Impact of cancellations due to COVID-19

March 10th, 2020 · · News Archive, Press Release No comments

In 2020, our organizations in various coalitions have been planning to host the following events and engage in the following human rights processes:

  • a sex worker led parallel session and a fundraiser at the Commission on the Status of Women,
  • the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United States including writing a collective report, advocating for key issues with permanent missions, hosting a working group on sex work at the USHRN, planning to attend pre-sessions at the UN in Geneva and the UPR itself that should be held in May 2020,
  • a sex worker rights networking session at the Allied Media Conference in June 2020,
  • AIDS2020 in San Francisco and HIV2020 in Mexico City (both planned for July 2020).
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Not your grandmother’s fringe movement: Decoding WaPo’s “An effort to decriminalize prostitution in D.C. faces unlikely opposition”

February 14th, 2020 · · Media Analysis No comments - Tags: ,

It is exciting to see that campaigns to end the criminalization of sex workers’ lives organized and sustained by those directly affected by the laws–that is trans people, people of color, immigrants and youth–are being recognized in major news outlets such as the Washington Post. The coverage of a statement released by D.C.’s Sex Worker Advocates Coalition (SWAC) and DecrimNow DC is needed and brings further national attention to one of the most important movements for change about these issues.

However, WaPo’s article is drenched in language that diminishes the importance of D.C.’s movement and the critical issues regarding race, class, gender, and immigrant status. The authors Narappil and Schmidt write that the “grass-roots effort to decriminalize D.C. sex work hit a major hurdle last fall, when the city council declined to vote on a bill that would make Washington the first U.S. city to eliminate penalties for prostitution” and state that the concerns raised by SWAC and DecrimNow DC “illustrate rifts in the nascent sex-work movement as it tries to move from the fringe to the mainstream.” WaPo must surely know after more than 140 years experience observing and publishing about social movements, that overturning unjust, racist, stigmatizing laws takes time. The debates in 2019 around the bill mark an uptick in interest in this change, a marker along the way in a long campaign, and not a “major hurdle.” If we observe global trends on this issue, change will come. Sex work will be recognized as work. There is nothing “nascent” about sex worker rights. In D.C. the current organizing stretches back directly more than 15 years to coalitions and actions addressing the D.C. Council in regards to the now repealed (due to activism) “prostitution free zone” legislation. The roots of activism in D.C. go much deeper than this with histories of activism that deserve more coverage and celebration in the mainstream press.

The term sex work was coined by California activist Carol Leigh in the 1970s and her work itself is predated by grassroots organizing by people of the stature of Miss Major Griffin-Gracey and many others. Internationally the current phase of sex worker rights organizing has been well respected for 40 years, with sex workers being at the forefront of intersectional struggles for change and working directly with multi-lateral agencies such as UNAIDS and the World Health Organization to develop global policy. Observing the development of a deeply rooted movement in D.C. and describing it as moving “from the fringe to the mainstream” relies on the outdated tropes of respectability politics and racism as to who gets to speak and be taken seriously. This is a sleight of hand to diminish what this movement actually is and the profound changes it is bringing.

The main issue of concern raised by SWAC and DecrimNow DC is in regards to the group Decriminalize Sex Work disrupting local long term organizing and plans. Narappil and Schmidt write that, “Decriminalize Sex Work is facing intense opposition from an unlikely source — the local sex-worker activists who were pushing for the bill in the first place.” There is nothing “unlikely” about SWAC’s and DecrimNow DC’s opposition to an attempted action that was not welcome or appropriate if led by a highly privileged out of town group. Once again, in the 140 years that WaPo has been around, it should be clear by now that people of power and privilege often attempt to hijack long term work done by local activists. And this hijacking results in out of towners reaping the benefits of further funding, recognition, awards and accolades, entrenching the disparities already wrought by criminalization. The years of work that community members have done to celebrate (and prevent the erasure/co-option of) the legacy of trailblazing transwomen at Stonewall should be instructive. Today, activists of color, transgender people and other groups of people who face the devastating impact of criminalization are fully aware of what can happen to a movement and leadership should they not proactively defend their organizing space and legacy.

It should come as no surprise at all that the strategies of SWAC and DecrimNow DC differ from groups such as Decriminalize Sex Work. The SWAC and DecrimNow DC statement is a carefully developed response. Erasing the history of this organizing and pigeonholing activists of color and trans experience as “fringe” is out of touch with how organizing is happening in 2020.

