The 14th Amendment forbids states from denying any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” By directly mentioning the role of the states, the 14th Amendment greatly expanded the protection of civil rights to all Americans and is cited in more litigation than any other amendment. ~ Library of Congress.

Interview with Ms. R

DECRIM / ESPLERP v. Gascon

The Erotic Service Provider’s Legal & Educational Research Project  or The ESPLER Project (501C3) was founded in 2009 by Maxine Doogan with the mission of empowering the erotic community and advancing sexual privacy rights through legal advocacy, education, and research:

“In our legal advocacy, we seek to create change through a combination of impact litigation, policy statements, and voicing our concerns for our community in political arenas. Through educational trainings and outreach, we will empower and capacity build to address discrimination of erotic service providers and the greater erotic community. Lastly, we strive to archive and rate much of the research which has been done by and of the sex worker community, and build on this history with research which seeks to be increasingly inclusive, respectful, and ultimately, relevant to the erotic service providers and the larger erotic community.” http://esplerp.org/about/our-mission/

Currently involved in a precedent legal case, inspired by COYOTE v Roberts (1976), and more recently Lawrence v Texas (2003), the ESPLER Project challenge has named California Attorney General  Kamala Harris, and 4 Bay Area District Attorneys as defendants for enforcing an unconstitutional statute known as California Penal Code 647(b).  The case is now known as ESPLERP v Gascon is named after the current San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon.  The historic lawsuit contends that California’s 1961 anti-prostitution laws violates the U.S. Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression,  to associate,  to right livelihood and access to substantive due process.  ESPLERP envisions a safer, saner independent sex industry in the form of decriminalization (DECRIM). The challenge is asking the federal courts for declaratory and injunctive relief from being prosecuted as a sex worker or as a client of a sex worker.  It is about liberty: the right for sex workers to earn a living, and to access equal protection under the law.

So – on the note of how to differentiate consensual adult sex work from forced or coerced sex trafficking, Workers Survivors Community formerly blogging as Union Lip Service (ULS) gave a shout out to Ms. R. She is a rank and file member of the Erotic Service Providers Union (ESPU) , an ESPLER Project board member, and an independent prostitute for well over a decade. 

Workers Survivors Community: Hi R!  Thanks for taking a moment out of your day to chat with us here at Workers Survivors Community (formerly blogging as Union Lip Service) . You are on the ESPLER Project board in support the legal challenge happening in California. Really exciting!  Can you share with us  a little about your views on the  challenge?  Why you support it?

Ms. R:  Most welcome. Glad to share my views. I have participated in the sex worker rights movement for at least a decade.  I never had a focus or an opportunity to harness any collective power. As an independent worker, I never really felt I needed to negotiate with a manager or boss, so, why a union? Well – There is a lockout on our labor.  The Penal code (enforced with taxpayer money by police) is the current contract. It is known that criminalization makes us vulnerable. We obviously do not have equal protection under the law. Also, because our work is deemed criminal we can –  and do –  face all sorts of discrimination. I faced that discrimination head on after I was assaulted by a violent predator. I reported my attacked to the police. I cooperated with the police. I subjected myself willingly to the hospital rape kit examiner. Then the  DA said they could not prosecute because of my status as a sex worker. The  Victims Compensation Program rejected my claim, and  also my appeal for reimbursement of the cost of the process, all  because I was working as a prostitute when the predator found me. It didn’t matter that he hurt me. I was blamed for my attack.  These experiences made me passionate about seeking justice,  and ending the discrimination. For me. For other women. No one should have to experience that sort of humiliation and rejection after being violently attacked and violated. No one. 

Workers Survivors Community:  Let me take a moment to really process what you have said here, R. Meditate on your words a moment. 

Ok. First,  let me say, thank you for sharing such a personal message, R.  Your courage is an inspiration. I hope you know that. Really. I am so glad you are here  to be having this conversation with me right  now.  I find it  truly empowering.  I hope our readers will, also. Especially because if there is someone else out there reading this, they will know they are not alone. You are absolutely right. The collective voice makes a difference. 

 So –   On the note of collective…

The collective bargain you are wanting is DECRIM. Decriminalization as  an end to discrimination? Because sex workers are discriminated against due to the criminal status of  erotic labor and services? I think I understand that, though perhaps elaborate on that point. Also – Why DECRIM, as opposed to legalization?

R: Yes. Yes. yes.

Workers Survivors Community: Got it! Collective bargaining. It’s a catch-22. Yea. Collective bargaining contracts can only happen in legal industry, so if a profession, trade, or field – or facets of a profession, trade  or field –  are criminalized, without some sort of a grandfather clause or exception, there can’t be any type of collective bargaining. The sex industry has been a gray area because every part of the process is legal, except the final component of accepting payment for services rendered. You know that because you attended a women’s  labor school, right? Can you tell us how it benefited you, and the work you are doing?

