December 17th: The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Music: 00:00

Music.

Parker Westwood: 00:07

Welcome back to A Sex Worker's Guide to the Galaxy, where the answer to life, the universe and everything is sex workers. I'm your host, Parker Westwood, and it is so good to be back. I had to take a little bit of time, but we are back. Podcast is rocking and rolling, and here we go. I chose today to relaunch the podcast on purpose because today is December 17, and that means it is the International Day to end violence against sex workers. This was a day established in 2003 and we're going to get into it today. We're going to talk about the history or the Herstory of the day. But before we do that, we got to do a little housekeeping Dems to rules. What do we do for housekeeping? Oh, my God, it's been so long I can't even remember. Well, firstly, podcast is back, right? I will be doing episodes as frequently as I feel able, so that won't change, except for that I do feel more able, so they will happen more than never. So that's good. Oh, the podcast, the format is shifting a little bit. I'm very excited about this. I've been doing interviews. I think storytelling is still very important. I want people's stories to be heard. However, I do want to be able to tell some tangential stories, like, for example, this episode is history. I'm not interviewing just one person getting their story. I had the opportunity to interview multiple veteran sex Worker's rights activists. I'm beyond excited about this episode, yeah, and I want to do more things like that, where there will either be multiple people interviewed, or maybe it's just me researching something and presenting things to you all, or interviewing people who are adjacent to sex work in a way that expands the perspective on sex work, because story is about perspective, and I just this, like to get a Little more of that in here, but today is about the International Day to end violence against sex workers. But before we get into that, there's more housekeeping. Oh, my goodness. Patreon, my darlings. Okay, so this podcast cannot be monetized in any other way other than Patreon. Why you ask? Well, because of sesta Fauci, which I've talked about in other episodes, but basically it just makes it really hard for sex workers to monetize anything online, even if it's just about sex workers. So I can't monetize any of this, even though, like, I'm on YouTube, the podcast is on YouTube now, and all these things, the only way I can monetize this podcast is through Patreon or following me via Apple podcast, like the Apple equivalent of Patreon. I've been posting some Patreon content. I'm going to be working on doing that a bit more. There's a free tier where you can just follow the podcast. There's even a paid tier of $1 a month. Every little bit helps. It costs money to keep this podcast up on the internet for people to find it costs money, and it is my time and effort, and I love doing it, but I also need to pay my bills. So it does help. And some of the money goes towards the projects of answer Detroit, a network of sex workers to excite revolution, which is a collective of sex workers fighting for the decriminalization and de stigmatization of sex workers based in Detroit. If you can't become a patreon member or you just like, don't want to donate money right now, I get it. Money's tight. It's fine. I'm not upset about it. I totally get it. In fact, I'm just glad you're listening if you have a moment. However, rating us five stars and writing a positive review does get us in front of more eyes and therefore more ears, and being able to have more people hear the stories of sex workers and understand that we're human and maybe relate to us in some way, could change the world. I believe that. So if you wouldn't mind writing a review, rating us five stars, that would really mean a lot to me. There are trigger warnings for this episode. We are talking about the International Day to end violence against sex workers. Therefore, we will be talking about violence, sexual violence, murder. We will be talking about those things. If that is not something that you can handle at this time, please take care of. Yourself listen to one of our other episodes, or come back to this one when you feel a bit more regulated. I think we're finally done with the housekeeping. So let's get into the history, y'all. Allow me to set the stage. We're gonna go back in time before December 17, the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers was established. It's 1982 July 15, the body of Wendy Lee Caufield was found in the Green River, which is in Washington. Within a month, four other bodies were found on the river bank, Deborah Lynn Bonner, Marcia Faye Chapman, Opal Charmaine Mills, and Cynthia Gene Hines. This began one of the longest and largest serial murder investigations in the United States history. Eventually, over four dozen women's deaths would be connected to the Green River Killer. The man known as the Green River Killer is Gary Ridgway. I had an inner debacle about saying his name. I thought maybe saying his name was gonna like, I don't know, hold him up on a pedestal somehow, and I was gonna just call him the Green River Killer. But then Zee St James, friend of mine, pointed out that that kind of gave him this mystique and almost like a, I don't know, super villain quality. And the point I want to get across is that Gary Ridgway is just some guy. He's not an evil mastermind. What he did was monstrous, absolutely, but he himself is not a monster. He is a product of toxic masculinity. He's a product of our society, and if we paint him as something other than a human being, as a man that grew up hating sex workers, if we paint him as anything other than that, we are avoiding interrogating the systems that created him. So I'm going to be saying his name, because he's just a guy. According to biography.com serial killer Gary Ridgway. He was originally from Utah. He held a job painting trucks for 30 years, and was married three times. He began murdering women in 1982 and was caught in 2001 when they were finally able to actually DNA test some evidence or some samples that had come from the crime scene. Ridgway has claimed he killed as many as 80 women along Route 99 in South King County, Washington. He eventually pleaded guilty to 49 counts of aggravated first degree murder and has received multiple life sentences in prison, where he remains today. There are still women missing in relation to Gary Ridgway. They went missing in the 80s, and their bodies have never been found. Their cases never charged, and justice was never truly served. The King County Sheriff's Office is still calling for tips or information via their website about these women. So how did he get away with this for so long? He wasn't some mastermind. He wasn't even very clever, but he preyed on people (women) that he assumed no one cared about, and in one very critical way, he was right the police didn't care about these women. During the time of these murders, the designation of "No Humans Involved" or NHI was being used in relation to cases with victims who were deemed less than human or unimportant. Guy Nave wrote an incredible piece for medium.com titled "No Humans Involved (NHI): The dehumanization of black people." I encourage you all to read the whole thing. It's awesome. But I'm going to read a quote from it here to help explain this designation. "The use of the term came to light in 1992 following the arrest and acquittal of four LAPD officers caught on video brutally beating Rodney King. In 1992 the Jamaican scholar and theorist Sylvia Wynter penned a seminal text titled 'No Humans Involved: An Open Letter to my colleagues.' Wynter asserted that the dehumanization of young, unemployed black males allowed them to be subjected to the 'genocidal effects of incarceration and elimination by ostensibly normal and everyday means.' While the term was first associated with encounters between law enforcement and black Americans, it has been used concerning other marginalized groups as well. NHI has been used alongside terms like 'misdemeanor murders' and 'prostitute murders' in min to minimize the killing of women sex workers as Alida Weidensee (Sorry if I butchered that) persuasively argues in an article published in the Minnesota Journal of Law and Inequality, 'discounting the Violence Against marginalized groups through the denial of their humanity allows the narrative of law enforcement as necessary defenders of the innocent to remain uncriticized.' While the term is rarely used today in legal circles, the attitude that the term represents remains pervasive and finds its parallel in the treatment of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIWG)." End quote of Guy Nave, there. We spoke with Jill McCracken, who here will elaborate on the NHI designation and how it relates to the sex Worker's rights movement.

