Author Archive

Call for letters of support for GiGi Thomas

GiGi Thomas, longtime advocate for human rights for all people and specifically trans people and sex workers, needs our help. GiGi may have the opportunity soon for the judge to reconsider and reduce her sentence. When the judge sentenced GiGi she was influenced by the outpouring of letters in support of GiGi, so we want to show our support for GiGi again. While unfortunately we do not have an exact timeline, we are gathering letters now which we will present to the judge when the time is right.

Please send a scanned PDF of your letter with you signature to freegigi22 @ gmail.com. 

If you don’t want to write a letter yourself, let us know and we can share the sign-on letter we are composing, which you could join.

Here are some tips for writing a letter:

[Note: If you know GiGi personally, please include such details as how long you’ve known her, any positive details about her and her contributions in the community, and anything you know about her struggles, trauma, and strength.]

  1. Dear Judge Cotton
  2. Mention that you’re writing about GiGi Marie Thomas, whose sentence is up for reconsideration.
  3. Identify yourself and your role(s)/involvement in the community (e.g. profession, volunteer work, LGBTQ community member, how long you’ve lived in area, etc.)
  4. Mention that you heard about GiGi’s case from the her community of supporters.
  5. Optional talking points **please make your remarks as specific and unique from your perspective as possible**
    1. Information on how you know trauma-informed mental health care care is important or about the great need for competent professionals to serve trans women of color, prevent violence, and help keep trans women safe.
    2. Details about GiGi professionally.
    3. Request that the judge to consider the incredible positive impact GiGi has had in the community.
    4. Describe how her work relates to your experiences.
  6. Request that the judge reduce GiGi’s sentence and support the provision of trauma-informed care.

“I’m advocating behind bars for transgender rights, keeping myself grounded in spirituality, and lifting up the spirits of others behind bars by giving them peer counseling, or even just a word of advice. I’m getting involved in programs to keep myself motivated.”

-GiGi Thomas

GiGi Thomas is a Black transgender woman who has worked for more than 15 years supporting people in need in the D.C.-Baltimore area. She served as a client consultant with the sex-worker rights and human services organization HIPS and completed a Masters in Social Work from Howard University. Over the years, GiGi helped thousands of community members find shelter and sustenance, reunited families, cared for the injured, and spoke out about injustice especially regarding the treatment of the trans community. Gigi’s peers describe her as “one of those people who just gives and gives with all they have,” and an “amazing woman” with “a heart of gold.

Since 2015, GiGi has been incarcerated and in 2017 she was sentenced to many years in prison, but the judge was moved by the number of letters she received in support of GiGi and said that GiGi should ask for a reconsideration to shorten her sentence at some point in the future. GiGi has now made the request and we are gathering letters in support of shortening her sentence. Like so many people in prison, GiGi is herself a survivor of violence and discrimination.

Read about a snapshot of GiGi’s work here: https://www.metroweekly.com/2007/01/community-growth/.

Other ways to support GiGi

You can also write to GiGi as she loves receiving letters, although she is not always able to respond. The requirements and prohibitions for mail are located here: https://news.maryland.gov/dpscs/inmate-mail-services/.

GiGi Marie Thomas, 456712-1562143

Roxbury Correctional Institute – Hagerstown (RCI)

18701 Roxbury Rd.

Hagerstown, MD 21746

You can also deposit money in GiGi’s account, which she can use to buy supplies for letter writing, food, and other necessities. We recommend using the online option as physical money orders sent to the lockbox do not always seems to reach her. More information here: https://news.maryland.gov/dpscs/inmate-trust-fund-services/. On the Access Corrections website, you will need to enter the state (Maryland), agency (Maryland Department of Corrections) and either her first and last name or her SID # which is 1562143.

Seeking direct support

Send your tax deductible donation via ActBlue. We can also receive donations to CashApp $btriplep. Checks still work! And Amazon too.

In June 2022 we received a donation from a funder and we were able to assist eleven people with urgent needs for transportation, food, medications and rent. Most people looking for mutual aid are in the US but we were also able to help a referral from our partner group in Uganda. When needed, we connected people to other services across the US that we know and trust. We will connect, when appropriate, community members to social events such as the upcoming writers’ showcase.

All the funds have been expended. Erika did a fantastic job. She is an outstanding leader bringing experience of organizing with and providing services to Black trans people and sex workers in the District of Columbia and now across the United States. If you want to donate directly to this fund then we would love your tax deductible donation via ActBlue. We can also receive donations to CashApp $btriplep.

Gililland v. Southern Orange County Community College

By Lindsey Lanier and Zee Xaymaca, 13 June 2022

NOTE: This article references an American legal case which makes frequent use of the term “woman” as a proxy for the broader group described as “sex workers.” We understand not all sex workers are women (and assert that the two are not interchangeable categories) and highlight that in the discussion below. The reason that “discrimination against sex workers” is contextualized as “discrimination against women” is because the laws upon which this case was decided require “sex-based discrimination” and therefore a connection between sex work and womanhood. 

