Reader Diaries

Sex Worker Movement Building: What I've Learned From a Year of Professional Feminism

Audacia Ray — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:56:37 -0500

At the end of October, I celebrated one year of working full time at the International Women's Health Coalition. In that year, I've done a lot - launched a successful blog that has become a daily part of my work there (and on which we've published more than 250 posts, pretty damn good for a non-profit blog), I've spent time working at the United Nations (and made a goofy video about it), and traveled to India. I've learned a crazy amount of stuff - not the least of which is the fact that I like working full time for a non-profit (even with all the damn meetings and memos), and being required to get dressed (albeit in outfits that often involve animal prints and/or skulls and crossbones) and leave the house on a daily basis is actually a really good thing.

I've now been retired from the business of being a professional naked lady for four years, which is longer than I was in the business. In January, it will be two years since I left $pread Magazine. What a strange set of calculations, ones that will keep getting stranger as the years wear on. These things are such defining features of my life, my activism, the whole thrust of my career. But now I'm really starting to understand a bigger scope of my work (dude, I used the word "career"!), and I'm starting to see how sex worker activism fits into a bigger picture of feminist and labor movements.

I don't think I would've gotten this perspective if I was still a sex worker and managing all the stresses of that work, plus trying to do my activism on a local and national level, while being suspicious of and treated badly by the feminist movement. But now that I'm doing work within the context of global feminisms, I'm seeing how sex worker activism fits. Mostly: there needs to be context and coalition building, because the commonalities are there. The goals of sex worker advocates aren't different than sexual rights and reproductive health advocates, and they definitely aren't different than the goals of labor rights advocates.

This is not to say that people in sex work can't be advocates and activists for their own rights - quite the opposite really. Current workers need to be at the forefront of the struggle for sex worker rights. The movement isn't a movement without the voices of sex workers - it's a rescue mission, and steps toward protection are a short stumble away from being patronizing and patriarchal. But sex workers also need help from allies, from people who are actively working to build coalitions with other movements, people who've built big movements from grassroots rage and raw needs (movement building takes a fucking long while, btw).

The American sex worker rights movement has a long way to go (read a post I wrote for Feministe, 7 Key American Sex Worker Activist Projects), and we can learn a lot from activists in other parts of the world. For example, there are eight countries in Europe that accept sex workers trade unions branches in pre-existing unions. In India, I met sex workers who are illiterate and live in one room buildings without electricity - but they can talk fiercely about human rights, language which is all but absent from our movement.

Toward the end of my India trip, I had a really intense conversation with a group of sex workers and their adult children about the differences between our movements, and we spoke really frankly about class, access, and relative privilege. It's been two months since I was sitting in that 100 degree room having that conversation, and my head still spins when I think about it. I'll never forget them asking me: "If the movement in America has so many well-educated people in it, why haven't you collectivized? Why isn't your movement bigger and better? And if you can't do that, what hope do we have?" I stammered and stuttered and didn't know what to say then, but I think the emphasis on individualism in the United States makes it really hard to organize, really hard to even believe in community. Also, I don't believe that the connection between "education" (in the degreed, book-learning sense of the word) and ability to mobilize are at all a cause and effect kind of thing.

Sex workers in India know without a doubt that they are stronger together than they could be by themselves, and I don't think at heart American sex workers believe that. Or we let our differences and suspicions of one another (hookers vs strippers, dommes vs porn performers, street workers vs indoor workers, etc etc.) reign supreme. But the street workers in India value the collective. To be clear, the movement there is very much about street workers, who are absolutely some of the most excluded people folks. They know: ten angry sex workers marching into a hospital and throwing a fit about the lack of quality care, or complaining about the fact that doctors won't touch them, that's big. Ten sex workers talking to ten more sex workers about their rights, and showing up to meetings - that's a fucking movement. Sex workers sharing resources and having conversations with communities of HIV-affected and infected housewives and widows - that's coalition building. Sex workers banding together to end child trafficking and coercion in their own communities - that's real empowerment and change from the inside out.

