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Thotty Thursday, Abort Fascism: Part 2

Sex Workers are the canary in the coal mine for freedom of expression and bodily autonomy.

In Part 1 of our Abort Fascism series, we reviewed how the War on Drugs and the War on Whores:

Scapegoat sex workers and drug users to obscure & legitimize the scope of the state's violence.

Promote legislation which claims to curtail drugs or commercial sex, but actually undermines everyone's freedom.

In Part 2, we'll discuss how fascists:

Remove sex workers and trans people from public life to evade accountability for state violence.

Restrict sex workers and trans people's freedoms in order to normalize — and set legal precedent for — broader authoritarian state violence.

Laws that disappear sex workers and trans folks from public spaces (IRL & online) enable the state to evade accountability for its violence by:

Erasing the complicated realities of sex work and gender expansiveness from public awareness.

Promoting a culture which takes sex workers’ and trans folks’ absence for granted.

Examples of laws that disappear sex workers and trans people from public life & discourse:

St. Louis City Code Chapter 11.58.280 and Chapter 26.72: Zoning and Nuisance ordinances which discriminate against sexually-oriented businesses and restrict their operations to the point of inviability - there are no strip clubs in St. Louis city!

New York State Penal Law Section 240.37 a.k.a. “Walking While Trans” Ban (1976-2021): Authorized police to profile, harass, and arrest trans people for existing in public spaces (“loitering”) under the guise of curtailing outdoor sex work.

Oklahoma SB 615 “Bathroom Ban” (2022-present): Requires individuals to use school restrooms/changing areas corresponding to their birth-assigned sex and requires public schools to discipline non-compliant individuals (i.e., trans kids) or lose funding

Florida HB 1557 aka “Don’t Say Gay” Law (July 2022-present): Bans classroom instruction/discussion about LGBTQ issues for kindergarten-3rd grade; allows parents to sue schools/teachers for discussing minoritized gender expressions and sexualities

Proposed Idaho bill (TBD): The Idaho Family Policy Center announced that this month it will introduce a bill conflating drag performances with sexual exhibition and banning drag from public spaces

Immediately preceding the reversal of federal abortion protections (the Dobbs decision), conservatives accelerated their movement to criminalize trans healthcare:

AL SB184: In Alabama, any doctor who prescribes puberty blockers or hormone therapy to people under the age of 18 could face felony charges, spend up to 10 years in prison and pay a $15,000 fine.

AZ SB1138: In Arizona, a physician may not provide irreversible gender reassignment surgery to any individual under 18.

It is notable that Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in the Dobbs decision argues against a general right to autonomy due to fears that it would protect “illicit drug use” and “prostitution”:

“These attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy and to define one’s ‘concept of existence’ prove too much. Casey, 505 U.S., at 851. Those criteria, at a high level of generality, could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like.”

Alito challenges the legitimacy of many rights that he says are not “rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition,” including: abortion, interracial marriage, contraception, the right to not be nonconsensually sterilized, the right to reside with relatives, the right to make decisions about your children’s education, the “right to engage in consensual” and private “same-sex intimacy,” and the right to same-sex marriage.

Restricting sex workers’ and trans folks’ bodily autonomy and freedom of expression serves the fascist playbook:

1. Controlling who gets to exist in public spaces and who gets to have a voice in public conversations.

2. Enforcing a rigid social order based on who fascists deem “valuable” vs. who they deem “disposable.”

Criminalizing sex workers and trans people for exercising their autonomy sets precedent for criminalizing anyone’s bodily autonomy.

Ready to stand in solidarity with sex workers?

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