that, that’s not my problem. If you think I need to comment on every pic about how fetishised the model was, that’s not my problem.

if you really knew and cared about the fetishization of trans people you wouldn’t post those pics in the first place

The fuck? How do you get that? Please, do explain how trans people finding other trans people sexy and hot is a bad thing. Please, do explain how when most pictures of trans people being sexual are being fetishised not in the pictures themselves but in the minds of people who consider being trans a fetish, a trans person who instead sees a hot, attractive, and sexy person, IOW a person a lot like her/him/them/etc-self, doesn’t care about fetishisation. Because what you’re claiming is that my being trans and sexual and finding other trans people attractive, sexy, and hot as people much like me, I can’t care about the fetishising of trans people. And that’s without even going into how much I’ve written about how trans people are not a fetish. Seriously, put up or shut up. That is a serious charge and needs to be more than an assertion based on my reblogging of pics you don’t like.

I don’t do it with pics of queer people, and I’m not going to do it with pics of trans people. I don’t owe you political commentary to show that I’m reflective about these things. If you want that commentary, add it yourself.

wait so queer and trans are two distinct, separate categories now?

No. I certainly can’t draw that line in myself. But most of the trans pics that I reblog are either just an individual or portray an apparently straight sexuality while most of the queer pics I reblog are of apparently-cis people. Which has a lot more to do with what I come across than what I like, as a note, given that I find other queer trans people very attractive.

ETA: This really pisses me off because there are so few representations of trans people being sexy that the idea that we’re not allowed to celebrate how sexy we are in the face of chasers and general transphobia over our bodies means pretty much no celebration of trans sexuality.

A) you’re not a sex worker. check your privilege

No, I’m not. But I have had publicly-available pics taken of me being naked and sexual for personal gain so I’m not entirely lacking similar experience. More to the point, I will happily check my privilege if I can figure out where my privilege is making me miss the point here. I’ve been thinking about this repeatedly for a good while now and have yet to figure that out. As a trans woman said to me, what you seem to be doing is demonising trans people who do mainstream trans porn which means you’re demonising other sex workers even though you don’t have non-sex worker privilege. I really don’t think my privilege is the issue here.

B) posting pictures of “shemale” porn is not celebrating trans sexualities, it’s further marginalising actual trans sexuality by celebrating the cissexist gaze rather than self-made trans-friendly porn (yes, i know you post that too. i like that.)

You know, I’ve encountered this same argument from anti-porn radical feminists. It supports the idea that because something was made for a cis audience that fetishises trans people that it must therefore only be fetishisation. Which, quite frankly is bullshit. Just like queer subtext and reclamation has taken images and writings made for straight people and made them about queer people of various sexualities, pictures like this can and do serve another interest when the gaze is another trans person. The cis gaze is not some set in stone thing, absolutely and finally encoded into the image. It can be altered when the gazer is not cis and does not accept the cissexist and transphobic parameters of the cis gaze. Subjectivity matters.

(Which is not to say we can’t talk about how the cis gaze affects what images are created or how they appear but the idea that they are impure and not trans enough even though they feature trans people as an absolutist argument that I will not support.)

I can accept being called out on if someone was not happy about doing the work as a model but the idea that I can’t post naked pics of other trans people without commentary while this is fine to do with all the other naked pics I post is about stigmatising being trans, both for me and for the people in the pics. Trans sexuality is already plenty repressed thanks.

uhh no, it’s not that you’re not allowed to post naked pics of trans people. it’s a very specific variety of naked pics of trans people that is harmful to trans people. if you think that “shemale” porn is really representative of trans sexualities you can go fuck yourself with a rake

Really. Please identify this very specific variety and how it’s harmful. Because I’m a trans person and the pics I’ve reblogged are not harming me. And, honestly, while I agree that images can be problematic, I certainly am not psychic enough to know which pictures you’re even talking about. I believe that either you or forever-nevermore claimed that pics of Bailey Jae by herself were of this type and I can’t understand how a naked trans woman is harmful to trans people. Actually, it’s been my experience that many trans people find seeing pics of other naked trans people looking sexy and hot are beneficial (though perhaps of a limited benefit depending on the person).

(Also, the irony that this is the exact kind of argument that those we now call sex-positive lesbians and queer women feminists had with anti-porn feminists back in the ’80s does not escape me.)

There is a difference between a “naked trans people looking sexy and hot” picture and a creepy piece of dehumanising shemale-fetish porn. I’m not anti-porn or anti-sex. I’m anti-fetishising of trans bodies in dehumanising ways.