I'm not entirely sure what all the steps are to bring the American movement forward, except that it needs to be happening on a variety of levels and within a variety of projects. Seeing these pieces of success in different places - it's inspiring for sure. And as much as I love sex workers and the crazy world of the sex industry, it also reaffirms my choice to nudge my way into the broader feminist movement toward sexual rights and reproductive health. These things are interconnected in intricate and complex ways, and creating conversation among the different communities is key. It's silly - and counter-productive - to go it alone.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Melissa Ditmore — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:14:57 -0500

November 20 is the transgender
day of remembrance. I was appalled to read of the transsexual woman burned to death in her apartment after being videotaped with a politician. Tara Sawyer reminds us to that police profiling transgender women as sex workers contributes to violence against transgender women. Sex workers of all genders hesitate to report violence to the police in the US and in many other places. There is speculation that all the transgender people who were killed in the past year in the US did sex work. The fear of arrest contributes to violence against sex workers because people who commit violence against sex workers know that their crimes are likely to go unreported and uninvestigated. Some literally get away with murder.

In no other occupation are people blamed for the violence
committed against them. This is only tolerated because sex workers as a group are treated as external to society, and transgender sex workers are treated as still more separate. But gender diversity is not external to society. Transgender people have family and friends and colleagues who are deeply affected by violence against transgender people, including murder. Crimes go unreported not because no one cares but because they may not have the social clout to be taken seriously by the police, and because police have been reported to be callous and violent toward transgender people. Transgender Day of Remembrance is important because violence against anyone is unacceptable, no matter their gender.

Standing Up For Women’s Rights

LeahStern — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:31:52 -0500

For three years, I have worked in the community of women’s rights organizations in Washington, DC. I was totally committed; I was a part of the fight, and I worked to make sure women had access to health care every day. Then, just as I started working as a self-employed consultant (read: no health insurance) for the World Bank Institute, the health care debate really heated up, and I found myself contemplating the significance of the reform efforts in a whole new light. The new health care exchange would be for many kinds of people, and one of those kinds would be people like me: young people who don’t necessarily think we need health insurance until something goes wrong.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment that got attached to the House version of the bill is a particularly pernicious anti-choice measure that is directly aimed at people like me. If included in the final bill, it would mean that I wouldn’t be able to buy a plan on the exchange that included coverage for abortion, a crucial health service for women of reproductive age. It is especially unfortunate that this amendment was to such an important bill, which would extend crucial coverage to the millions of Americans without it.

Those of us who care about freedom and choice have decided that this is unacceptable. We will not permit the continued marginalization of abortion. Instead, we are standing up and insisting that reproductive health care is health care. I am part of a group of graduate and undergraduate students at Harvard (I’m at the Kennedy School of Government) that organized a rally for the Harvard community to demand that our elected representatives fight for a strong, pro-women health care reform bill.

On Wednesday afternoon, more than 200 people gathered at the Harvard Square T stop to stand up for women’s reproductive health. Harvard undergrads stood shoulder-to-shoulder with grad students, community members, and longtime activists for women’s rights, including Institute of Politics fellows Gina Glantz and former NOW President Kim Gandy.

People in every corner of my new community are passionately working to make sure that we pass a health care reform bill that works for women. We expect our elected representatives to do the same.

Here’s what you can do:

Follow @stopstupaknow on Twitter for updates.

Join our Facebook group: Students Stop Stupak.

Check out our website for ongoing action.

Stay tuned for more action alerts and ideas, and in the meantime, please contact your elected representatives and tell them to stand up for health care for all.

State of World Population 2009 by the U.N. Population Fund

Jane Roberts — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:50:31 -0500

At the very recent World Food Security Summit in Rome lip service was paid to feeding a world population of 9.1 billion people by 2050. Firm monetary commitments were lacking.

Hunger fueled the French Revolution. When Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake!” reached bread starved peasants, all hell broke loose. (French history simplified.)

Recent reports have water levels in the world’s great rivers falling. Glaciers are melting. Fully one fourth of humanity lives in water stressed area. Droughts, probable results of climate change, are becoming more prevalent. Many human beings are thirsty, as is much of the land. How does “Let them drink Coke” sound?

The United Nations Population Fund launched its 2009 State of World Population on November 18, the theme being women, population, and climate change.

As predictable, the countries with the least carbon footprint are reaping the consequences of the disproportionate carbon footprints of the developed world. Women are being disproportionately affected. Who will bear the brunt of the costs to mitigate the worst?

The report also emphasizes women’s contributions to food production, contributions which are threatened by the effects of climate change. And it discusses the probable increase in the numbers of environmental refugees from rising water levels in low lying countries. Migration poses increased hardships on women, particularly women with children, pregnant, or lactating women.

