This is real world advice about concrete issues. Change is very straightforward. For a long time BPPP has thought of sharing about what should change on a fundamental level in relationships between those who have and give money and the recipients. This is the first posting. We call this impromptu series “Biting the Hand (that did not feed us).” We know it is hard for those without funds to say anything to those in power because the fear of being defunded or systematically shut out of circles and opportunities is very great. We also internally police ourselves, concerned that if one group or person says something, the funding “opportunity” will be “ruined for everyone.” The reality is that the only reason that sources of funding and donations exist today is because of those who fought for recognition, payment, spaces and so much more. The ones who were and are a “problem.” We honor all such disruptors. And we thank you. We need to keep going to create the change we seek.

Today’s suggestion: sex worker rights are labor rights.

We received an email from a funder asking for us to fill out a survey to provide feedback on their funding guidelines. That is a great suggestion. The survey is a highly detailed set of ten questions. Once again, great. Dig deep. Change. The problem? Asking sex workers to do this work without payment and/or any social capital to build our renown. Our response is below, anonymized. To be clear we have received many such requests from funders to fill our surveys without compensation. We hope this is helpful for funders and others with cash to give out, in the future. No. No. We do not dance for free.

Dear Colleagues: We really want to help you but we cannot do this work unpaid. Nor can we ask any unpaid individual sex worker to do this.
We have already given many hours of our time helping [insert name of just about any funder globally] and we have raised this issue ever since [your fund started being interested in funding sex workers].
We looked over the survey, it requires our professional input as sex workers, fundraisers and organizers.
A funder [insert any of the following: dedicated to justice/labor rights/gender equality/set up in our name/working with sex workers] should model Sex Worker rights from the ground up. That would include paying Sex Workers their hourly rate for this labor. Sex Worker rights are human rights and labor rights. Pls live these values.
Pls [insert name of funder] and co, refrain from explaining all the reasons why [insert the name of any funder or donor] can’t pay Sex Workers as consultants. We already received those emails and we don’t need to read them again. We want [you, the funder] to change. And when [you, the funder] changes, pls publicly acknowledge the groups that pressured for this with a thank you. That helps us build, be acknowledged as the thought leaders we are and be acknowledged for the advocacy we have to do (amid the trauma of lack of funding). You did not come up with these ideas on your own, we developed these ideas and work-shopped so many ways to be clear when speaking to you. We and others like us had to take a risk to speak back to you. You might see us as the “angry ones who can’t be nice.” Yet we had to struggle to make you change: painfully many times we have had funders dismiss us to our face when we stated that our work is of equal value. We will be so happy when these attitudes change and you give us our due.
This is our feedback.
BPPP

By Lindsey Lanier and Zee Xaymaca, 13 June 2022

NOTE: This article references an American legal case which makes frequent use of the term “woman” as a proxy for the broader group described as “sex workers.” We understand not all sex workers are women (and assert that the two are not interchangeable categories) and highlight that in the discussion below. The reason that “discrimination against sex workers” is contextualized as “discrimination against women” is because the laws upon which this case was decided require “sex-based discrimination” and therefore a connection between sex work and womanhood. 

Does a woman have a right to be free from sex discrimination— in this case, discrimination based on gendered expectations—in work and education? How about if she is/was a sex worker? The courts have had little to say in regard to these questions until recently. In 2021, the case of Gililland v. Southern Orange County Community College forced Oregon’s courts to weigh in on the matter.

In 2017, nursing student Nicole Gililland complained that administrators in her nursing program at Southern Orange County Community College were discriminating against her. After staff members at the nursing program found out about Gililland’s past as a porn actor, they targeted her by grading her academic work more harshly than other students, marking her assignments late, and falsely accusing her of plagiarism. One faculty member referred to Gililland, stating that it takes a “classy woman” to be a nurse, and gestured towards Gililland continuing, “unclassy women shouldn’t be nurses.” When the nursing program expelled Gililland for the failing grades she had received, Gililland initiated her lawsuit against Southern Orange County Community College.

Gililland argued that faculty at the college treated her differently from other students because of her history of sex work, and due to the linkage between sex work and gender stereotypes. Feminized labor like sex work is heavily associated with traditional notions of a woman’s purity and “class” (ie being an appropriate and correct kind of woman). Notions of  “proper” womanhood are used to determine what should be accessible to people based on their adherence to these stereotypes. Not least of these is the expectation that women should lead an overtly non-sexual existence. Sex workers directly challenge this imposition.

Women who engage in sex work must contend with this attempt to deny them access to resources because they break with these common traditions of femininity.  Their careers challenge the patriarchal assertion that women who sell sexual labor are made inferior and undeserving by their work. The professor’s statement suggesting that Gililland was “unclassy”, combined with administrative harassment in the form of unjustified failing grades, constitute an attempt to deny her the right all Americans have to access education.

Sex working women face this form of sex discrimination in their interactions with social service and medical institutions as well. For example, doctors, prejudiced by knowledge of a patient’s sex work, may make assumptions about the patient that influence the direction of care and treatment. Furthermore, because sex work is not recognized as a legal form of work, some social goods like unemployment insurance or disability payments are out of reach for sex workers.

On December 3rd, 2021 a federal court magistrate judge for the district of Oregon held (during summary judgment) that discrimination against sex workers qualifies as sex discrimination under Title IX of US federal civil rights law. Title IX States that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” The interpretation of Title IX varies in US courtrooms. Standards for enforcement are created on a case-by-case basis. Over time, the rulings in these cases create a body of jurisprudence that acts as a guideline for how future cases are assessed.

It is important to note that this judgment is not yet the law of the land. This particular ruling is not binding on lower courts (or courts at the same level). It is possible, and perhaps likely, that lower courts will respect the precedent set by Gililland, but this is not a given. 

Regardless of its value as a precedent, this ruling is a positive step toward protecting sex workers’ access to public resources. A government body acknowledging that sex workers face sex discrimination is a relatively new contribution to the argument sex workers have long been trying to make; that sex workers must have legal protection against the effects of stigma and prejudice.

The ruling may be interpreted as a tentative step toward legislation that formally includes discrimination against sex workers in the definition of sex discrimination. Such legislation would prevent harassment of sex workers in professional settings. This means it would be illegal to penalize a person for having engaged in sex work. It would be illegal to deny services to a person for that reason as well.

These measures will not override the stigma against sex work that is ingrained in our societies, but it will push forward the journey to legal recognition of sex work as a profession.

For further information on these issues check out this column in the Star Ledger “Improving the lives of sex workers mean anti-discrimination laws must follow” and “Who Needs Legislators? Discrimination Against Sex Workers Is Sex Discrimination Under Title VII” in Rutgers Law Review, Vol. 72 2020. Both of these pieces are written by Derek Demeri, a co-founder of New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance.