Anti Sex work - The Queer Cost

As I'm grieving over the loss of an amazing person I never had the pleasure of meeting, it has pulled on some cords in me that have been stretched thin for some time now. This morning I read Donald's note which seemed to me to be mediating the middle ground on the Slut Walk division and watching as the memorial plans for a great woman who left us before we were ready for her to leave unfold.



This is about all that, but more. I didn't know Wendy and I really wish I had, but have talked a lot over the past few years of sustainability of the programs here I've started. Not that I'm planning on leaving anytime soon, but accidents happen. When I was 17 I helped a friend move his Aunt from London to Toronto. On the way home, his mom hit the back of a stopped transport at 100kms/hr killing herself and her son who died on top of me. We just never know when it's time! Wendy is a crushing reminder that our heroes are human, and as such they too pass.



Womyn in London are divided over an issue catalyzed by Slutwalk but that is not where it began. It has been brewing in the background as the right wing mentality crept into our institutions which we thought were sacred. Feminism and Queer have been connected since the dawn of the movement, but that leaves the right shut out of the support business. How does a right wing conservative handle the sexual assault of their child, voila… and sexual assault centres outside of feminism were created in our hospitals. Ironically in the process creating a safe haven for Trans people and Men not in the catchment group of feminist SA centres. There is pot of gold available to those sliding right, and we all know very little of that gold is there for us remaining on the left. The anti-sex work campaigns have stopped short of screaming out of the book of Leviticus, but “Moral decency” replaces the biblical passages. As they misappropriate the corruption found in sex work, flashing images at people that mis-represent the industry as a whole they break down society and the sex workers, past and present themselves.



In the Trans community there are 4 ways to get major surgery you need. You can offer yourself to CAMH’s Gender Identity program in Toronto and be degraded, and humiliated hoping for government funded surgery. You can fund it yourself if you are fortunate enough to have a job/benefits and the financial resources to do so. You can establish enough credit limit to charge your surgery, or you can do sex work. If you happen to be in the 50% of the community making more than $15,000/year you have options. The rest, sex work is the most positive of the choices and for a large number of Trans people the road to their oasis. Hence the connection between the trans community and the sex work community. To be anti sex work is to be anti trans community.



The “Value Women” campaign could be right out of the Conservative’s handbook and the religious organizations like the Salvation Army are all over it with support. It feels to me like selling out, I can get my rights as a woman but I’m going to sacrifice my queer roots to do so. And I’m going to go out and recruit 5 of my friends to sell out too.



I am used to being attacked, publically and privately for my views. We build this thick hide that protects us, and our community that supports us gives us strength. What is so damaging in all this is that the attacks are coming from within. Our soft underbellies are exposed to these allies and they hurt us. We are scrambling as a community to shore up our personal defenses and redefine friend and foe. Sex workers are among us. They are in our families, our friends, and our allies and this attack from within has damaged those relationships and supports leaving us vulnerable and exposed. It is horrible and has to stop! It is devaluing those that are having and have had a positive experience in sex work. Guilt is creeping in and undermining the value in that work as society and community turns against.



When I read Donald’s piece this morning about comparing Slutwalk to Pride Parade, and how some people march and some don’t. I got his meaning. I think he was talking about diversity in our community and how people can express themselves one way or another with no harm no foul. Where I believe the analogy failed is, those people not participating in Pride are not protesting the Pride Parade. The anti-slutwalk, anti-porn, anti-sex work people are protesting, running counter events, programs and conferences dividing the community into Right and Left. AND they are making money off it!



How as a community do we deal with those that do so much good, but now they are also doing so much harm? How do we protect ourselves from our own?