and financial security.

And I think that's why it is so threatening to conservative values or the patriarchy,

because it inherently destabilizes them.

Women tend to do most of the emotional and sexual labor in our society, and I think it's

really devalued.

I think that's part of the reason why sex work is so demonized.

The police can't protect you if you're in a criminalized market.

It just doesn't work.

This industry, it's really racist.

It's really transphobic.

When they are walking around on the street.

Minding their own business.

The most that police will do for you is give you a fine, and if they're very generous

they'll just leave you alone.

And that's the best you can hope for.

We're not the animals who they think that we are.

We're not the sex worker on your street corner robbing your apartment.

We're just trying to f*cking survive.

Because your system does not help us.

We need to decriminalize.

Because everybody is equal.

Everybody should be treated equal.

The most dehumanizing thing is to be criminalized for your labor and trying to survive.

Perfect.

Sounds great.

And can't wait to see you.

This reminds me of when my parents used to send these really pretty dresses to me from

the US.

I grew up in Honduras, in kind of like a mountainous region.

I had to be smuggled over the border when I was 5.

Growing up, my parents influenced a lot of my sexuality and the way I look at my gender.

I was raised to show off my sexuality, but to not be a whore.

It was hard to fit into this

mold that my parents wanted me in because I loved sexuality and I was fascinated by

it, and I feel like the more they policed me, the more it kind of drove me towards it.

So for me sex work is powerful.

Nobody's been able to end sex work.

Nobody has really been able to deter people away from sex work.

So at what point do you sit down and say, "Hey we have an issue.

How are we going to address it?"

We want to make sure that they have the resources and are able to report violence against them.

And they're never going to be able to do that if we continue to stigmatize and criminalize

them.

The decrim- bill, what it does is change the penal code for only two of the three parties

traditionally involved in sex work.

There's the trafficker, or pimp,

that word I hate, the sex worker and the customer.

So we're trying to decriminalize the interaction between the worker and the customer, but leave

the penal code intact for the trafficker to make sure that they are still put behind bars

for exploiting people.

So you can't tell me that you're, for example, a pro-choice person who supports the rights

to abortion, right,

but don't support the right to do sex work when it's a person's autonomy, it's a person's

body.

How much I make in a year varies.

Last year it was $500,00, give or take.

You know, that was with me taking several months off, you know, going on vacation.

It's the type of work where if

you're really on top of it and approaching it as a job and as a career, I have a really

good retirement account.

I can probably retire younger.

It's been both emotionally and financially rewarding.

People like me who are white, thin, conventionally attractive, basically aren't affected by criminalization

for the most part at all.

Whereas people like some of my friends who

might be Black, might be trans, they are going to have the police throw at them whatever

laws they can throw.

I think a lot of the work that's being done to decriminalize sex work is really important.

It's going to be absolutely necessary for our community to heal from the very real trauma

that criminalization brought upon us.

I'm hoping that we can

move away from policing, and prison, and criminalization as a deterrent

for morality and bad behavior.

Sex workers are everywhere, you know.

If you think you don't know a sex worker, you're mistaken.

We know it's not going to be easy and we know it's going to take a long time.

We're just willing to do the work.