R: Absolutely. I have begun to see that collectively we have power. We are all amazing individuals. We have a spirit of survival and resilience. Training for labor organizing can help us grow our capacity to grow our collective power. Whoever wants to control us (moralists, police, feminists, health/social workers, review boards) wants to take our power away and they always find ways to divide us. Realistically, plenty of folks are acting like they are our bosses. Then to top it off, we divide ourselves. I think that we will be able to have more strength after we win our lawsuit because currently we do not have a right to associate with each other. Being that our labor is criminalized, associating to promote our work can be seen as promoting prostitution. I hate to dwell on the fact that we have so little power. I have seen in the last few years how much we can do when we work together as a team. We are on the way to collectively bargaining DECRIM. Currently, impact litigation is the tool we will use to get DECRIM.

Workers Survivors Community: More than just talking about it, you have actually been to the California legislature supporting and opposing bills?

R: I’m thinkin I can talk about the bills…. there are actually a lot of them (maybe I should list them and quickly summarize, I dunno, maybe thats too much)

Workers Survivors Community: George Gascon – San Francisco District Attorney –  is one of the defendants mentioned in the case. 

Cited on KABC Los Angeles The Drive June 24, 2015,  Gascon references abolishing human trafficking as the core problem related to prostitution: “There are people victimized on a daily basis, under duress, beaten,” Gascon told the local ABC affiliate, referring to sex-trafficking victims. “Having said that, I don’t negate the fact there may be some consenting workers, and, if there are, how do we differentiate one from the other?”

What are your thoughts on the point he makes ?

Ms. R: I think this is a narrative that promotes propaganda for keeping us criminal. You know, I reported being beaten. The violence was documented and there was a lot of physical evidence. I am a consenting worker and I was also a victim of violence. I suspect that there are many more consenting workers who have been victimized while working that is known because many of us do not report the crimes that happen to us. I am appalled that the “human trafficking victim” is placed in a forefront and we are hunted by police and predators all in the name of protecting the more special category of victim who never consented to prostitution. In real life, the consenting worker is never recognized as a victim even when the evidence proves we were.

Workers Survivors Community: What is so sad here is that when violence hits home we are not able to ethically realize that violence is violence, regardless of one’s sexual lifestyle or profession. 

Thinking about this, it just seems  so 1950s to say that if an escort is viciously assaulted during a forced rape  it is her fault. To me it is just  like saying that if a gay person is beat up it is because they deserve it for being different. Philadelphia recently experienced shock and sadness over that sort of random, opportunistic hateful violence  when Philip Williams, Kevin Harrigan, and Kathryn Knott attacked a gay couple in Center City. 

So, if it was a sex worker, it would not have mattered? Or even worse, in many municipalities, the sex worker can be arrested if they report a violent crime. It is just shocking.

When I was listening to media on the Holtclaw case, I was so saddened by how  one woman was saying they didn’t deserve the molestation because she was a  “good” women, as opposed to being a sex worker. Though I sympathize with the trauma of her experience with Holtclaw, I found it entirely  disturbing that “good” women feel that “bad” women should be held responsible if they are misappropriated by those who take an oath to serve and protect. I know that is a little bit off topic, but if sex workers can’t report violent crimes to the police, it does open the door for those in power to abuse power if that is what their inclination is.

Pause.

Workers Survivors Community: So for those of us  – sex workers or “civilians” – who are concerned about sexual freedom and constitutional privileges,   how can help here?

Ms. R: that’s a good question. How do I best answer it.

Pause.

Workers Survivors Community: Besides ESPLERP v Gascon, what inspires you to be an active board member?

Ms. R:It could use some pretty language, but  I think this might be a good place to plug in our ESPLERP Policy Agenda 2016 http://esplerp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/ESPLERP2016PolicyAgenda.pdf

Workers Survivors Community: For clarity, the Erotic Service Providers Union (ESPU) is the first union of of it’s type. Actually it is a non-profit, right? Because without DECRIM, there can be no collective bargaining, so there can’t be a formally recognized union yet. Is that accurate?

Also – What are some of the differences between The ESLPER Project and ESPU?

 Ms. R: ESPLER project is a 501 c 3 and is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit asking the court to recognize our right to associate.  ESPLERP raised the funds necessary to file the federal lawsuit and is currently raising funds to keep the challenge alive and escalate it through the higher courts (next will be the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals). The rest of the  plaintiffs are erotic service providers and a client and I am proud to be at the center of supporting actual worker plaintiffs in their cutting edge litigation against this unconstitutional state interference. 

 ESPU is a labor union, a membership association for Erotic Service Providers, founded to start organizing our population to get the  necessary skills to get the center of our own advocacy. Unionizing helps us gain the power to negotiate the conditions of our labor. Historically, those conditions have been imposed and workers are not consulted. The saying “Nothing About Us Without Us” is a reference to the fact that we never have a voice when policy is made about us and we are demanding that changes.

Workers Survivors Community: Nihil de nobis, sine nobis! Right on, Sister Solidarity!