Jill McCracken: 10:42

My name is Jill McCracken. My pronouns are she/her. I am... Have been in the sex worker rights movement since early 2000s I was a founding board member of SWOP sex Worker's Outreach Project USA. So I was a member of SWOP, Tucson SWOP Tampa Bay. I co founded and was the former co director of SWOP behind bars, no longer affiliated with that organization. Currently in activism, and I'm also a professor at University of South Florida. So NHI, No human involved. Basically when somebody was found murdered and they were identified as a sex worker or somebody who was involved in criminal behavior in the morgue or for or even in the police reports, they would do the NHI designation, no human involved. So in the morgue you know, sort of like this toe tag of NHI, these people that you know don't count, or we don't have to consider them as much. And so we were basically trying to call attention to the fact that this designation is wrong. And people were basically saying, "Oh, we don't use that anymore. We don't use that anymore." But we were finding records where it was still happening. And I honestly don't know if it's still happening now, but it was definitely still happening then. And so we just wanted to call attention to that. I guess, because so many people aren't aware, right? Like so many regular people aren't aware, and when you think about a person as my brother, my mom, my sister, my whatever, they are human. But when you put that designation, especially in relationship to this crime, like this crime doesn't matter because it's committed against somebody that is not even viewed as a Human, is really problematic, I mean, as an understatement. So I think that just once again, using the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, that day, that event, to call attention and say, We won't stand for this. This is not okay.

Parker Westwood: 12:58

This sub human or non human status can impact how anyone associated with a sex worker is treated. As a result tips from family, friends, and colleagues go unreported, undocumented and uninvestigated. In the case of Gary Ridgway, a boyfriend and father of a victim, tailed Gary's truck to his home and reported it to the police that they knew the man who had killed their loved one. They knew where he lived. The cop who ended up following up on this tip had been a schoolmate of Gary's, and nothing came of the visit to Gary's home. We spoke with Tracy Kwan, who's written on the subject.

Tracy Quan: 13:39

I'm Tracy Quan. I've been a member of PONY, which is Prostitutes of New York, for a long time. I'm also a co founder of other sex worker collectives. So I think it's a total of three. And I'm usually she, but also nominally they. And I live in New York. I live in Manhattan. I am primarily a writer at this point. I'm a novelist, an essayist. I'm an emerging poet, and I was a sex worker for quite a long time. I think when the Green River killings became well known to those of us who were not on the West Coast, in my mind, it felt like part of a pattern that included the serial killings in New York and maybe a pattern of, you know, social attitudes. Part of it is the stigmatization and illegality around sex work casts a shadow over anyone who's involved with a sex worker, and then also just their own position, you know, in society. So if you're from a working class family that doesn't have any like best friends in City Hall or in the prosecutor's office, you don't have the clout. So it's not that they weren't missed. It's that the people who were aware of the fact that someone in their family or their circle had been killed simply didn't have the social clout to, you know, generate widespread concern, and this was in so one of the things I got into in one of the op eds that I published at the time was specifically social attitudes toward our boyfriends and husbands.

