00:00Sex work is one of the few ways that women have relatively easy access to
00:07upward mobility and financial security. And I think that's why it is so
00:14threatening to conservative values or the patriarchy because it inherently
00:21destabilizes them.
00:23Sex work is one, sex work is one, women tend to do most of the emotional and
00:37sexual labor in our society and I think it's really devalued. I think that's
00:42part of the reason why sex work is so demonized. The police can't protect you
00:47if you're in a criminalized market, it just doesn't work.
00:52This industry, it's really racist, it's really transphobic, when they are walking
01:01around on the street, minding their own business.
01:06She just came and put pepper spray on me.
01:09When they leave, you better leave too, I promise.
01:13The most that police will do for you is give you a fine and if they're very
01:17generous, they'll just leave you alone. And that's like the best you can hope for.
01:22We're not the animals who they think that we are. We're not the sex worker on your street
01:26corner robbing your apartment. We're just trying to survive.
01:30Because your system does not help us.
01:39We need to discriminate because everybody's equal. Everybody should be treated equally.
01:47The most dehumanizing thing is to be criminalized for your labor and trying to survive.
01:54Perfect. Sounds great. And can't wait to see you.
02:00This reminds me of when my parents used to send these really pretty dresses to me from the US.
02:07I grew up in Honduras and kind of like a mountainous region.
02:12I had to be smuggled over the border when I was five.
02:17Growing up, my parents influenced a lot of my sexuality and the way I look at my gender.
02:23I was raised to show off my sexuality, but to not be a whore.
02:28It was hard to fit into this mold that my parents wanted me in.
02:32Because I loved sexuality and I was fascinated by it.
02:36And I feel like the more they policed me, the more it kind of drove me towards it.
02:40So for me, sex work is powerful.
02:45Nobody's been able to end sex work.
02:48Nobody has really been able to deter people away from sex work.
02:52So at what point do you sit down and say, hey, we have an issue.
02:57How are we going to address it?
03:05We want to make sure that they have the resources and are able to report violence against them.
03:11And they're never going to be able to do that if we continue to stigmatize and criminalize them.
03:15The decrim bill, what it does is change the penal code for only two of the three parties traditionally involved
03:26in sex work.
03:27There's the trafficker or pimp, the word I hate, the sex worker and the customer.
03:34So we're trying to decriminalize the interaction between the worker and the customer.
03:40But leave the penal code intact for the trafficker to make sure that they are still put behind bars for
03:48exploiting people.
03:50So you can't tell me that you're, for example, a pro-choice person who supports the rights to abortion, right?
04:00But don't support the right to do sex work when it's a person's autonomy.
04:05It's a person's body.
04:11How much I make in a year varies.
04:14Last year it was $500,000, give or take.
04:19You know, that was with me taking several months off, you know, going on vacation.
04:27It's the type of work where if you're really on top of it and approaching it as a job and
04:33as a career,
04:34I have a really good retirement account.
04:37I can probably retire younger.
04:40It's been both emotionally and financially rewarding.
04:45People like me who are white, thin, conventionally attractive,
04:50basically aren't affected by criminalization for the most part at all.
04:55Whereas people like some of my friends who might be black, might be trans,
05:02they are going to have the police throw at them whatever laws they can throw.
05:09I think a lot of the work that's being done to decriminalize sex work is really important.
05:17It's going to be absolutely necessary for our community to heal from the very real trauma that criminalization brought upon
05:27us.
05:28I'm hoping that we can move away from policing and prison and criminalization as a deterrent for, like, morality and
05:36bad behavior.
05:38Sex workers are everywhere, you know.
05:41If you think you don't know a sex worker, you're mistaken.
05:48We know it's not going to be easy and we know it's going to take a long time.
05:52We're just willing to do the work.
06:00We're just willing to do the work.
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