We Organized!

I believe in a fair and just society, where workers of all backgrounds make a living wage that is adjusted – yearly – for inflation and the soaring costs of living. That healthcare benefits would not be connected to labor, but guaranteed by our government. Because healthcare is a human right and everyone deserves the best care. For sex workers, this is a dream and we have had to hustle hard as f*ck to ensure that our wages cover us and our children and the medical bills –  if we feel safe enough to go to a doctor – don’t eat us alive. 

You know what else I believe in? The power of the media to bring about a change in society by bringing our community together behind an issue that needs to be addressed. Throughout my time as host and writer of Old Pro News, my team and I spent countless hours researching each topic and scouring the internet for headline stories relevant to the lives of sex workers. We wanted to be expansive in our approach to educating the community, yet direct, regarding our unapologetic stance that sex work is work and the continued criminalization is in face inhumane.  

As I make my exit from this podcast, I’m hopeful that it will be utilized as a public education tool to further the cause of liberation, bodily autonomy, and the struggle for human rights for sex workers. What I want most is for sex workes to be included in all of the conversations for justice in our country – so all forums held for racial justice, immigration rights, labor rights, harm reduction and drug use, parenting – will include the voices of sex worker. 

As our country continues to face the rising cost of living, and the financial fallout from wars and the COVID-19 pandemic, we are all having conversations about what is owed to the workers of this nation; what is fair, just, and equitable so that people can thrive. 

For me, no conversation surrounding workers rights and labor organizing is complete without sex workers at the table. 

We need only to look at the current feminist movement’s policies of excluding sex workers from the conversation sourrounding abortion advocacy and bodily autonomy to know where any exclusionary conversations will end up. Because as Dr. Martin Luther King so aptly put it; “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” 

The labor rights of sex workers shouldn’t have to be sacrificed on the larger movement’s altar of the greater good. Black sex workers, especially, have been laboring for the rights for everyone and we deserve all of our seats at the table. 

And this – this is how we organize!