Sharmus Outlaw, longtime trans, HIV, and sex workers’ rights activist, died in hospice care at the age of 50 on July 7th from lymphoma. Her death was hastened by systematic healthcare bias: she endured a long delay in processing her Medicaid application because doctors were “confused” by her gender marker, and faced numerous other difficulties… Continue reading Rest In Power, Sharmus Outlaw
Tag: desiree alliance
Activist Spotlight Interview: Sarah Patterson on Health, Access, and Risk
In January 2012, Sarah Elspeth Patterson and a group of other sex worker activists in NYC went to work offering health care and social services to sex workers. The much needed outcome, Persist Health Project, is the 2nd sex worker only health clinic in the United States, after Saint James Infirmary in San Francisco. While… Continue reading Activist Spotlight Interview: Sarah Patterson on Health, Access, and Risk
The Week In Links—August 23
Veteran activist Emi Koyama writes in Shakesville about how her talk at the 38th National Conference of Men and Masculinities on the problems with anti-trafficking discourse was censored and how she and other women of color were subsequently harassed by a group of so-called “feminist men”, members of a group called the National Organization of… Continue reading The Week In Links—August 23
Activist Spotlight: Carol Leigh on Sex Worker Sinema and Challenging the Anti-Trafficking Discourse
Carol Leigh, aka Scarlot Harlot, was the first sex workers’ rights movement celebrity I ever met. I’d been escorting for only a few months when she came to speak in my area, and I identified deeply with her writing in my dogeared copy of the 1980s edition of Sex Work. I was struck immediately by her… Continue reading Activist Spotlight: Carol Leigh on Sex Worker Sinema and Challenging the Anti-Trafficking Discourse
Activist Spotlight: Audacia Ray, on Telling Stories and the Tricky Politics of Inclusion
Audacia Ray is perhaps most renowned in the sex workers’ rights movement for her longtime editing of the now sadly defunct $pread magazine. But as a sex workers’ rights movement activist, Audacia has really been everywhere and done everything: blogging for years about her sex working experience as Waking Vixen; publishing her book, Naked on… Continue reading Activist Spotlight: Audacia Ray, on Telling Stories and the Tricky Politics of Inclusion