Parker Westwood: 15:31

Doing the research for this episode in the wake of the murder of the United Healthcare CEO, has been nothing short of infuriating. I just see the news coverage and the police effort for this one wealthy white man and I, I have never been more in touch with my rage than I have the last few days. Let's just say that. The police have said that they are following up on every tip they receive regarding the shooting of this singular CEO. And I can't help but think about what if they had followed up on every single tip they received regarding so many murders committed by Gary Ridgway, and not just Gary Ridgway, but the many other murders who have targeted sex workers specifically. He's not the only one. This CEO would never receive the NHI designation, because in our white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal society, he's seen to have value. Even though the practices he helped create and put into place within United Healthcare, obstructed care for millions of Americans, and according to some accounts coming forward online in the last few days, those practices that delayed or denied care cost some folks their lives. I guarantee that most of the sex workers that ended up with the designation of NHI, were practicing community care, had shared tips to keep others safe, had been a net positive in their communities. And this is why we fight for the humanization of sex workers and all marginalized people. Because our value is not determined by our net worth. We must refuse to allow capitalism to divine define our worth. Capitalism is a system without morals or ethics and incentivizes harm to our environment and our communities to value life should not be seen as a radical belief, and that is one of the many reasons why we fight. Okay, off my soapbox. Back in the time machine we go. In 2001 Gary Ridgway was finally apprehended. He confessed and was finally charged with the murders of 48 women, though he says he likely murdered far more. It was during his trial that the world got to hear his chilling statement about why he targeted sex workers.

Gary Ridgeway Clip: 18:11

Your statement continues to say that this murder was part of your common scheme or plan to kill as many women who you thought were prostitutes as you possibly could. Is that true? Yes. Were the victims of the prior case against you, the one you pled guilty to in 2003, were those victims also part of that same common scheme and plan? Yes. At that time, in in 2003, you made a statement about your plan, which you repeat here at the bottom of page five. Do you see that? Yes. And that statement reads as follows, "I picked prostitutes as my victim because I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for sex." Is that true? Yes. It says "I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed." Is that true? Yes. It says "I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing." Is that true? Yes. It says "Mostly, I picked prostitutes because I knew I could kill lots of them without getting caught."

Parker Westwood: 19:31

It was this idea that sex workers wouldn't be missed that prompted the beginning of a new tradition.

Tracy Quan: 19:38

So it's 2003 and it is the inaugural year of December 17th, and Annie Sprinkle came up with the idea, if I recall. Rightly. I mean, she posted something in... maybe at that point, it was posted in a, like, a list serve or something. Yeah, it wouldn't have been on social media. It was in a list serve. I'm pretty sure.

Parker Westwood: 20:01

Annie M. Sprinkle is a certified sexologist, ecosexual performance artist, former sex worker, and advocate for sex work and health care. Sprinkle has worked as a prostitute, sex educator, feminist, stripper, pornographic film actress, and sex film producer and director. In 1996 she became the first known porn star to get a doctoral degree, earning a PhD in Human Sexuality from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. Annie Sprinkle is a beloved member of the sex Worker's rights community. Upon hearing that Gary had committed these murders, largely because he believed no one would miss the sex workers he targeted. She wrote an open letter that read, "Violent crimes against sex workers go under reported, unaddressed and unpunished. There really are people who don't care when prostitutes are victims of hate crimes, beaten, raped and murdered, No matter what you think about sex workers and the politics surrounding them, sex workers are a part of our neighborhoods, communities and families." Annie Sprinkle and Robyn Few, the executive director of Sex Worker's Outreach Project or SWOP USA, worked together to organize a local event and make the announcement about the inauguration of the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. The press release that went out to media outlets across the country contained this quote from few "It is unconscionable to think that Americans would continue to back laws that would allow murderers to violate prostitutes in this way. Sex workers should not continue to be treated as second class citizens. Unequal protection under the law allows people to think and operate like the Green River Killer. It is time for these laws to change. We are calling on sex workers and their supporters around the world to commemorate the stolen lives. We will be lighting 100 candles to honor the known victims, as well as the ones yet to be discovered in a vigil at the State Building in every community. State representatives have the power to make communities safer and redirect scarce resources with the stroke of a pen. It is time we lobbied for the repeal of laws against sex workers. Call your elected state representatives and make an appointment. We need to decriminalize an occupation that has been around for 1000s of years and is not going away ever." Annie sprinkle and Robyn Few had known each other from their time in New York. Robyn Few passed a few years after the international data and violence against sex workers was established. Here, Jill McCracken recalls some memories of Robyn Few.

