The Stop The Raids Committee hosted a webinar on September 7 to review the presidential candidates and political parties’ positions on sex work community priorities. This event featured four sex worker panelists, and special guest Libertarian presidential candidate Chase Oliver.
There are an estimated 2 million sex workers in the USA. Amber Batts, an Alaska based worker, stated, “Sex workers vote, and to think we are absent from the polls and excluded from politics is a common misconception. We will not be silent. Our voices will be heard.”
At the August Democratic National Convention however, sex workers learned of another apparent attempt to marginalize us when the Democratic Party’s updated platform was announced. The party’s 2020 platform had stated: “We recognize that sex workers who are disproportionately women of color and transgender women, face especially high rates of sexual assault and violence and we will work with states and localities to protect the lives of sex workers.” But the Democrats’ 2024 platform disappointingly fails to mention sex workers at all.
“Sex workers are not a homogenous voting group. But we are voters, and you might expect candidates to be courting us – especially in swing states,” said Claire Alwyne. “But they are not. We are excluded from the political process, in the same way we are excluded from employment, housing, and education by unjust laws.” Oliver, in his remarks on the call, did express his strong support for decriminalization and noted the Libertarian Party’s positive stance on the issue.
“Panelists presented different facets of issues facing the sex worker nation,” said lead organizer Maxine Doogan. “We got to hear about the harms of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) from a community-based research perspective, and heard from an international sex worker and filmmaker who drew attention to the harms committed against our community by the United Nations Palermo Protocol that labeled us all as ‘sex trafficking victims’, and how US laws restricting free speech affect the rest of the world”.
The webinar also conducted a poll of participants, and have crafted a list of demands https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeG9Efv_UYMzW4JeZQER_UuAFuT5_oqVFwPSULT0puzUPW22g/viewform
for the next administration: A recording of the webinar can be found on the SexWorkerNation YouTube Channel
