TRANSLIFE needs volunteers for their April 29 conference. Allies are welcome and encouraged to volunteer, folks should have a general understanding of what it means to be affirming to the trans community. We have two shifts: 9:00 am-1:00 pm and 1:00 pm-5:00 pm. You are also welcome to volunteer for the whole day. There are two types of volunteers, general volunteers and safety volunteers. General volunteers do various tasks which can include things like registration, welcomers, hall monitors, food set up and break down, room clean up, and assisting committee members, staff, and facilitators. Safety volunteers will work the parameters, engage in bag checks, and communicate with staff and committee. The conference is at Finley Center in Santa Rosa.
Please consider supporting the transgender community during this important event. If you are part of an organization please check in with others and spread the word. The trans community is facing an onslaught of discrimination at all levels and we need to ban together to encourage resiliency in our community.
The UK government is facing fierce condemnation from opposition MPs and senior Tories over its “immoral, ineffective and incredibly expensive” Illegal Migration Bill.
The bill has been devised by the Tory government to reduce or stop “small boat crossings”across the English Channel.
If it becomes law, all adults who arrive in the UK via the Channel or in the back of a lorry will be detained for 28 days. They would then be sent back to their country of origin or on to a third country like Rwanda. Families with children could also be detained and deported.
Opposition MPs, human rights advocates, religious leaders and even Tory MPs have condemned the measure, which could jeopardise vulnerable people’s lives.
Labour MP Diane Abbott told PinkNews that the Illegal Migration Bill is “disgraceful”.
“It probably breaks international law, which is even admitted by ministers on the face of the bill,” the veteran MP said.
“It would deprive vulnerable asylum seekers their rights under international law, fail victims of modern slavery and leave unaccompanied children in detention centres.”
Diane Abbott was among those who criticised the bill. (Leon Neal/Getty)
She added: “It is completely unworkable as well as immoral. The government probably knows that. But this is not about solving the issue of thousands of people endangering their lives by cross the Channel in small boats. It is aimed at bolstering a Tory core vote strategy for the next election.”
Illegal Migration Bill could condemn LGBTQ+ refugees to death
Liberal Democrats MP Layla Moran told PinkNews that the UK has “a proud history of offering sanctuary to those in need of international protection” – but the government is now intent on “trashing that legacy”.
“People fleeing war or persecution should be treated with compassion, not as criminals,” she said.
“I am deeply concerned about what this means for the safety of LGBTQ+ people seeking sanctuary in the UK. What may be a so-called safe country for some often is not for minority groups. Being sent back may be a matter of life or death for simply being who they are.”
Moran added: “Just like their botched Rwanda plan, this new legislation is immoral, ineffective and incredibly expensive for the taxpayer.
Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran. (Dan Kitwood/Getty)
“It does nothing to punish the evil gangs who are responsible for these dangerous crossings, and instead criminalises their victims. This is not a practical or sustainable solution, it’s another vanity project for this Conservative government.”
Labour’s Bell Ribeiro-Addy said those who have escaped “horrifying situations” shouldn’t have to risk their lives to get to the UK.
“Instead of putting down immoral and ineffective legislation that will further criminalise and punish some of the most vulnerable for taking the only option left to them, the government should be opening viable safe routes and giving people a genuine chance to rebuild their lives as part of our communities.”
Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman described the bill as “indefensible” in a press release.
“It would punish some of the world’s most vulnerable people as part of a desperate and racist culture war that has been fuelled from Downing Street,” she said.
“Locking up refugees and asylum seekers in prison-like conditions and then deporting them to Rwanda is the sort of policy you would expect from the BNP, but now it is being promoted by some of the most senior politicians in Westminster.
“It is utterly shameful. The Tories are going against every principle of how to treat refugees, and are using the kind of vile rhetoric that would have been at home in the fascist regimes of the 1930s.”
Maggie Chapman, equalities spokesperson for the Scottish Greens, pictured at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre in 2019. (Ken Jack/Getty)
Senior Tories to rebel on immigration bill
The government is also facing opposition from within its own ranks. Tory MP Caroline Nokes told Times Radio that she will vote against the bill.
“I might be an outlier in my party but I think we have an absolute duty to treat people humanely to keep people safe. I have absolute horror at the prospect,” she said.
