Response to Opposition in Berkeley
Below is a response to the neo faux human trafficking rescue movement’s response to a sex worker rights based panel presentation Opposing Human Trafficking From a Rights Perspective.
Unlike our radical feminist counterparts, the sex worker rights movement does not have the funding from a University, does not have the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act funding that the radical feminists have from their alliance with President’ Bush and his administration. The activists that put this conference together did so on their own time, unfunded, taking time away from work because it is an important issue and a fight against oppression. Many of us, myself included flew in from various parts of the country. No fancy hotels with conferences in fancy conference rooms. No one to pay for our flights or meals, no one to pay for missed work time. This was an event by sex workers and sex worker rights activists because we cared about the issue, done without a budget or funding other than what we paid for ourselves.
The accusations leveled against the sex worker rights movement about being pro sexual slavery of women is garbage and this is an illustration of that. None of us got paid for any of this. This was a grassroots event in it’s most classic sense.
Thank you to everyone that worked so hard to make it happen, to those like me who traveled great distances at our own expense to take on issues of trafficking. To those who say we don’t care about this issue. That is unfair and false. Perhaps we care more than those doing it on major budgets in five star hotels inside the Beltway. It is a tangible subject to us, not theoretical.
If we were truly some evil pro sexual slavery of women org and activists as our critics would have the world believe, we certainly wouldn’t have done this event. For those who oppose us who claim they care so much about human trafficking, not a single one of these abolitionist activists showed up for the event. There was a chance to meet with us, to find common ground in fighting forced labor and human trafficking. But our critics were not present. Their voices so loudly critical under fake screen names or anonymous posts to blogs in which they so vehemently criticize sex worker rights activists were silent.
To those who so strongly claim I don’t exist, but instead am some marketing tool of the patriarchy or some pro porn movement. I was there in Berkeley. I made it obvious where I could be found, where I was presenting. None of the critics showed. Perhaps because the truth that I am who I say I am would be impossible to disprove by virtue of my physical presence in Berkeley and the words I spoke. Same for my activist colleagues. Also perhaps a fear that it would be obvious that sex worker rights activists are involved in the fight against trafficking and forced labor. It is harder to throw stones at us when we are present and in a group than when we are isolated and accessible to those hiding behind fake screen names and anonymity.
