Audacia Ray's Blog, page 29
February 8, 2013
Better Than You: incidentally, I do know how to cry without ruining my mascara though...
yesterday we actual sex workers were circulating information about an ugly mug while that whole Feministe discussion was going on and I was just thinking, you know, this shit is all theory to you fuckers. You sit online and TALK about it and project all your rage and indignance on us hookers for not saying the things you think we should say, or just telling us what we should say, or concern trolling about what you think our issues are, but, you know, we’re actually doing the fucking work and dealing with all the consequences of it. while you talk about it. and talk about it. and only just ever talk about it.
YES.
My words were misrepresented on Feministe in one of these posts. And I feel like maybe I should respond… but I have been busy doing actual organizing work instead. Being required to respond to the same internet-bubble arguments over and over feels, I dunno… kinda coercive.
February 6, 2013
everythingbutharleyquinn:
okay I made the whorephobia bingo...
okay I made the whorephobia bingo sheet, which is for when we are having those conversations with non sex workers and we tell them they don’t have the right to talk about sex work and they contrive numerous reasons to liken their experience to ours so they get a free pass… including several variations on implying/claiming they might be or were once a sex worker.
February 3, 2013
In winter 2013 Red Umbrella Project is offering a five-week...
In winter 2013 Red Umbrella Project is offering a five-week improv storytelling workshop series in collaboration with the Housing Works’ Trans Evening Program in NYC.
Want to find out what all the fuss is about improv? Interested in getting creative and practicing some performance skills? Would you like to try storytelling in front of an audience of your peers? Our improv and storytelling workshops might be for you.
This free workshop will meet at the Housing Works Building, 320 West 13th street, in the Cafeteria on the 4th floor. Each session will meet on Fridays, from 3:30-5 pm – and everyone is welcome to stay for a meal afterward. We will meet February 8, February 15, February 22, March 1, and March 8. Workshops are open to trans and gender non-conforming people, and there is no prior experience with theater or performance needed. You can come to as many or as few of the sessions as you want.
This workshop is facilitated by Ceyenne Doroshow (author of Cooking in Heels: A Memoir Cookbook and trans activist) along with the combined efforts of Nicolette Dixon, Leah Page, and Amy Sawyers (Masters students in the CUNY Applied Theatre program).
Have questions? Talk to Kate Franza at 212-645-8111 (x4116) or k.franza@housingworks.org or get in touch with the Red Umbrella Project at 347-927-3867 or workshops@redumbrellaproject.org
We will be offering more storytelling workshops in the future, as well as an 8-week memoir writing workshop this spring, if this session isn’t the right fit for you. Please join our mailing list to get more information.
January 25, 2013
"Media and press who: hound you for interviews, are only seeking tragic or titillating answers to..."
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Sex Worker Problem #426 (via sexworkerproblems)
This sentence = pretty much why Red Umbrella Project (media trainings, creative programs, advocacy, making things that rep sex worker voices in the world) exists.
Related and coming soon - our 35 page long guide to media tools and tactics.
January 23, 2013
Seeking performers for March 7th Red Umbrella Diaries event in NYC
Pretty Woman REdux: REmixing, REviving and REclaiming mainstream media images of sex work:
Join us to perform as part of the March 7th Red Umbrella Diaries line-up! Get in touch to introduce yourself and let us know you’re interested in performing!
re·dux
/rēˈdəks/
Adjective
Brought back; resurgant
Tired of Pretty Woman - skinny, white, CIS - Julia Roberts hereby named by pop culture as the only image of a sex worker? Want to have words with Nicki over her song Stupid Ho? Or do you imagine queering T-Pain’s love song to a stripper? Are you POC, poor, trans, queer and/or an identity that pop culture tries to silence? Do you fantasize about making media that represents YOU?