On page 91 we see the population numbers which should astound. By 2050 Africa’s population will increase from 1 billion to 2 billion with a 4.52 fertility rate. The Arab states will increase from 352 to 598 million with a 3.3 fertility rate. Asia’s population will increase from 4.1 billion to 5.2 billion with a 2.32 fertility rate. Latin America and the Caribbean will increase from 582 million to 729 million with a fertility rate of 2.21. And North America will increase from 348 million to 448 million with a 2.03 fertility rate. Europe will be the only area with falling population. Europe’s population will decrease from 732 million to 691 million. All in all, by 2050 there will be 2.3 billion more people to feed and water on a planet coping with substantial climate change.

The 2009 State of World Population from UNFPA recommends five steps to take us back from the brink. They are:

Bring a better understanding of population dynamics, gender and reproductive health to climate change and environmental discussions at all levels
Fully fund family planning services and contraceptive supplies within the framework of reproductive health and rights, and assure that low income is no barrier to access
Prioritize research and data collection to improve the understanding of gender and population dynamics in climate change mitigation and adaptation
Improve the sex-disaggregation of data related to migration flows that are influenced by environmental factors and prepare now for increases in population movements resulting from climate change
Integrate gender considerations into global effort to mitigate and adapt to climate change

Voluntary access to family planning to everyone on the planet should be the number one priority. To quote Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA: “There is no investment in development that costs so little and brings benefits that are so far-reaching and enormous”.

VIDEO Take Women's Health Forward: Stop Stupak!

PlannedParenthoodAdvocate — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:43:09 -0500

Alright pro-choicers, this is the real deal here. When the House of Representatives passed its historic health care reform bill, it unfortunately contained an amendment that is antithetical to health care reform. I am, of course, talking about the Stupak amendment—and if it makes its way into the final bill, it would effectively ban abortion from public and private insurance plans for millions of American women. This would amount to millions of women actually losing coverage under health care reform—a possibility that Planned Parenthood and millions of pro-choicers that support women’s access to a safe, legal abortion, cannot accept.

Health care reform is about expanding access to health care—not taking coverage away.

We are doing everything in our power to ensure that the Stupak Amendment does not make it into the final bill. But we can’t do it without your help.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

SIGN THE PETITION
If there has ever been a petition to sign, this is the one. Please sign Planned Parenthood’s petition asking President Obama, Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker Pelosi to make sure that this insidious amendment does not make it into the final health care reform bill.

When you’re done signing, please use the “tell-a-friend tool” to ask 10 of your friends to join you in signing.

SHARE OUR VIDEO
Share this youtube video above on facebook, and twitter. Here’s a link: http://bit.ly/2SIrZk OR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvdxOKNDruI

FACEBOOK
Donate your facebook status to the cause. Use the following message:

Health care reform is about expanding access to health care—not taking coverage away. If you agree, please join me in signing the petition to make sure that the Stupak Amendment does not make it into the final health care reform bill. Then copy this message and donate your status to the cause. http://bit.ly/3XvWOY

TWITTER
Share this post on twitter. Use the following message:

I’m doing my part to STOP STUPAK—are you? http://bit.ly/3XvWOY #stopstupak

Thank you for your support. Together we can pass health care reform that moves our country forward—not backward.

Stay Connected!

Minnesota

North Dakota

South Dakota

Choice Words from Planned Parenthood Los Angeles

PPLABlog — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:49:22 -0500

ACT NOW: Protect Women in Health Care Reform

On Saturday, November 7th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a historic health care reform bill. Unfortunately, the House also adopted the Stupak ban--an amendment that would effectively ban private health insurance from covering abortion in the United States.

The good news is it's not too late! We must act NOW to ensure that the Senate bill does not include a similar attack on women. Please call California's Senators and urge them to stand up for women's health and reject any anti-choice amendments to health care reform!

Call Both Senators TODAY and Leave a Message

Message: Hi may name is __________ I live in California. I'm calling to urge the Senator to oppose any amendments—like the Stupak ban--that restrict access to reproductive health care. We're counting on her leadership to ensure that women are protected in health reform.

Senator Barbara Boxer
(202) 224-3553

Senator Diane Feinstein
(202) 224-3841

After you call both offices, please email grassroots@pp-la.org with the subject line "I called Boxer & Feinstein."