Okay, good, at least we have some point of agreement. But I guess the problem I’m having is that what you see as clearly ‘dehumanising shemale-fetish porn’, I don’t. I am not being dismissive, I literally can not identify which reblogs of mine you (and forever-nevermore) are finding to be that. I specifically do not reblog pics/videos of trans people which I find to be that kind of porn. Without you giving me specific examples, I really can’t discuss this well at all because I obviously don’t see what you see.

http://lucypaw.tumblr.com/post/11948402848/ohai-bailey-jay-in-a-sfw-picture-how-rare

http://lucypaw.tumblr.com/post/11909000471/ohai-that-looks-like-some-educational-fun-and

etc.

and before you ask, yes every single picture of bailey jay is dehumanising fetish porn. because she is the living embodiment of dehumanising fetish porn. i hate her. i don’t give a shit what you have to say about that either.

Then we’re done. Because you have just dehumanised a trans woman in the name of stopping the dehumanisation of trans women and other trans people. She is a person, not a ‘living embodiment’ of anything. She is still trans, even though apparently she’s not trans enough for you or not trans in your way of liking. If you can’t handle that, that’s your problem, not mine. For someone claiming you’re fighting a cissexist gaze and that you are for trans people being sexual and visible, you are being a policing hypocrite. I encourage you to unfollow me because, while I will call out trans people for being kapos, I will not hate on other trans people nor will I declare any trans person unworthy because of what she does to survive (especially if it’s sex work) and how she looks. Unfuck lookism. Plus, she does her own stuff. I’m told she’s famous for doing it. So, yeah, we’re done here.

Tags: sex work trans porn trans bailey jay

Photo

October 30, 2011

315 notes

forever-nevermore:

lucypaw:

Gorgeous.

someone obvs didn’t think their privilge as not being a sex worker needed to get checked when they were called out.

No, someone didn’t see what that has to do with it. See my reblog before this one for what I said to skankassqueer about that point.

(via dragony-little-scamp)

Tags: nsfw naked fucking trans sex work

Photo

October 27, 2011

134 notes

skankassqueer:

catamite:

OK. Every time I see this shit I want to scream.

Hello, people TOTALLY say crap like “but you’re so smart, why did you become a plumber?” Or a butcher. Or a construction worker. Or a waitress. Or… you get the picture, I hope.

I and my partner both have legal working class jobs that we may make into careers and people totally give us the “you’re throwing away your potential” attitude. Legal working class jobs get denigrated too. Working class people and jobs in general are totally undervalued.

If you’re gonna have a pro sex-work campaign, why don’t you focus on some actually sex-work specific oppression, of which there is plenty, instead of erasing another oppression?

Or design an ad that highlights actual privileges of having a legal job— of which there are plenty?

And maybe while you’re at it design an ad that does not rely on the ableist concept of intelligence?

This is like having a fat positive campaign with the slogan “Nobody says ‘you’re really pretty for a trans girl.’” It’s just fucking nonsensical and comes across as painfully oblivious.

EDITED TO ADD: So much unchecked classism in the comments on this. The people who do notice how nonsensical the statement is notice it only to say shit like “plumbers ARE stupid though LOL.”

I want to be in a St. James Infirmary ad that says “Nobody calls a plumber and tells them “I don’t want to pay just to get my pipes checked. can I send a picture of them to you and see if you like them?”

I had a guy call me yesterday and tell me that he “doesn’t want to pay for love” because it’s totally love that I’m selling and not orgasms.

Reblogging both for catamite’s commentary and skankassqueer’s awesome advert.

(Source: transqueersxxx)

Tags: sex work classism submission

Photo

October 25, 2011

366 notes

workingsex:

[Image description: An image from St James Infirmary media campaign called “Someone you know is a sex worker.” It features a woman wearing a black cardigan, a scarf, and a St. James Infirmary shirt. Her hair is pulled into a side bun. The text at the top reads, “Sex workers go to work, come home, take care of their children — just like everybody else does.” The text at the bottom reads, “Someone you know is a sex worker.”]

Love the prominence of the trans symbol in there given how many trans people I personally know who do sex work.

(via bohemianarthouse)

Tags: sex work trans

Link

October 24, 2011

40 notes

Sex Werk

andythenerd:

No comment, so the author can speak for herself:

The trans men in the room (who inevitably make up 90% of those in attendance) will often ask me, together or in private, how they can make the space more accessible to trans women and to trans sex workers. And I think about the things that they say about sex work, the way that they treat having their cis femme girlfriends in the room as being “inclusive of women’s perspectives,” and the fact that almost all of them either have degrees or are students. And I just smile say “I really don’t know.”