Jill McCracken: 22:59

Robin was just so funny. And what's the word? Like, almost like, sacrilegious, like, so in your face, like, fuck you. Like, I don't give a shit. And like, when she was arrested for prostitution, that was when she decided to go down on the courthouse steps and protest. And say, "Okay, you're going to arrest me for prostitution, then I'm going to make a big deal out of this." And she did. I mean, she was a huge part of starting the Sex Worker's Outreach Project. So, and it was fun, it was it was fun in those days, because many of us had little babies. That was a long time ago, right? So I remember we were hanging out one time. Robin was actually sick at this point, and my kid was probably, like, three or four running around naked. She's like, "Jill, get his naked butt off the couch! What are you doing?!" And I'm like, "He just likes to be naked!" You know? So, like we were, we just had a lot of connection in that way. But she would just stand up to people in a way that I admire so much. She is one of my heroes. I mean, I think that kind of goes without saying. But, um, I just admire her, her tenacity and her ability to stand up and say, This isn't right, and you're going to listen to me, and we had a huge March after she passed in San Francisco. And that was really it was really amazing to see everyone together.

Parker Westwood: 24:29

According to the global network of sex worker projects, the memorial, organized by Annie Sprinkle and Robyn Few, was attended by between 60 to 80 people. The memorial was held on the lawn of San Francisco City Hall on December 17, 2003 the day of Ridgeway's conviction. Since then, December 17 has become known as the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, and has been observed annually in scores of cities across the world. Stella Zine spoke to us about the versatility of the day,

Stacy Zine: 25:02

Name: Stella Zine. Pronouns: she and they. And organizational affiliations: Of course, NSU: sex worker working org, and NSU in general. And also, I would say, Coyote Georgia, although it's had ebbs and flows of kind of the direction. But it, you know, it's, it's there, the Twitter's there still. And Georgia Harm Reduction Coalition. The D17, gives us an opportunity, an organizing opportunity. It can be like a vigil time. It can be time just for us. It can be a time when we use it to educate our communities, you know. And it's got so many levels. It's got, you know, opportunity for public awareness, got the opportunity for healing, being able to come together and then, you know, talk and for community building, for organizing, that kind of thing. But also for grief, you know, to get the conversation going and to find that where we have commonality for coalition building.

Parker Westwood: 26:05

We were able to talk with some people who organized and or attended the first December 17 celebration in New York City. Melissa Ditmore and Tracy Quan shared their accounts of that day with us.

Tracy Quan: 26:17

There were December 17 events in 2003 in many locations, and that I'm not clear how many, but I was there for the first New York, December 17, yes. In New York. Melissa Ditmore Is the person who went to Judson Church. Melissa Ditmore was a coordinating member of PONY.

Melissa Ditmore: 26:39

My name is Melissa Ditmore. I became a member of Prostitutes of New York when one of my colleagues invited me to a meeting. It made sense. I was brought up by a feminist union rep. Some of my work includes editing Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. My most recent book is "Unbroken Chains: The hidden role of human trafficking in the American economy." I started working on human trafficking issues when I realized how the furer about human trafficking was really going to affect sex workers. I got involved on anti trafficking legislation, lobbying as my attempt at damage control. I remember the first December 17 vigil in 2003. At the time, the movement was much smaller than it is now. PONY is in a dormant phase. Now, while many other organizations are active in New York City and everywhere. In 2003 the general public had been online for nearly a decade, and social media did not yet exist. People communicated through email lists and message boards. Most prominent sex worker email list at that time internationally was probably Whorenet. We had only a few weeks to publicize the first vigil through email lists and phone calls. We didn't know how many people to expect. People we had never met before came to the New York vigil. And PONY (Prostitutes of New York) grew a bit with these new people. Vigils were held in many places. Here in New York City, we stood on the steps of Judson Church on Washington Square. Judson Church is important in sex worker history, too. Howard Moody and Arlene Carmen of Judson started mobile outreach to sex workers in 1975. PONY started then too. For the first day to end violence in 2003, it was cold. There had already been snow, and the candles look just lovely. Jessica Land read the names of the dead. She wore a black hoodie under which we could see her blonde hair. We engaged with some of the passers by who asked why we were holding the vigil. We didn't stay outside long, just long enough to say a few words and read the names. Sometimes in the early years, it was snowy and cold, we had the use of a side room at Judson. There was an upright piano, and Chelsea Goodwin, a transgender woman and member of PONY, played for us. Chelsea's partner, Rusty Mae Moore, was there. Rusty was also trans. She was a professor, and she started Transy House, offering shelter to trans people, including Sylvia Rivera. Rusty died in 2022 at 80 years of age. Rusty is an important figure in New York City and trans history. Judson has since been renovated, and the layout has changed. The room we were in doesn't exist now, NYC sometimes has more than one event on December 17, and there's still a vigil at Judson. International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers at Judson might be on another day, depending on what's happening at the church. Veronica Vera had organized the vigil inside the church, beginning by decorating tall candles to commemorate our dead. Judson held an enormous memorial for Cecilia Gentili.