Nokes continued: “I am deeply troubled at the prospect of a policy which seeks to criminalise children, pregnant women, families and remove them to Rwanda.
“I didn’t vote for the last Nationality and Borders Bill, this hasn’t achieved its aim in reducing crossings. In fact, we’ve seen them increase, and I fail to see what this legislation is going to do to act as a deterrent”.
Conservative MP Caroline Nokes arrives for the weekly Cabinet meeting at Downing Street. (Leon Neal/Getty)
Tory MP Chris Skidmore joined Nokes, saying he too will vote against the bill.
“I am not prepared to break international law or the human rights conventions that the UK has had a proud history of playing a leading role in establishing,” he tweeted.
“I will not be voting for the bill tonight.”
Opposition to the bill has grown steadily since Sunak first announced his government’s plans while standing at a podium bearing the slogan “Stop the Boats”.
The government’s bill has already been lambasted by Amnesty International UK and by Human Rights Watch, along with a number of other human rights groups.
It will receive its second reading on Monday evening (13 March).
In 1982, David Holladay was 16 years old and about to come out to his mother. They lived in a small town in Oklahoma and attended a Baptist church. This was the era of Rock Hudson and Elton John and Billie Jean King, people whose names, he said, “were never far away from something derogatory.”
When Holladay considered his future as a gay person, he saw it only as “the fog of the unknown.”
What Holladay didn’t know then was that a movement was brewing that he and his family would be a part of for decades to come. He hadn’t yet heard of PFLAG, the first LGBTQ ally organization for queer people and their families. But Holladay would eventually realize that by coming out, he wasn’t only doing something for himself but also for his parents: He was giving them an opportunity to stand beside him.
“They realized this isn’t about people demanding a huge spotlight or attention,” he said of his parents’ first introduction to the gay rights movement. “These are just human beings trying to make their way in the world, and one of them’s my kid.”
The parents of gays and lesbians were just beginning to gain visibility in the 1980s. They were slowly building a coalition that started with one mom in the early ‘70s: Jeanne Manford, an elementary school teacher from Queens, New York, who walked alongside her gay son, Morty, during the 1972 Christopher Street Liberation Day march (the precursor to New York City’s massive LGBTQ Pride March). Her sign was a call to action for others like her. It said: “Parents of Gays: Unite in Support for Our Children.” Manfordis known as the first parent to walk in a pride march.
Jeanne Manford marches with her son, Morty, in New York City’s Christopher Street Liberation Day march in 1972.PFLAG
As Manford and her son walked, people whistled and clapped. She initially thought they were cheering for the guy behind her, but she soon learned otherwise. “They screamed! They yelled! They ran over and kissed me. ‘Would you talk to my mother?’ ‘Wow, if my mother saw me here.’ … They just couldn’t believe that a parent would do that,” Manford recalled in an interview years later.
The experience changed both Manford’s life and the course of allyship in America. The next spring, in March 1973, Jeanne and Morty Manford co-founded what was initially called Parents of Gays, or POG, in a church in New York’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. About 20 people attended.
POG would eventually become Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and then, in 2014, it would become simply PFLAG. Now, 50 years after its founding, PFLAG has more than 400 chapters across the country and more than 200,000 members.
The organization celebrated its semicentennial at a gala in New York City this month. In attendance was Suzanne Manford Swan, daughter of Jeanne and sister of Morty. (Jeanne died in 2013 and Morty in 1992.)
“For 50 years, people have walked into PFLAG meetings worried about their loved ones. There, they learn that the people they love are still the same people they always knew and loved,” Swan said in prepared remarks, calling the organization “a beacon of hope, love and acceptance for millions of people around the world.” She also called on members to “recommit ourselves to the work that still lies ahead.”
Suzanne Manford Swan at PFLAG’s National 50th Anniversary Gala in New York on March 3.Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images for PFLAG
The work is especially crucial for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer young people who do not have parents to advocate on their behalf. Many LGBTQ people still fear that they will be rejected by their parents, and queer youths are overrepresented among young people experiencing homelessness. And while these youths have higher rates of suicide than their non-LGBTQ peers, a surveypublished by The Trevor Project in 2019 found that LGBTQ youths who had at least one accepting adult in their lives were 40% less likely to have attempted suicide in the preceding year.
