1. sex work is work
We affirm that sex work is legitimate and dignified labor, while acknowledging that all labor is coercive under capitalism and that criminalizing labor especially harms workers.
We oppose the criminalization and stigmatization of marginalized people’s livelihoods.
2. Dignity and Respect for sex Workers
Sex workers are the experts of sex work and know what they need. We defer to the wisdom, leadership, and self-determination of sex workers.
We do not harm or exploit individual sex workers to advance the goals of the collective.
We reject whorearchy and respectability politics.
Sex workers control their own narratives: non-sex workers do not speak over/for sex workers without their consent.
We commit to unlearning our own internalized whorephobia, and challenging whorephobia as we encounter it in our everyday lives.
3. Nuance and Strategy
There is no one experience of sex work: We amplify diverse sex workers’ voices.
We affirm the bodily autonomy and self determination of sex workers, while critiquing how structural violence and inequity shape people’s experiences in sex work.
We reject the conflation of sex work with sex trafficking, while opposing all forms of exploitation in the commercial sex industry.
4. Margins to Center
We center Black and trans voices, and celebrate their legacy of leadership in our community.
We uplift multiply-marginalized/multiply-criminalized workers: BIPOC, disabled, migrant, unhoused, queer/trans, incarcerated/formerly incarcerated, and drug-using sex workers and people living with HIV.
5. Embodiment and Accessibility
We prioritize space for embodiment practice in our organizing.
We celebrate our own and each others’ complete humanity and bodies, as they exist within and beyond this organizing space.
Consent is mandatory.
We strive to make our space accessible for all body/minds, and proactively remove barriers to engagement wherever possible.
6. Transformative Justice
We recognize that in community, it is inevitable that conflict will arise. When harm happens, we seek to center the needs of the affected parties and prevent future harm. We avoid inflexible and carceral approaches. This is a work in progress.
We own our mistakes and shortcomings, and commit to demonstrating growth through our words and deeds.
7. Accountability
We hold ourselves accountable to sex workers, first and foremost.
When we commit to something, we follow through.
We communicate with each other.
We respect each others’ boundaries.
We arrive in this work desiring to grow in solidarity with sex workers and support each other as we grow together.