Parker Westwood: 30:26

And here's a special invite from Veronica Vera to Judson church this year. But I'll let her introduce herself.

Veronica Vera: 30:33

My name is Veronica Vera. Pronouns: she/her. I'm an OG sex worker. Throughout the 1980s, I explored my sexuality as a porn star. I made a few hardcore movies and kinky videos. Mainly, I wrote about my life and the world of commercial sex in adult magazines. "Veronica Vera's New York" was a monthly column I had for a dozen years. In 1989, I founded Miss Vera's Finishing School, the world's first cross dressing and transgender Academy, which helped shed light on the burgeoning transgender movement. I'm now a doctor of human sexuality. Following the 2024 election, the need to coalesce the sex worker movement is more than ever recognized as a priority. This year, a host of different sex worker groups will convene at Judson on December 17, and the event will be a collaboration with unity as a theme. All are invited.

Parker Westwood: 31:34

The International Day to end violence against sex workers continues to be celebrated around the world. The way this day is celebrated, changes depending on the landscape we are in, and sex Worker's rights groups have taken many approaches over the years. In doing these interviews, we got to hear some really beautiful stories of other D17 events, maybe not the first but other ones around the country, and I wanted some space to hear these veterans, sex workers, rights activists' stories about these other December 17. I personally found them inspiring and moving, and I felt that I would be remiss to leave them out. So sit back, relax and enjoy the next approximately five minutes or so of story time, and then afterwards, we'll talk a bit about how to end violence against sex Workers.

Veronica Vera: 32:27

Annie alerted me to D 17 sometime in 2004 she said the plan was to make D 17 an annual event, and encouraged me to organize an event for New Year, for New York that year, I knew of Judson's history supporting sex workers, so I got permission to hold the event on the church steps. I also contacted a reporter from the New York Times who I thought would be sympathetic. Having the vigil on the church steps made a great photo op, and that year, the photo with an excellent story by Maria Navarro appeared on page one of the New York Times.

Jill McCracken: 33:04

I think I was just really in awe of that we, that people, that sex workers, could put the day together. But then how important it was to actually talk about these issues, to say people's names, and Tucson was at the forefront. I would say, I mean, I was in New York, I wasn't in San Francisco, so I really don't know, but we were pretty active chapter. And so every year for December 17, we would do something like, we would do a die in or we would do a performance, or we would sometimes just get together. And so we would like one year, we went down to the courthouse and we had signs, and we dressed in black, and we laid down, and we did a die-in and then after that, like right as everyone was leaving at five o'clock, so that people would like see us, and we had signs and we wouldn't talk, there were a couple people who were handing out little posters. Then we would literally take candles and march down to El Tiradito. And then that was a shrine where we would all then there would be a performance music, people would sing, people would talk. It was a very somber event, but also a very unified so that was, it's very dear to me. Those memories are very dear to me. And so we would have people sing drum, we would light candles, we would have hot cocoa. And then sometimes we go back to somebody's house and and celebrate the fact that we were together and that we were making space for this day and for people who have been brutally killed and violated. I will never forget to die-in. I'll never forget getting dressed up. We were at a really good friend of mine's, Natalie's, house. We were getting dressed up, and then we took a truck and had all the stuff loaded up. And then We went down to the courthouse, where the courthouse was, and I don't remember what day of the week it was, but it was like a regular day at 5pm we planned it, and I was so nervous, because I was like, Oh my gosh, what are people going to do? And we were really difficult to look at. Like, we were even a little bit worried about kids, because we were, like, looking like we had the chalk outlines drawn on the ground and like lying there like it was, it was meant to be art and disturbing, right? And to call attention. And so I just, I just will never forget being involved in that, and just being a part of that community, and then walking to the shrine together and connecting.