Welcome to the world of Pretty Woman Redux! For the March edition of Red Umbrella Diaries we’re messing with music, film, television and all forms of art to multi-channel stereotypes, flip the script and scramble stigma. Red Umbrella Diaries is a monthly story telling series that creates a space for people with experience in the sex industry to tell their stories. It takes at Happy Ending, a former massage parlor cum (pun intended) Lower Eastside bar, on the first Thursday of every month. Red Umbrella Diaries in March is an opportunity for those of us who are often shut out of the mainstream to recenter ourselves in existing images of sex workers and our work.
Do you have an idea for a piece that runs about 10min? Or are you sparked to create something on this theme, even though you don’t know what it is yet? Is there in a feeling in your gut that Pretty Woman Redux needs your voice?
Speak out! Get in touch with guest curator Anna Saini by Thursday January 24th, with your proposal. Email her at anna[at]redumbrellaproject[dot]org with a pitch for your performance piece or to tell me why you feel passionately about collaborating on this project.
It doesn’t have to be fully fleshed out or super formal. All it needs to do is convince her a) you will contribute something special and important b) you are willing to submit a draft and make revisions based on feedback, and c) you are available to attend the performance on March 7th as well as a brief tech rehearsal on an evening the week prior to the show and a brief run through two weeks prior to the show. The dates of rehearsal and run through are TBD but the whole thing will take less than an hour and we will take into account the schedules of each performer.
This gig is unpaid so we hope to work with folks who are interested in collectively making something extremely rad and awesome. In returnwe will nurture a) an encouraging and supportive space to create and refine your art that you will likely perform to packed or near-packed audience in a legit NYC venue b) a process that limits the burden on you to have to coordinate anything c) a final product that is an off-the-hook collab of bad asses. It’s also a great experience to add to an artist resume and I’m willing to provide a professional reference in the future if you would like.
Hope to hear from you. And please distribute widely to your cool peoples! Remember the submission deadlines is coming up fast so drop Anna an email anna[at]redumbrellaproject[dot]org by Thursday January 24th even if it’s just to let her know you’re interested!
January 18, 2013
Today I interviewed some amazing people for an open position at...
Today I interviewed some amazing people for an open position at Red Umbrella Project. Then my beagle Jake sat in the interview chair. Think he’s qualified?
January 14, 2013
harlequinfairy:
thatthirstyniggafromclass:
misconceptions...
misconceptions about strippers.
pussy preach more sense than the fuckin government.
January 6, 2013
gadaboutgreen:
Stop-and-Frisk Targets Transgender Community...
Stop-and-Frisk Targets Transgender Community Unfairly, Study Says
QUEENS — Jackson Heights’ transgendercommunity has been targeted by police for stop-and-frisks at more than double the rate of the rest of the neighborhood’s population, a new study says.
Compounding the issue in the area, which is heavily immigrant, is the fact that the controversial practice largely targets minorities.
“Transgender and gender nonconforming people of color are particularly vulnerable due to their visibility,” the study said. “In order to combat police misconduct, there must be legislation and policies that minimize the risk of these kinds of abuse occurring in our communities.”
Of the 305 residents contacted over the past year for the study, conducted by Make the Road New York and the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence project, 167 listed themselves as either lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or “other.”
Of that group, 51 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual or other respondents said they were stopped by police, a third of whom said they were also physically harassed.
But for the 69 transgender people surveyed, those numbers were higher, the study showed. Fifty-nine percent of transgender respondents said they were stopped by police, almost half of whom said they were physically harassed.
For non LGBTQ respondents, the rate of being stopped and frisked was less than half — 28 percent.
Some transgender people said they were accused of being sex workers, according to speakers on Tuesday at Make the Road’s Jackson Heights office.
A transgender woman who identified herself on Tuesday as Cristina — speakers remained mostly anonymous except for their first name — claimed in a translated statement that she was leaving a club in Jackson Heights with her boyfriend when a group of undercover police officers frisked them both.
When they found condoms in her bra, she said, they accused her of being a sex worker.
“After seeing the condoms they asked if I was sure that I was not working,” she said. “I told them that I was with my boyfriend and they said that he was not my boyfriend.”
