Tag: stigma

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

Outcasts Among Outcasts: Drug-Using Sex Workers in the Sex Workers’ Rights Movement, Part 2

(You can find part one of this discussion here) Caty: I’ve seen former drug-using sex workers like Kate Holden write that trading sex for drugs directly with a dealer was “just tacky,” and in my shallow, callow early years as a heroin-using escort, I often said the same thing. But the real reason I’ve avoided doing… Continue reading Outcasts Among Outcasts: Drug-Using Sex Workers in the Sex Workers’ Rights Movement, Part 2

Outcasts Among Outcasts: Injection Drug-Using Sex Workers in the Sex Workers’ Rights Movement, Part 1

For a long time, I’ve wanted to talk to other former and current injection drug-using sex workers about our experience of sex work and the sex workers’ rights movement. With every other statement from other sex workers seeming to be a disclaimer about how, “we’re not all junkies!”, pushing drug using sex workers in front… Continue reading Outcasts Among Outcasts: Injection Drug-Using Sex Workers in the Sex Workers’ Rights Movement, Part 1

The Week In Links—July 26th

There were Justice for Dora/Justice for Jasmine protests against violence against sex workers at Swedish and Turkish embassies in thirty six cities worldwide on the 19th, as documented by Melissa Gira Grant in her article on the movement in In These Times. But no sooner were the protests held were two more casualties of violence… Continue reading The Week In Links—July 26th