Tracy Quan: 33:05

I went to one in 2019. That was an amazing event. I mean, it, it kind of blew my mind. It was just before COVID hit. I was astonished at what I saw. It was held at a a bar somewhere on the in the East Village, I believe. And it was a poetry reading. So it was a sex worker poetry reading. Rachel Rabbit White put that together. The room was jam packed. I mean, a lot of the people there were probably civilians, but there were a lot of working girls there and some guys, but really a lot of women. And, you know, I could tell who was. It was just really astonishing to me that we had gone from what seems like seven or eight people standing on the steps of Judson to this like packed full house. And also I realized that a lot of the people who came to this event were they had a very strong sense of community. I don't know that they were all interested in doing politics, politics, but they had a sense of community and an awareness, a lot of ideas about why they were there. And I thought it was really cool. I don't want to pat ourselves on the back too much, but I felt like, Wow. I mean, a community has been created. We set out to create this in the early 90s. We kind of had a dream of creating something like this. But, you know, I had no way to assume that this would happen. And I was quite taken aback by just the sheer the density that night. You know, we had maybe five poets. So it was December 17 itself that it occurred on and what I had also, was also glad to see, is that it evolved. You know, we do talk about people who have been killed and bad things that have happened, but I'm glad that people felt that they could come and drink at the bar and get a little tipsy and celebrate being alive every I mean, this was something that people have always done is warning each other about violence that has occurred in our community and in our industry, and the fact that those of us who were there, we may even some people may even have witnessed or experienced violence, but everybody looked really good, which is part of our job, And part of why we're doing this is that we, we are esthetic people, you know, who want to have beautiful lives. Yeah, it was quite gratifying to see that at that event at December 17, the poetry reading, one of the poets, Erin, and she's published a book since then, read a very, very angry poem that was kind of frightening, yeah, that described, you know, some bad, violent stuff that has happened in the industry, and from the point of view of someone it's happened to, I'm not going to assume that it's about her, but it may be. And, yeah, she she read this really intense piece, and it was about a violent workplace. It was about a sex work establishment where it was clear that the manager had either permitted or encouraged something violent to happen. It was dystopian, and it was pretty serious stuff, and that that was happening in the middle of the celebration. So the roller coaster of emotions, that it's real life, if you are a sex worker, for sex workers, it can be pretty intense. That was part of the event, too. And it's kind of interesting, because I went on after that, and my piece was different. You know, it wasn't an angry piece. It was a more hopeful piece. I'm kind of glad, actually, that that happened, that we had that contrast, and also that she had a place where she could do that, where she could read that. I just want December 17 to keep evolving and doing what it has to do. It's part. Possible that this year, it won't be as celebratory, for various reasons. I know that during COVID, when people were still really in social quarantine. So that's after this amazing event that I went to. You know, there were online, December 17. I attended one of those, and it felt more a little more sober, more mournful. So I think December 17 has to adapt, really, to each time what's what's happening in the society, and then, of course, it's going to be different in each place.

Stacy Zine: 40:33

I was living in rural Georgia, so I couldn't get there. And then I was like, Is there any organizing going on in my area, you know, is there anything? And this friend of mine is a disability justice activist, and she's had to be on the DL too because of some some civvy jobs and stuff like that. But she did an D17 event, you know, that was a, it was a, like a poetry reading. Charis bookstore has a once a month open mic that's called Clitoratti. And they they've always gone to bat for sex worker issues. It's a feminist bookstore that, really, they just always have gone to bat for this issue in the books they carry. So they had a D 17 thing. I think I would say they had the very first D 17 thing in Atlanta. But the second one that I was involved in organizing and did a coalition with people that I met through the solutions, not another punishment through us all going downtown to push back on the the banishment legislation that was targeting trans women of color in Midtown Atlanta That was going to up all the jail time, fines and parole time and all that for people arrested for trading sex for solicitation. And so all of us that came together, we all had different ideas of solutions, and I mean, lot of different ideas. And not everyone was on the decrim train, you know. And some people were on the like the Project Rose train, and like the anti-trafficking rescue train, you know. It was, it was challenging, but a lot of us came together to push back, at least on the anti banishment. We're not going to banish human beings to one area of Georgia. We read the names. Everyone kind of spoke. Juan Evans was a main, you know, a main organizer with Snapco, and had gotten arrested for, I don't know, some kind of traffic..., a black trans guy, and, you know, getting pulled over for anything. And then was totally stripped naked. And then, so it was like there was a lot of Snapco morphed into different things, because these issues are so intersectional. You know, that the powers that be that criminalize, you know, sex and drugs. It's so much, not about sex and drugs like the criminalization. It's about channeling people of color and criminalized people into the prisons, but um, that every word, every sign that had, the word sex work, was asked to be taken down. But we did get to read all the names, but there was just all these weird respectability issues that I you know, it's like, it's really messy stuff that that it's important to get into those conversations and understand why they happen, and have empathy about why they're happening and and at the same time gently, like with calling in practices, with love, with centering relationships. You know, of pushing that sex is something we should say, you know, talk about, center. It's not, you know, sex work, connecting labor with sex. You know, the word is a good word. It's a really helpful word. But, yeah, that was frustrating. I remember when that happened. But it was still memorable. And I have some pictures of when we still had the signs stuff and stuff like that. And that. I think that that was a really important one, too. And I have really good memories around that.