Jeanne Manford, behind the “NYC” of the banner, marches during the 1981 Gay Pride Parade in New York.Alan Raia / Newsday via Getty Images
Jeanne’s activism was spurred two months before she walked in the parade. Morty had been protesting a meeting of a homophobic parody group, and he was beaten by a firefighter who threw him down an escalator. When the police called Jeanne to tell her Morty had been arrested, the officer added, “And you know he’s a homosexual?” This question was meant to humiliate Morty and alienate him from his mother.
“Yes, I know,” Jeanne said. “Why are you bothering him?”
Morty was hospitalized for several days. Two months later, he asked his mother to march with him, and Jeanne responded that she’d march if she could carry a sign. Reflecting on her activism years later, Jeanne said she was driven to do something because, “I’ve always felt that Morty was a very special person. And I wasn’t going to let anybody walk over him.”
A parent’s call to action
If coming out is an invitation for activism, David Holladay’s parents were there to answer the call.
“Fortunately for me, when David came out I was in a large law firm in Oklahoma CIty. I was a partner in that law firm, so I didn’t have to be silent if I chose not to,” Don Holladay, David’s father, said.
But there wasn’t a clear path to how to proceed. “It was a fairly lonely landscape,” Don said. “Our biggest ally was the library.” They would find out about PFLAG from a Dear Abby column.
Kay Holladay, center, at a pride march in Norman, Oklahoma.Courtesy PLFAG Norman
The Holladays formed a local PFLAG chapter in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1994. David’s mother, Kay, went back to school for a master’s degree in public education, ran for the city council and became a PFLAG board member. Don has gone on to advocate on behalf of LGBTQ people in his state and was the lead attorney in the fight to legalize same-sex marriage in Oklahoma.
“You cannot love someone the way you love your children and listen to rock throwers who aren’t throwing at you, but they’re throwing at your child, and not do anything about it. That just doesn’t make sense,” Don said.
When Kay heads to pride marches, she always makes sure to bring her sign, a fitting evolution of the one Jeanne Manford proudly carried: “I love my gay son,” it says, “…and his husband.”
State legislators across the country proposed a record number of bills targeting LGBTQ rights last year, but less than 1 in 10 have become law, a report published Thursday by the Human Rights Campaign found.
The LGBTQ advocacy group’s 2022 State Equality Index, an annual review of state legislation and policies that affect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, found that state legislators introduced 315 bills that the Human Rights Campaign described as “anti-equality.” Just 29 became law.
The majority of the new laws target transgender minors. In the last three years, 18 states have banned trans youths from playing school sports on the teams that align with their gender identities, and four states — Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas and Tennessee — have restricted or prohibited their access to gender-affirming medical care.
Supporters of such measures claim that trans girls have an unfair advantage in sports and that minors are too young to receive gender-affirming medical care. The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical associations oppose efforts to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.
JoDee Winterhof, the senior vice president of policy and political affairs at the Human Rights Campaign, said the 315 bills are part of a coordinated conservative response to LGBTQ rights gained over the last few years.
“We consider this to be part of the backlash from the gains around marriage equality, from the gains in overall equality through the courts or through cities and other states,” Winterhof said.
Some lawmakers, she added, believe the bills will motivate conservatives to head to the polls, although she said the track record of last year’s anti-LGBTQ bills and midterm election polling have led her to believe otherwise.
She pointed to a Human Rights Campaign poll of 1,000 voters, who were surveyed online and by phone the week of the midterm elections, that asked which issues motivated them to head to the polls. The top two were inflation, at 52%, and abortion, at 29% (an NBC News Exit Poll found the same two issues were also top-of-mind for voters). Gender-affirming care for trans youths or trans participation in sports came in last, with less than 5% identifying them as issues that motivated them to vote, the Human Rights Campaign found.
“For many people, the jig is up,” Winterhof said, adding that targeting LGBTQ people would harm conservative lawmakers in future elections. “I know they don’t see that, but these are not winning issues.”
This year’s State Equality Index also found that state legislators introduced 156 “pro-equality” bills, of which 23, or just under 15%, became law.
Twenty states and Washington, D.C., are in the index’s highest of four categories, “Working Toward Innovative Equality,” while 23 states are in the lowest-rated category, “High Priority to Achieve Basic Equality.”