Does a woman have a right to be free from sex discrimination— in this case, discrimination based on gendered expectations—in work and education? How about if she is/was a sex worker? The courts have had little to say in regard to these questions until recently. In 2021, the case of Gililland v. Southern Orange County Community College forced Oregon’s courts to weigh in on the matter.

In 2017, nursing student Nicole Gililland complained that administrators in her nursing program at Southern Orange County Community College were discriminating against her. After staff members at the nursing program found out about Gililland’s past as a porn actor, they targeted her by grading her academic work more harshly than other students, marking her assignments late, and falsely accusing her of plagiarism. One faculty member referred to Gililland, stating that it takes a “classy woman” to be a nurse, and gestured towards Gililland continuing, “unclassy women shouldn’t be nurses.” When the nursing program expelled Gililland for the failing grades she had received, Gililland initiated her lawsuit against Southern Orange County Community College.

Gililland argued that faculty at the college treated her differently from other students because of her history of sex work, and due to the linkage between sex work and gender stereotypes. Feminized labor like sex work is heavily associated with traditional notions of a woman’s purity and “class” (ie being an appropriate and correct kind of woman). Notions of  “proper” womanhood are used to determine what should be accessible to people based on their adherence to these stereotypes. Not least of these is the expectation that women should lead an overtly non-sexual existence. Sex workers directly challenge this imposition.

Women who engage in sex work must contend with this attempt to deny them access to resources because they break with these common traditions of femininity.  Their careers challenge the patriarchal assertion that women who sell sexual labor are made inferior and undeserving by their work. The professor’s statement suggesting that Gililland was “unclassy”, combined with administrative harassment in the form of unjustified failing grades, constitute an attempt to deny her the right all Americans have to access education.

Sex working women face this form of sex discrimination in their interactions with social service and medical institutions as well. For example, doctors, prejudiced by knowledge of a patient’s sex work, may make assumptions about the patient that influence the direction of care and treatment. Furthermore, because sex work is not recognized as a legal form of work, some social goods like unemployment insurance or disability payments are out of reach for sex workers.

On December 3rd, 2021 a federal court magistrate judge for the district of Oregon held (during summary judgment) that discrimination against sex workers qualifies as sex discrimination under Title IX of US federal civil rights law. Title IX States that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” The interpretation of Title IX varies in US courtrooms. Standards for enforcement are created on a case-by-case basis. Over time, the rulings in these cases create a body of jurisprudence that acts as a guideline for how future cases are assessed.

It is important to note that this judgment is not yet the law of the land. This particular ruling is not binding on lower courts (or courts at the same level). It is possible, and perhaps likely, that lower courts will respect the precedent set by Gililland, but this is not a given. 

Regardless of its value as a precedent, this ruling is a positive step toward protecting sex workers’ access to public resources. A government body acknowledging that sex workers face sex discrimination is a relatively new contribution to the argument sex workers have long been trying to make; that sex workers must have legal protection against the effects of stigma and prejudice.

The ruling may be interpreted as a tentative step toward legislation that formally includes discrimination against sex workers in the definition of sex discrimination. Such legislation would prevent harassment of sex workers in professional settings. This means it would be illegal to penalize a person for having engaged in sex work. It would be illegal to deny services to a person for that reason as well.

These measures will not override the stigma against sex work that is ingrained in our societies, but it will push forward the journey to legal recognition of sex work as a profession.

For further information on these issues check out this column in the Star Ledger “Improving the lives of sex workers mean anti-discrimination laws must follow” and “Who Needs Legislators? Discrimination Against Sex Workers Is Sex Discrimination Under Title VII” in Rutgers Law Review, Vol. 72 2020. Both of these pieces are written by Derek Demeri, a co-founder of New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance.

March 3rd and Rights

By Janet Duran

On March 3rd we honor our history and all the shoulders we are standing on globally in our quest for rights. Look no further for an accurate history of March 3rd and sex worker rights, than this posting by Carol Leigh of BAYSWAN.

The 3rd of March is International Sex Worker Rights Day. The day originated in 2001 when over 25,000 sex workers gathered in India for a sex worker festival. The organizers, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a Calcutta based group whose membership consists of somewhere upwards of 50,000 sex workers and members of their communities. Sex worker groups across the world have subsequently celebrated 3 March as International Sex Workers’ Rights Day.

Live History Archive, www.bayswan.org/March3/

How will we celebrate this day in 2022? We have two ways. Want to chill, hear poems, a potted history and original music? Learn about March 3rd in audio form with this blast from the past poetry podcast from PJ Starr and NJRUA.

Want to get active in the spirit of March 3rd? This year we are happy to celebrate with the March 3rd edition of Heaux Skills with Jenna Torres and the BSWC. Want to learn how to organize around electoral issues? Then this March 3rd Electoral Rundown and Organizing 101 with Jenna Torres is the right place to be at 4 pm US Eastern.