Activists like Make the Road say the practice of using condoms as evidence of sex work has been used to demonize transgender people, and point to legislation currently in the State Senate — a “No Condoms as Evidence Bill” sponsored by 17 Democratic state senators — as a step in the right direction.
The study outlined a number of other recommendations, including encouraging the use of new NYPD patrol guidelines announced in June to address alleged transgender discrimination, and the passage of the Community Safety Act in the City Council.
The council bill, sponsored by 30 council members, went to the Committee on Public Safety on Oct. 10. It would require officers to provide their name and rank, explain the reasons why they’re stopping someone and set up a new Inspector General’s office to monitor the program.
One of the Community Safety Act sponsors, Jackson Heights Councilman Daniel Dromm, said that the police should do more to build trust, and less to alienate those who live in the community.
“It’s an issue of racial profiling, and an issue of LGBTQ profiling with special emphasis on our transgendered community,” Dromm said. “The majority of LGBTQ people who have come to this neighborhood, or who live in this neighborhood, in many instances have come to live here because of persecution in their own country only to face further persecution in this country.”
The 115th precinct, which covers Jackson Heights, had one of the highest incidences of force used by cops in the city last year, according to a report in the New York Times. Officers from the precinct also made 1,209 stops in the second quarter of 2012, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union. That number was down from the previous quarter, in which 1,737 people were stopped.
The 115th precinct directed questions to the NYPD’s public information office, which did not immediately respond. The 110th precinct, which covers the nearby neighborhoods of Corona and Elmhurst, did not immediately return calls.
Make the Road organizer Karina Claudio-Betancourt said she hopes the study can be the starting-point of a conversation with the precincts.
“We’ve reached out to them, and they’re aware this report is out,” Claudio-Betancourt said. “We want to engage in a more thorough conversation with them, specifically about the demands that are more directed towards the precincts.”
The study focused more broadly on the entire LGBTQ community in Jackson Heights. A gay man named Enrique told a story about a night out with his boyfriend that ended at the Junction Boulevard 7 train station.
When Enrique realized the train was coming, he grabbed his partner’s hand and gave him a kiss on the lips. As soon as they finished kissing, he said, he saw a police officer walk toward them.
“The officer asked my boyfriend if he thought what we were doing was a good example for the city,” Enrique said in a translated statement. “I quickly passed my ID to the officer, but Freddy did not have his ID.”
Enrique claims that the police then cuffed Freddy, allegedly calling his partner an anti-gay slur and putting him in a van. The outcome of the case was not clear.
“I kept trying to find out why they had arrested Freddy, but the police only kept threatening me that if I did not leave I would be arrested too,” Enrique said. “The only reason we can think of for Freddy’s arrest is the fact that we are gay and that we kissed in public.”
A lawyer for Make the Road said the organization encouraged those who say they’ve been harassed by police to contact the Civilian Complaint Review Board, a civilian agency in charge of investigating cases of stop-and-frisk, though she said some have found the process fruitless.
“There is a level of suspicion in the community, and dissatisfaction that the process is ineffective,” the lawyer, Marika Dias, said.
A spokesman from the CCRB said the agency does not keep complaint records based on sexual orientation, which he said would include transgendered people.
There are no immediate plans to take legal action against the city, Dias said, but she and Claudio-Betancourt both said that they hoped the study would spur broader change.
“Individual cases don’t resolve a systematic problem,” Claudio-Betancourt said. “That can only be done through legislation.”
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
January 3, 2013
RedUP hiring in NYC - PT advocacy + media job for sex worker rights
Program Officer, Speak Up! Media and Advocacy Program – Part Time
Red Umbrella Project (RedUP) is seeking a part time Program Officer to help run our media and advocacy program from February 1 to June 30, 2013.