States are scored on whether they have “pro-equality” laws, including those that would prohibit discrimination in public accommodations, housing or adoption, among other areas of life; anti-bullying laws or laws that protect youths from conversion therapy; and measures that bar insurance companies from refusing to cover transgender care. “Anti-equality” laws — such as those that target transgender youths, bar the discussion of LGBTQ topics in schools or allow business owners to refuse to serve LGBTQ people — hurt a state’s score.
An increasing number of states are passing “pro-equality” legislation, according to the Human Rights Campaign. For example, 21 states restrict conversion therapy, which is the discredited practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity; 25 ban insurance exclusions for transgender medical care; and 38 allow trans people to update their names and gender markers on their driver’s licenses, while 27 allow them to do the same on their birth certificates.
However, many states still have “anti-equality” laws on the books. Nearly half of states (22) don’t protect people from discrimination in public accommodations based on sexual orientation, and 23 don’t provide protections based on gender identity. Seventeen states bar Medicaid from covering certain transgender medical care.
The report warns that, even though 2022 was a record-breaking year for legislation targeting LGBTQ people, 2023 is already expected to outpace it. In just the first few weeks of the year, state legislators have introduced nearly 150 such bills, the majority of them continuing to target LGBTQ youths, according to an NBC News analysis.
On the heels of the White House vocally condemning a call to eliminate transgender people, President Joe Biden called out Florida for attacking transgender youth.
“What’s going on in Florida, is as my mother would say, close to sinful,” Biden told out actor Kal Penn on The Daily Show in an interview that will air later today.
The White House press secretary was done being talked over by Simon Ateba.
“It’s just terrible what they’re doing,” he continued. “It’s not like you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I want to become a man,’ or ‘I wanna become a woman.’”
“They’re human beings! They love, they have feelings, they have inclinations- I mean, it just to me is, it’s cruel.”
Biden said Congress needs to “pass legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage.”
“You mess with that, you’re breaking the law, and you’re going to be held accountable.”
Florida has passed a number of laws and rule changes attacking transgender people’s rights, including a ban on trans youth participating in school sports and a ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. The state is considering several more this year, including one that would allow the state to take away trans kids from their affirming families, even if they’re just on vacation in the state.
This past Friday, out White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned attacks on transgender people’s rights as “shameful, hateful, and dangerous.”
She pointed to far-right Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, who called for “transgenderism” to be “eradicated from public life entirely” at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
“Look, it started with a speaker at a conservative conference calling for the eradication of transgender people, language that not a single national Republican leader has condemned,” Jean-Pierre said.
“In Iowa and Tennessee, Republicans are now calling for legislation to attack gay marriage and protections for same-sex couples. In Florida — just Florida alone — Republicans introduced 20 bills — 20 bills — on a single day to roll back the rights of LGBTQ community. One of those bills would give the state the right to remove kids from their parents just because that kid is transgender.”
She noted that there have been hundreds of bills attacking LGBTQ+ people filed in state legislatures across the country.
“So, so far this year, we have seen more than 450 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced at the state level — you’ve heard me say that before — amounting to a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills in our country’s history. Guys, today is day 70. It is day 70 of 2023.”
“The same leaders that tout freedom apparently don’t extend their love for freedom if they disagree with who you are, who you love, or how you parent.”
Hate crimes in the U.S. increased by 11.6% in 2021 from the previous year, according to revised figures the FBI released Monday.
The statistics showed that 12,411 people were reported to have been victims of hate crimes in 2021, 64.5% of them targeted because of their race or ethnicity, 15.9% targeted for their sexual orientation and 14.1% for their religion. The reports were up from 8,120 in 2020 to 9,065 in 2021 — some crimes had multiple victims.
The FBI released initial 2021 data in December that indicated a slight decrease in the number of hate crimes. Officials said that report was flawed because of low participation rates by law enforcement agencies across the country that were not using a new reporting system known as the National Incident-Based Reporting System.
The initial figures also did not include data from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — the country’s three biggest cities by population.
Analysts then went back and had more than 3,000 agencies that had not originally submitted statistics hand in data so the FBI could have a fuller picture of hate crimes.
The figures released Monday include numbers from New York and Los Angeles. Chicago submitted data for part of the year, a senior FBI official told reporters in a background briefing.
The official said the top five hate crimes in 2021 were motivated by feelings against African Americans, whites, gay men, Jews and Asian Americans. The incidents were as varied as intimidation and assault to rape and murder.