HIV2020: why? how? scholarship applications and expressions of interest due Jan 31

January 28th, 2020 · · Conferences No comments - Tags: ,

HIV2020 is a conference event scheduled to take place in Mexico City, July 5-7, 2020, and will run concurrently with the first half of the international AIDS conference. The organizers are aiming to provide a safe alternative for people who cannot or will not enter the United States in 2020. HIV2020 will also offer new opportunities to reaffirm the leading role communities play in the global HIV response. HIV2020 is supported by global sex worker networks.

How to apply? AIDS Action Europe has put together a useful guide on how to apply for scholarships and to express interest to speak. We also learned from Triple-X in Canada that the steps for scholarships are to 1) Register as participant for free and 2) apply for scholarship link. Scholarship applications and proposals are due NO LATER THAN January 31, 2020.

More information about HIV2020 and AIDS2020 from BPPP and partner groups. As we have noted in another post about navigating the International AIDS Conferences this year, the International AIDS Society has made the incorrect decision to host AIDS2020 in San Francisco further marginalizes our communities and places global attendees at risk should they attempt to enter the United States at a time of oppression at US borders. BPPP supports the alternate/protest/#move conference site Mexico called HIV2020 and we will be fundraising for people to go to these alternate conferences just as we did for AIDS2012. However, since relatively few members of our community can travel due to restrictions on travel documents placed on our US based members because of the prison industrial complex and other oppression. We support actions inside and outside of the US to hold AIDS2020, the US and the IAS accountable. Read more about actions inside the US here.

Organizing in Washington DC during AIDS2012 (photo by PJ Starr)

Dept. of State NGO “Consultation” Regarding US UPR 2020

January 28th, 2020 · · Campaigns, Policy Updates No comments - Tags: ,

The US State Department hosted one consultation for the upcoming Universal Periodic Review on January 27, 2020 at the Harry S. Truman Building in Washington, D.C. This occurred one week before the United States will finalize its report to the United Nations. If you were unable to attend, and many of our partner groups could not, then submit your thoughts on the human rights record of the United States and what the State Department should say to USUPR2020@state.gov. Last year a coalition of sex worker rights organizations submitted a national report to the United Nations for the Universal Periodic Review in May 2020. Below is a summary of BPPP’s statement that was presented in person by our coordinator yesterday.

The Best Practices Policy Project, an organization that is dedicated to supporting the health and rights of sex workers and related communities in the United States, will present about issues emerging from our coalition report submitted for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). We would like to note that many of our partner organizations who worked on and contributed to our coalition UPR report could not access this consultation process. They are the Desiree Alliance, the Outlaw Project and the Black Sex Worker Collective. We cannot make up for their absence. However, we will raise some of our key concerns. We are pleased to see that our colleague from the New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance is able to be here today.


Throughout the U.S. and at the borders criminalization and stigmatization of sex workers, and those profiled as such, prevents them from exercising their human rights and has directly resulted in rights violations by state agents. The current U.S. administration is violating the rights of immigrants as many others here have noted today. We would like to provide some information about this that has not yet been stated. The intersection of this with anti-prostitution policies has resulted in the death of migrant sex workers at the hands of state agents, the incarceration of migrant sex workers in rights violating detention centers, and deportation. The U.S. government has engaged in a sustained campaign to roll back the rights of transgender people. Transgender people are assumed to be sex workers by the authorities, leading to incarceration and immigration detention, where they are harmed, highly vulnerable to sexual assaults, and killed. We bring to your attention to the cases of Roxsana Hernandez, a transgender woman who died while seeking asylum in 2018, Layleen Polanco, an Afro-Latina transgender woman died in solitary confinement in 2019, and Yang Song, an immigrant woman who died as a result of a NYC anti-prostitution raid in 2017. In a previous UPR the United States accepted recommendation 86 that required that the US “…“[u]ndertake awareness‐raising campaigns for combating stereotypes and violence against [LGBT people] and ensure access to public services, paying attention to the special vulnerability of sex workers to violence and human rights abuses.” The US has passed new laws since the last UPR, such as the 2018 Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA). This legislation limits the sharing of vital safety information for sex workers online and causes economic harm and social marginalization, including violating the right to freedom of association and assembly that have been affirmed at the US Supreme Court. This new law is undermining HIV programs, a serious situation given that the needs of sex workers are not adequately addressed in the US.


Our question is as follows, and we hope that the State Department will respond to this in the forthcoming report: “what has the United States done to stop rights violations against sex workers and to reduce vulnerability to violence of sex workers and communities often affected by violations due to being assumed to be sex workers?” This question also relates to the acceptance of UPR recommendation 86 in 2011.