In addition to what Kayla said, it’s also important to point out that it can take well over a decade and millions of dollars in legal fees to take a battle all the way to the Supreme Court. Additionally, the Supreme Court has the luxury of deciding which cases they want to take. In general, they tend to avoid these sorts of hot-button issues (as recently as January 2017 they rejected a case about Backpage brought by lawyers from Massachusetts). It’s pretty unrealistic to think your proposal is at all feasible.

Kayla, I’m confused as to why this wouldn’t be possible for you, or why you don’t think this would work for you, even as a low income WOC worker. How is her idea any different that the last model of Backpage aside from the money goes towards the causes that you are stating.

I reached out for a screener. No response so far.

http://www.alternet.org/documentaries/exposure-backpagecom-poses-conundrum-sex-workers

Amanda, I know you stated that you’re idea to for starting a “sex worker ran” site by using prostitution charges was not a fully developed one. As a SW of color who comes from a low income community, I have to say that this would not be an act that any of us from lower economic backgrounds have the luxury of doing especially since one prostitution charge in my city’s county alone carries a $900 fine. Regardless of if the ad payments are enough to cover that, this is very problematic, especially for those of us without race, class and gender-identity privilege.

Your idea is while well-meaning, does ignore these key facts. Things are only going to get worse if we don’t find a way to reach out to allies who have the time money and privileges to de-stigmatize our industry and that starts with the de-stigmatizing and education of sexual health to ignorant grown-ass adults and whorephobics who ALSO can be sex workers themselves (I’m looking at you, my fellow strippers! )

Whorephobia and transphobia within our SW communities are a HUGE contributing factor to all SWs being treated as “sub-humans with no moral value”.

That’s absolutely true, Valerie. There’s definitely a history of high-end workers being shitty to low-end and especially trans workers or workers of color, and I don’t want to deny that. But I wrote this mostly to encourage the growth of intracommunity funds for workers affected by the Backpage closure. I’ve seen a few crop up, and we hope to list them as a resource here soon.