The same official said 14,859 law enforcement agencies across the country are now enrolled in the National Incident-Based Reporting System, representing 79% of police agencies covering 91% of the U.S. population.
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, the No. 3 official at the Justice Department, said” “We are continuing to work with state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to increase the reporting of hate crime statistics to the FBI.
“Preventing, investigating and prosecuting hate crimes are top priorities for the Justice Department, and reporting is key to each of those priorities,” Gupta said in a statement.
Across the UK, trans prisoners are individually assessed and, in most cases, housed in prisons that don’t relate to their gender identity.
The issue of where trans prisoners are housed has become a topic of debate following the case of Isla Bryson, a trans woman convicted by a Scottish court of raping two women prior to her transition.
It was reported that Bryson was held at the women’s prison Cornton Vale. Two days after she was found guilty, it was confirmed that she was being moved to a men’s prison.
First minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “I don’t see how it’s possible to have a rapist within a female prison, even the understandable public and parliamentary concern. …
“And I hope that provides assurance to the public presiding officer, not least to the victims, in this particular case.”
The Scottish Trans project has reported that Bryson was held in segregation at Cornton Vale while a risk assessment was carried out. As it explained, this is how the Scottish Prison Service’s policy works.
“The risk assessment decided, not surprisingly, that she [Bryson] should not be held in the women’s estate. This is what we would expect for a person convicted of rape,” Scottish Trans said on Twitter.
The service decides where to house trans prisoners on a case-by-case basis.
Scottish Trans added: “It is right that this should be decided on an individualised risk assessment basis.
“For example, a trans woman transitioned for 20 years, who is in prison for a non-violent offence like financial fraud, might pose no risk to other women in custody, but be at significant risk herself if accommodated on the male estate.”
It added that the risk assessments do not depend on whether or not the inmate has a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). This means Scotland’s vetoed Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which would make it easier to obtain a GRC, would not affect the prison service’s policy in Scotland.
Under the reforms, the Ministry of Justice has said transgender women with “male genitalia” – or those who have been convicted of a sexual offence – should no longer be held in general women’s prisons.
The ministry said this will “create a strong presumption” but also allow for exemptions to be considered by ministers on a “case-by-case basis”.
However, the department noted that only the “most truly exceptional cases” will be considered.
How many trans men and women are there in prison?
According to the BBC, as of September 2022 there were four trans men in Scottish prisons, one of whom was held in a men’s prison. Of the 11 trans women, five were in women’s prisons.
Data published in November 2022 by the Ministry of Justice shows there are 230 transgender prisoners out of a prison population of 78,058 in England and Wales.
Of these 230 prisoners, 168 identified as trans women, 42 as trans men, 13 as non-binary and seven identified in a different way or did not provide a response.
“Most transgender prisoners were in the men’s estates,” the report read.
“181 transgender prisoners were in male estates and 49 were in female estates. There were six transgender women in female establishments.”
While a full breakdown of which trans prisoners were held in the prison corresponding to their gender identity was not given, it is clear that of 168 inmates identifying as trans women, only six were housed in women’s prisons.
The report added that the figures of trans inmates are “likely to underestimate the true number”. The numbers do not include trans prisoners with a Gender Recognition Certificate, of which there are 11.
After a long period of restoration, one of Italy’s most famous archaeological treasures — the House of the Vettii — is reopening to the public.
The house’s extensive collection of fresco wall paintings includes lots of erotic art. But while some commenters have claimed that the house’s original owners were preoccupied with sex or even running a brothel, a gay Roman historian has said that those claims show a misunderstanding about the role queer sex played in ancient Rome.
The house was originally constructed for two freed male slaves who were likely owned by the same master. These men became wealthy from selling wine, and their now-famous house included numerous scenes of sex and mythology, painted on wet plaster and preserved in wax.
Mount Vesuvius buried the house in volcanic ash in 79 AD, but it has since been restored, giving art history fans a time capsule of wealthy Roman social life.
The house’s entrance includes an image of Priapus, the god of fertility and abundance, showing off an uncut penis that’s as long and thick as his arm. It rests upon a scale, balanced by a bag filled with money. Other scenes show different couples having sex.
João Florêncio, a gay researcher who examines visual depictions of sexual cultures throughout history, says that it’s a mistake to assume that Roman men resembled modern-day gay men just because they owned art of a well-hung god and often had sex with other men.