The Red Umbrella Project (RedUP) amplifies the voices of people who have done transactional sex, through media, storytelling, and advocacy programs. We are a small and feisty community-based organization in New York that is peer-led and works to ensure that cisgender and transgender women, cisgender and transgender men, LGBQ people, people who are parents, people of color, people struggling with addictions, people with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities, and people with complex experiences of the sex trade have space to share their experiences with a wide audience, fight discrimination, and use this platform to advocate for change.
Responsibilities
The PO will:
Play a key role in organizing around the “no condoms as evidence bill” in New York State, including participation in coalition meetings and helping to organize a lobby day in Albany this spring
Provide programmatic and logistical support for 2-4 advocacy trainings and 1-2 weekend long media trainings this spring
Do outreach to colleague organizations and individuals involved in/impacted by the sex trades to encourage and support their participation in advocacy and media
Collaborate with RedUP team members on other advocacy projects and campaigns, TBD
Promote RedUP programs and advocacy iniatives online using social media and help to manage press requests centered around our advocacy work
Skills and Attributes
We are looking to hire someone who is a strategic thinker, a strong communicator, and has some experience doing community organizing (informal and unpaid experience welcome!).
We will prioritize hiring someone with experiences in the sex trades. There is no minimum education requirement for the job.
The ideal candidate would have experience with social media and familiarity with some or all of the following: ConstantContact, WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, Google Docs, Workflowy. An ideal candidate would also have some experience dealing with media (writing press releases, managing relationships with journalists).
Job Specifics
The job is part time with a salary paid on a biweekly basis. You will be working approximately 10 hours per week (some weeks more and some weeks less). Hours are flexible but will require some daytime available and the ability to attend meetings on behalf of RedUP, as well as the ability to travel to Albany as needed (at least once). Some of the work can be done remotely but the PO will also work some hours at the RedUP (home-based) office in Brooklyn, preferably on Fridays. The application deadline is Sunday, January 13th at 9 pm EST.
Application
To apply, email RedUP executive director Audacia Ray at audaciaray@redumbrellaproject.org. If you don’t have a traditional resume, don’t make one just for this job – and don’t let it hold you back from applying. However, if you have a resume, feel free to send it. Please address the following in your note:
Why you’re interested in working with the Red Umbrella Project and any interactions you’ve had with our programs.
Information about your experiences with the sex trades (this will remain strictly confidential).
An example that demonstrates your interest and ability in working with one or more of the following: media, advocacy, social media, community organizing, people in the sex trades.
Links to any social media that you use – Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc
If you have questions before submitting your application, please email the above address and ask them!
Application deadline: Sunday, January 13th at 9 pm EST. We will conduct phone and/or in-person interviews between January 14th and 25th and the new PO will start the week of February 4th.
December 17, 2012
housingworksbookstore:
newsweek:
A former Craigslist...
A former Craigslist call-girl-turned-schoolteacher-turned-writer describes the world that awaits people who leave the sex trade:
After working in the sex trade for around seven years, I met a guy I sort of liked. He had a major problem with what I did for money. Getting to know him stopped as soon as it started. That’s when I knew: I no longer wanted to sell “the girlfriend experience,” as we called it in the industry, in other words, selling sex but acting as if the guy and I were on a “real” date. I wanted to be an actual girlfriend. I wanted to use the academic degrees I had worked hard to earn. For me, I realized, sex work and the “straight” life couldn’t mix. I wanted out—just like so many critics of the sex industry would advise.
That wasn’t so easy. I faced a constellation of challenges that made transitioning out of the trade incredibly difficult. It took me multiple tries to leave sex work for good. When I left in 2007 to become a public-school teacher in New York City, I ultimately lost my job after blogging about my past. Today, in honor of International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, I’m here to tell you about another kind of indignity sex workers face—not on the job, but when they leave the trade.
Whether sex workers love, hate, or feel ambivalent toward their job, most don’t intend to work in the industry forever. But the complicated reasons people enter the trade—including but not limited to economic factors—are the same complicated factors that make it difficult to leave.
Melissa rules, and also this photo is totally at Housing Works while we still had the A-Frames and the cafe was under construction. Huzzah.