Want to do more? Have questions about the Stupak ban? Visit http://plannedparenthoodaction.org/healthreform/.

Until next month, these are my Choice Words!

--Serena

Senator Maria Cantwell: Champion for Reproductive Justice

Alison Cole — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:05:27 -0500

Emailed to Senator Maria Cantwell:

Dear Senator Cantwell,

Thank you for being a champion for
reproductive justice. In a just world, a woman would never make a
choice about when, where or how to bear children because of what is
covered by her insurance. She would not give birth to an unwanted child
because an abortion costs more than she can afford. And she would not
accept unnecessary routine interventions in a hospital that are paid
for by her Medicaid when she would have preferred a cheaper physiologic
birth with a midwife. You have shown time and again that you understand
these issues, and in this you truly represent Washington state, where
poor women can access Medicaid to pay for care with any licensed
provider she chooses to see for her pregnancy, be it an abortion
provider or a home-birth midwife. The language you championed in the
Senate Finance Committee's healthcare bill which would require Medicaid
to reimburse any licensed care provider working in a free-standing
birth center is a step in the right direction for our nation, and I
cannot thank you enough.

As you know, the House of
Representatives has shown significantly less respect for women's health
and reproductive justice. The Stupak abortion coverage ban is bad
policy. Conservatives tout the importance of "patient choice" as an
argument against any healthcare reform, but then they single out this
one legal medical procedure and restrict women's abiltiy to choose to
access that service. The Stupak ban does not maintain the status quo in
regard to aboriton access. Rather, it would deny a woman the ability to
purchase insurance covering abortion, even when that coverage will be
provided soley from funds taken from women's own premiums rather than
federal dollars. The Senate is our only hope for ensuring that this
affront to women's health and self-determination does not become law. I know that
you will fight as hard against Stupak-like language in the Senate
healthcare bill as you always do for women and families.

In
August, I organized a meeting between a group of moms, dads and
midwives and one of your staff members. We spoke about the importance
of a real pulic option in healthcare reform, the specific challenges
faced by women and young people in accessing comprehensive healthcare
benefits, and the importance of midwifery care as part of a full range
of reproductive health choices. Thank you for listening. Thank you for
fighting for us.

God bless you,

Alison Cole Duren-Sutherland

Angry But Not Surprised About Stupak

ReligiousInstitute — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:55:56 -0500

I want to be happy that the
House passed its version of Health Care Reform. Really. I believe so
strongly about making health care a right not a privilege.

But the House version included a last minute amendment -- the Pitt-Stupak
amendment -- which if included in the final law, will basically mean
that any insurance company who wants to be part of the federal program
will not be able to include abortion as a covered service. If passed,
it's the greatest restriction on women's access to abortion since the
Hyde Amendment passed more than two decades ago.

I feel betrayed. Betrayed by the 64 Democrats who voted for it. Betrayed by Nancy Pelosi
who let it be brought to the floor. Betrayed by those in the pro-choice
community who asked too early for us to get behind the Capps
amendment which would have continued to deny women who needed abortion
coverage in the public option but was 'abortion neutral'. We gave up
too much ground too soon. And angry that our pro-choice President was
willing to go along with trading the rights of women to get anti-choice
legislators to go along with it, despite the fact that not a single
Republican actually voted yes on health care reform.

I can't say
that I'm surprised. I've been writing for more than the past two years
about my concern about religious leaders who call themselves
progressive but don't support LGBT rights or the rights of women to
make their own decisions about their pregnancies. I've continually
called for sexual justice to be an integral part of a progressive
religious agenda. I've been asked far too many times to stop raising
these issues, to recognize that they are divisive to a common ground
agenda, that reaching out to Catholics and evangelical leaders is more
important than working for justice to LGBT persons and women. I can't
count how many times I've written here -- and in other articles -- that
women's and LGBT's lives shouldn't be traded for political gains.

Some
of those so-called progressive folks helped deliver health care reform
in the House -- but they did it at the expense of hundreds of thousands
of women who will now have even a more difficult time accessing safe
abortion services. Removing abortion from covered insurance plans won't
keep women from having abortions -- it will just mean that they happen
later in pregnancies as women struggle to find the money to pay for
them -- or they will resort once again to unsafe procedures.