Read the rest!

Read this.

(via radikewlerthanyou)

Tags: sex work trans women trans sex work trans

Photoset

October 19, 2011

11,578 notes

skankassqueer:

Holy fuck, you’re a douchebag.

Ok, time to take it part by part.

negationparty:

real talk: trying to destigmatize sex work is important.

pretending that it’s just another job is not the way to do it. attempting to normalize sex work isn’t actually addressing the problem, which is that women and queers are systematically denied options that are not reproductive labor, and within that people of

Wait what the fuck? Reproductive labor? BECAUSE ALL SEX WORKERS HAVE WOMBS, FOLKS. Yeah, fuck that. Do you not realise that some trans women are hookers? IT’S ONE OF OUR STEREOTYPES!

color are given shittier options than their white counterparts. pimps and traffickers still keep women in literal slavery. my lack of access to the boy’s club means that i’m doomed to low paying sex work and service work unless i can make this college thing work out (which is an option that people who aren’t white and from middle class families don’t get nearly as much.) the fact that all my friends are not-men and all of us don’t see options for us that aren’t tricking is what patriarchy looks like.

Yeah, it sucks that many of us don’t have any option but to be sex workers. There are a hell of a lot of people out there whose only option is to work mcdonalds for 10 years, or slave away in a factory for most of their life. Why should I be treated any different because I’m giving handjobs rather than hamburgers?

these problems don’t go away by just making it into “another job.” sex workers are stigmatized because that is the easiest way to maintain a rapeable, killable surplus population that “society” doesn’t give a fuck about. the people who benefit from the “just another job” rhetoric are people like me who get pleasant gigs escorting, doing specialty porn, and in pro-domme work. which, funny enough, is a hell of a lot whiter than more stigmatized forms of sex work. i’m pretty sure the girls on international are still going to be whores when i’m a polite, empowered service worker.

what would a discourse surrounding sex work be like that isn’t “look at those hapless victims who we can pity and ignore” or “don’t worry, here’s a happy hooker who’s paid well”? how can we claim agency and not fall into the trap of just trying to be normal?

I’m not “trying to be normal” by saying it’s just another job - I’m telling the honest truth. Sex work is readily available, easy, fun, and lucrative for me. It’s the othering stigma that you are fighting so hard to uphold that makes it more difficult for sex workers to claim agency and do our jobs safely and securely.

Reblogging for commentary.

Tags: sex work

Text

October 08, 2011

434 notes

There is nothing inherently sexist about Sex Work.

femmesandfamily:

sexgenderbody:

brazenbitch:

What is sexist is how we treat our Sex Workers. Sex work in itself is not the issue, the issue is how we choose to view Sex Work and those who are in the industry with very little respect or civil rights.

seconded

Also, ‘survival sex work’ is obviously not included in this statement.

(Source: blck-grrl)

Tags: sex work sexism Feminism Sex Work is Real Work

Photo

September 14, 2011

1,007 notes

victorianaaa:

fracturedrefuge:

stripperspiration:

Click the photo to purchase t-shirts, magnets, buttons and stickers promoting sex workers’ rights.

You are going to be seeing this a lot because everyone needs to know this.

SWAAY was founded and is run by a sex worker named Furry Girl. Recently, Furry Girl basically called fellow sex worker Madison Young a disgusting, perverted human being for taking pictures of herself breastfeeding her daughter and then, when people understandably got upset, said, “I pissed off the feminist mommy club. But since they don’t buy porn or do sex workers’ rights activism, it really doesn’t matter” and “Outside of stupid feminist hippies, who sees breast feeding a baby as sexual? What kind of people want to see those photos? Not good people.” As a sex worker, sex workers’ right advocate, mom and feminist, I refuse to support anything she is a part of, as she obviously does not support me and my rights. There are better groups out there.

I should have realized that earlier considering it’s marked with “feminisnt.com” in the corner. I really don’t want to support anything Furry Girl is behind.

Furry Girl has some points about how feminism has failed sex workers but her undisguised misogyny makes it hard to listen to her at all, and I won’t support what she does.

Tags: feminism hearts sex work sex worker rights stickers misogyny

Quote

September 12, 2011

3,710 notes

"I know sex workers with more feminism in their clit rings than you’ve got in your entire gender studies department."

— Dear Coke Talk (via tahlalalia)

(Source: katstories, via brynncognito)

Tags: feminism epic fucking win feminism sex work