“Roman sexuality was not framed in terms of the gender of partners but in terms of power,” he added. “An adult free man could have sex as the penetrating partner with anyone of a lower social status—including women or slaves and sex workers of both genders.”
The researcher said that evidence of same-sex intercourse has been preserved in Pompeii’s sexually explicit artifacts and graffiti, but a lot of it has been disavowed or at least purified by mainstream modern culture. A lot of these artifacts were designated as “pornography” and moved to “secret museums” in the early 1800s.
While a modern man wouldn’t likely display the image of a well-endowed man in his home unless he was gay, Florêncio points out that phallic imagery in Roman culture was associated with machismo. Some men might have desired Priapus’s large dong, but far more men would’ve likely envied it for their own, as a sign of their own potency and power.
Florêncio also noted that, while some historians believe the house doubled as a brothel, he said the sexual images may have just functioned as domestic symbols of power, wealth, and culture, especially since sex wasn’t taboo in Roman culture. Indeed, images of sex were “everywhere in Rome, including in literary and visual arts,” he writes.
LGBTQ Victory Fund, the only national organization dedicated to electing LGBTQ leaders to public office, named Danica Roem a 2023 LGBTQ ‘Spotlight’ candidate, a designation given to candidates with exceptional potential to be national leaders of the LGBTQ equality movement.
Roem, who currently serves in the Virginia House of Delegates, made history in 2017 when she became the first out-and-seated trans state legislator in American history. There are currently just nine trans state lawmakers serving in the U.S., according to LGBTQ Victory Institute.
“Danica is a remarkable leader who consistently shows both grit and compassion when delivering results for her community, from improving Virginia’s infrastructure to fighting for reproductive rights. As bigots in Richmond continue to introduce anti-LGBTQ bills – most of which target trans kids – we know Danica will not back down. We are proud to continue supporting Danica and are confident that come November, she will shatter yet another lavender ceiling and become the first trans person ever elected to a state Senate in the South,” said Mayor Annise Parker, President & CEO of LGBTQ Victory Fund.
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LGBTQ Victory Fund
LGBTQ Victory Fund works to achieve and sustain equality by increasing the number of openly LGBTQ elected officials at all levels of government while ensuring they reflect the diversity of those they serve. Since 1991, Victory Fund has helped thousands of openly LGBTQ candidates win local, state and federal elections.
The Erotic Service Provider Legal Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) joins with the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club in calling foul on the San Francisco Police Department’s (SFPD) ramping up of prostitution stings – they call it “enforcement operations” and “prostitution abatement” – in the Mission district Capp Street corridor. There is ample evidence that police crackdowns on sex work do not reduce the incidence of prostitution, but instead simply displace it to more dangerous and hidden locations. As a result, there is increased violence against sex workers, as well as harm to the broader community.
“Police enforcement doesn’t work when it comes to sex work between consenting adults” said Jeffrey Kwong, President of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club. “We need community-led solutions that center the voices and experiences of sex workers and other marginalized communities. By engaging in dialogue and collaboration with sex workers and their allies, we can develop policies and programs that prioritize the health, safety, and human rights of all individuals involved in the sex industry.” “The SFPD press release is misleading and full of derogatory language”, said Maxine Doogan, a current sex worker. “They refer to clients as “Johns” – a slang term that is sexist and derogatory. They claim they are combating trafficking – but so far have only issued citations and arrests for consensual sex work and traffic violations. This operation might make SFPD numbers look good. But having a misdemeanor arrest for prostitution can seriously impact your housing, your work, and even lead to deportation.”
ESPLERP’s recent report, “How The War On Sex Work Is Stripping Your Privacy Rights” (https://esplerp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Consumer-Privacy-Final.pdf) showed that law enforcement is routinely gathering data (from license readers, pole cameras, cellphones, social media) about sex workers, their clients, and individuals who just happen to be in the vicinity (such as residents and passers-by) to build vast unregulated databases. “We know the police use technology to target sex workers and our clients”, said Claire Alwyne of ESPLERP. “They won’t admit it, but you can bet they are indiscriminately collecting data at Capp Street. But there is no way of knowing what data they collect during these prostitution stings, until you are denied housing or employment, or you’re stopped, searched and questioned at customs when you’re traveling home from overseas.” Sex workers demand decriminalization!