Veronica Vera: 43:59

My own experience with D 17 does not continue until 2017 by then, I was a member of Judson church. Both Annie and I were consultants on the TV show HBO's The Deuce. And the cast and crew of that show were interested in supporting D 17, as well as Judson's history of support of sex workers. The Judson bus had traveled through Times Square and was included in that show. In 2017 we used the big meeting room for the vigil. The focus was on the reading of names, but I included other sections. We set up tables with craft supplies, and attendees arrived early to add names and decorate the candles. This gave attendees the opportunity to mix and mingle. This was one of my favorite parts of the vigil. Even when the main ceremony happened indoors, we went outside for the photo op on the steps or under the arch in Washington Square Park. We have included special tributes to leaders who died, Margot St James, Carol Leigh, Priscilla Alexander and Judson's Arlene Carmen, who founded the Judson bus, have all been included. This year will include a tribute to Cecilia Gentili. Last year's reading of names included the names of other sex workers who had died, though not from violence. As the names were read, it called attention to the vastness of this community. At first, Judson footed the bill for the vigils, the candles, the refreshments, the craft supplies, but now sex worker orgs and allies are contributing to the expenses. We always document D 17 with photos, and we keep masks available, but participants have felt less need to cover their faces.

Jill McCracken: 45:51

One year here in... I'm in St Petersburg, Florida, a few years ago, we actually built a casket out of paper, like it was, it was like out of, like, hard paper, you know, like cardboard, kind of and then we put lights all around it, and then we wrote all the names and chalk around the casket. And then we went to the Unitarian Universalist Church, and we had, like, a gathering with the community. So we had kind of an education for the community, because we're like, this is an opportunity for you all to learn what is this and what is sex worker rights, and what is the International Day. So we had that, and then we marched through the streets with the lights on the casket, and then again, kind of handed out things about SWOP Tampa Bay, which is the the SWOP chapter that I was a part of when we did that, that was in 2019 and that was right before COVID. So that was kind of our last, at least, for SWOP Tampa Bay, our last December 17 in person gathering. It's a kind of a weird situation we wanted to open up to the community, but it's also one of those events that is like, like, like, not for the community, right? It's for us. And so we should be able to, you know, have that space. And I think that was the benefit of, especially what we tried to do in Tucson, which was create some kind of a public happening, but then only the people that knew what were what was happening were going to go back to the shrine and really share ourselves. So it was sort of like, let's get attention, but then we'll go back and take care of each other and ourselves really share. And I think that's what it was my first experiences with the international data and violence against sex worker. So it's also, you know, particularly poignant to me, but I think that we did a really good job, in hindsight, of combining those things. Having this December 17 as part of the context in the background of the sex worker rights movement is a privilege, and it's also devastating. So I think that's the part that gets me. We had that. Oh, I had that always as part of the community, and yet, oh my gosh. Why do we have this at the center? And we still, every year, are gathering names and saying names.

Parker Westwood: 48:14

I find that last point by Jill McCracken to be incredibly poignant. We as a community have this beautiful event around which we can coalesce and do so many things like it can be advocacy, it can be education, it can be communal healing. It can be so many things. December 17, the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, can be so many things. But it is tragic that it has to exist, that we felt called to create it, that Annie Sprinkle and Robyn Few created it due to the rampant violence against sex workers. And that this year marks 21 years of this day, and we are still adding names. So how do we end violence against sex workers? Sex Worker's rights advocates are calling, and have been calling for decriminalization. An article by Jane Swift puts it this way, "Imagine what it's like to work a job that is prohibited by local, state, and federal laws and policies. These policies make it extremely difficult to speak openly about or advertise your services, to secure, safe, reliable spaces where you can work alone or with others, to utilize financial institutions, and to record your employment on official forms that may require it. You're constantly aware that your trade leaves you vulnerable to surveillance, arrest, and criminal prosecution. This is the daily reality of sex workers. Criminalization leaves sex workers vulnerable to physical and sexual violence by those who understand the law to be on their side. Criminalization perpetuates structural violence against people in the sex trades, leading to housing precarity, poor health outcomes, exclusion from educational and employment opportunities, and incarceration. Advocates will soon mark the International Day to End Violence Against Sex W orkers, and it is past time for policy makers to decriminalize sex work." This was written in 2022 swift goes on in the article to warn against anti trafficking policies Zee St James of ANSWER Detroit was kind enough to explain why we need to watch out for this kind of legislation,