The
bottom line: women's lives got buried under common ground on Saturday
night. And to those who said the religious right was dead, I wish it
felt better to say, "I told you so."

http://www.religiousinstitute.org/sexuality-and-religion

In Which The Stupak Amendment Rains On My Parade

Alison Cole — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:55:36 -0500

How long have I been making noise for healthcare
reform? But I just can't feel like the House "reform" vote is a
victory, though I know it is. Eliminating insurance coverage for abortion
is NOT what I had been looking, hoping, and advocating for. Once again, the
health of women is a political football. It is not about what's best for us,
it's about political expediency, and that's just bullshit. The Stupak amendment
is not about ensuring tax dollars don't pay for abortions -- the Capps
amendment provided for that, along with the notorious Hyde amendment. It is
about restricting women's access to healthcare.

Here's what our government says to women: Making an
intimate personal choice to end a pregnancy? No insurance coverage. Want to
give birth in the privacy of your own home with a midwife and minimize costly intervention? You may or may not be covered. Pressured into an unnecessary induction, epidural and cesarean because the ultrasound shows that
the baby is big/small/whatever? Where's the checkbook? At least in Washington
State, the government is refusing
to pay more for cesareans than for vaginal birth. At least in Washington
State, poor women can get Medicaid
to pay for a midwife-attended birth or an abortion.

My tax dollars pay for military action I do not support, and
yet anti-abortion people refuse to allow premiums paid by individual women to go
toward abortion coverage within their health plan. Why is my concern for life
less valid than theirs? Please defund the Pentagon before asking me to give up
my autonomy. Women (& men) deserve the freedom to make our own best
choices with dignity. Legal, covered abortion & homebirth for all women,
now!

Stupak-Amendment Passes! Affects every woman

Megan Evans — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:35:05 -0500

After hearing the results of the Stupak-Amendment this evening, I burst into tears. Normally, when these ridiculous bills are passed and, once again, a road block is placed in front of women’s health, I grit my teeth, curse under my breath, and prepare to face another challenge in the world of reproductive health. Tonight, though, my emotions took over and I wept. If you know me, you know I don’t cry easily. But my tears weren’t for me. I was crying for the thousands upon thousands of women this bill affects.

If you work in abortion care, you hear the stories that no one will believe. Of course there are the tragic tales of rape and incest that cause your insides to turn, but there are also so many stories of women seeking abortion because of other valid, personal, challenging reasons. The struggle that these women face to finance their abortion is tremendous. And this is in conjunction with the extensive legal barriers created to block their choice…as if the decision is taken lightly!

You ask any person that works on the NAF hotline, or an abortion fund, or if you read The Abortioneers Blog, they will tell you the financial barriers placed infront of women to obtain an abortion are incredible. These barriers are so great, in fact, that some women struggle to pay for a first trimester abortion (cheaper and safe)and end up pulling together the money when they are in their second trimester (more expensive with more health risks).

And these are the stories of women who don’t have abortion coverage.

Not only does this bill continue to ban coverage of abortion services in the public insurance sector, but it bans abortion in the private sector as well. Thus women who are covered by their insurance for an abortion (majority) IN CASE they have an unplanned pregnancy, have now lost that privilege (…if this bill becomes law obviously). And who suffers the most? Low-income women, the most vulnerable.

If there ever was a time to speak up to your representatives, it's now. I contacted Rep Stupak just minutes before writing this blog. Am I a constituent of Representative Stupak? No (I put in the address of his own office in the email form), but he made a decision for me and my friends and my patients and every woman by creating this bill, so he is going to hear from me.

Dear Representative Stupak,

As a woman of this country, I want to tell you directly that your abortion ban disgusts me.

How dare you make decisions for me and how dare you create a bill that takes away my abortion coverage. Would you also like to take away my contraceptive coverage? Perhaps my ability to have an annual pap smear?

Your bill makes me seethe with anger. As a future physician, you have just made a decision for so many women-you will never meet them, you will never hear their stories, and you will never know their struggles. Abortion care already carries so many burdens for women and you have just made it harder.

When women start dying from dangerous "back-alley" abortions again because of severe lack of access to providers, don't be surprised when you and all the other members of congress who voted for your selfish bill find blood on their hands.

Megan Evans

Medical Student and future Ob/Gyn

These representatives have made a decision for all women of this country by voting to take away our right to abortion coverage. Our LEGAL RIGHT!

Be vocal about this issue. We cannot let this bill become law. Our choice is legal, personal, private, and should be affordable and covered for all women.