Zee St.James: 50:50

As Tamika Spellman pointed the anti equity model. So sometimes you might hear people like the current vice president use the term decriminalization for for sex work, but if a politician says that you want to ask some follow up questions. Because it is more popular for people to say, "Okay, let's just decriminalize the workers. Shifts the focus. We agree that we shouldn't be arresting these workers, these sometimes they see, you know, as victims, it's the people who are creating the demand." This is capitalism, 101, supply and demand. I guess I don't really like my body being talked about as a supply, like I'm iron ore or oil, you know, labor supply. I digress. So they'll say, "You know what, let's go after the demand. Let's go after the people who are soliciting these sex workers." And, you know, people have complicated relationships with clients. I don't think it's really worthwhile to demonize them, but I'm sure it's relatable as you know, customer service workers, that that sometimes the setting that you're in, it can get hard working with people. But when, when you do that, that still affects people who are selling sex. Even if you know the police aren't going after you, the things around sex work are criminalized. So advertising, trying to find a workplace, having you know people that you support, like children, family, friends, and then, of course, like soliciting, trying to engage the services of a sex work, sex worker, all of those things are still criminalized. And even more criminalized, more tension is put on to criminalizing those things under End Demand policies. I know Maine, this year just passed an End Demand bill, and so we will attach some of the work of the sex worker working group. The Urban Survivors Union did this really amazing sign on letter going over the different models of criminalization and highlighting how end demand, or anti equity. The "anti equity" comes from because they started calling it "the equality model." So we say, No, no, no, this is not equality. This is anti equity because the people who are hurt most by that. Aren't the sex workers with the most privilege who can kind of like skate by it's the people with the least privilege who might be criminalized for other things anyway, like for homelessness or, for the National Survivors Union in particular, for sex workers who use drugs. These end demand policies really impact them, and we're in the middle of an overdose crisis, a crisis of adulterated drug supply. We do not need that. So we can attach that information in the show notes if people want to sign on or at least educate yourself. So if some sort of legislation comes up in your community, you've got the talking points to be able to push back, because we want complete decriminalization. We don't want one sided decriminalization. We don't want legalization, because I don't need the government or a manager controlling my body. We need to just get these laws off the books.

Parker Westwood: 54:22

Are you feeling angry? inspired? emboldened? just fucking ready for change? Because I know I am. I've linked some organizing ideas and instructions in the show notes, some things to sign on to. There's so much there. So many links, so many things to read. Other people to check out. If you like the voices you've heard, they've written things. So go read those things. Anything we've mentioned will likely be in the show notes, and if I forgot anything, please feel free to shoot me an email. I will send you the link to it and make the correction. I am certainly not infallible, and there was a lot to cover in here. I wanted to end this episode with a little bit of joy, because joy and grief and rage are not mutually exclusive. I asked these veteran sex worker activists one of the questions I ask all of my guests, what is something simple that brings you joy? I hope you can hear something to relate to in these responses. I hope you connect to something that brings you joy today, and maybe just maybe, these responses will allow someone out there to relate to a sex worker in a way that helps them see us as human beings, deserving of life, Love, dignity and care.

Tracy Quan: 55:49

My apartment, my bedroom, Yeah, it's just like the happiest place in the world for me,

Jill McCracken: 55:58

hugging my son,

Stacy Zine: 56:00

going to truck stops and getting free water and ice in a cup. It's just, I don't know it feels. It feels like a weird kind of self care.

Parker Westwood: 56:10

My cat's purr,

Jill McCracken: 56:13

making my morning coffee exactly how I like it. Okay, the pink pony girl song.

Parker Westwood: 56:21

Okay, so I wanted to end on joy, but I do really have to end on some thank yous, because so many people made this episode possible. So we're gonna get into that. I want to take this time to thank the people who made this episode possible. Thank you to Veronica Vera, Tracy Quan, Stella Zine, Melissa Ditmore, Annie Sprinkle, Serpent, Katy Simon, Tara burns, Susan E., Jill McCracken. I wish I had time to share every response I received from all of you, but please know that all of your stories and experience made this episode possible, and have been so inspiring and appreciated. And I'm racking my brain for how to use the bits and pieces I didn't use because gems! Full of gems! I want to thank our Patreon supporters, especially those who stuck around the entire time I've been on this like unspoken hiatus. Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank my cat, Felix and my dog, Typo, who kept me warm and sometimes trapped while I was editing. And I want to give a huge thank you to Zee St James for putting on your producer hat and sharing your connections in order to make this episode happen. It quite literally could not have happened without you, and I'm so grateful to call you my friend. And last but not least, a big thank you to you listener. You've made it to the end. That's incredible. Not everybody gets here. Thank you for listening, thank you for being you, and thank you for giving a shit about sex workers. No space fact this time I'm gonna end it here on a note of safety, dignity and decriminalization.

58:12

Nanu Nanu, motherfuckers. We back!