Audacia Ray's Blog, page 36
February 21, 2012
"As a part of supporting Aboriginal People in sex work - remote and rural Aboriginal communities need..."
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Indigenous People In The Sex Trade: Our Lives, Our Bodies, Our Realities (statement)
Required reading.
February 15, 2012
The Issue: In New York, as in other places, condoms are often...
The Issue: In New York, as in other places, condoms are often confiscated by police and then used as evidence of intent to engage in prostitution. This spring, people in the sex industry and our allies are putting pressure on elected officials in Albany to demand that they pass Bill S1289/A1008, which would stop police from using condoms as evidence of prostitution.
The Red Umbrella Project is offering a free, full day legislative advocacy training on Sunday, April 15 at the Urban Justice Center (123 William Street, 16th floor.) in NYC to prepare for our Albany lobby day on Tuesday, April 17. Learn from a veteran staffer of the state legislature how bills become law, how to monitor bills as they make their way through the process, and how to talk to your elected representatives about your concerns. We will be joined by NY State Assemblymember Richard Gottfried for an hour during the training. The training is from 10 am to 4 pm, and lunch, snacks, and beverages will be provided.
To RSVP or ask questions, email audaciaray@redumbrellaproject.org. We have limited capacity for both the training and the free lobby day bus, so please RSVP early. We highly encourage you to attend both the training and the lobby day, however, it's not required to do both. Please indicate in your RSVP if you plan on attending both or just one.
Also, if you would like to distribute postcards to promote this training in your community, let me know and I can get some to you.
February 14, 2012
February 13, 2012
Things I Once Valued But Now Think Are Massively Problematic
I haven't blogged step-by-step about all the things that have changed in my brain over the last couple of years with regards to the work and activism I've been involved with for the last decade. But things have shifted a lot for me, and hopefully also in how I do my work (forget about intentions, its all about actions). Lists are hip on the internets these days, right? So here's some things:
Feminism: Once upon a time, "feminist" was my main self-identifier, the word I held onto above all else. Now I feel sort of embarrassed to admit that. Yeah, and don't tell me that feminism can be a good thing! I know that parts of it can. But when people whom your ideology fucks over -in the case of feminism, especially people of color and transgender women- tell you that your ideology is fucking them over, you should shut up and listen. And excuses about intentions are still excuses. Feminists largely remain cissupremacist, racist, classist, and too obsessed with my next point…
The Idea of Choice: the concept of "choice," as in being free to choose something or other, is a fallacy that rests on middle class ideals. The choices of most people are not free, they are constrained by something, shaped by the circumstances of one's life. (But this is slippery thing: to say that there's no such thing as choice is close to saying that when people do things that others may regard as a bad idea, they were duped into doing them, and perhaps aren't responsible.)
Proving That I Like the Sex Industry and It Hasn't Done Me Any Harm: I used to try really hard to prove that I was a healthy, well-adjusted person and sexual being both before and after working in the sex industry. Neither is really true, and I still don't entirely understand the lines of causation and correlation. But it used to be really important to me to prove my wellness, which I saw as defending myself and maybe even defending the sex industry. The two narrative options available for people to tell stories about their experiences in the sex industry are: "I was a happy hooker!" vs "The sex industry ruined me." So I opted for the first, even though it didn't fit. But it sure sounded better. The reality is much more complex. I think that space for these realities is starting to be created, and I hope I am part of creating those spaces, and making it possible for people of many experiences to talk about their stuff.
Sex Positivity: So, I like sex. I like it more now than I have in years and years. And although a lot of sex positive culture has queer rhetoric all over it, its become clear to me that so much of sex positivity centers around unchecked, gleeful privilege. I'm only interested in a sex positivity that has a racial and economic justice frame, and that's most definitely not what I'm seeing.
There's definitely a lot of intersection among the shifting, mostly that I've gained a different kind of race, class, and gender analysis and have started to take a harder look at things that were once precious to me. Which is, you know, hard. But proceeding and doing things as I've built them because that's how I've built them is shitty, if the foundations are corroded with racism, classism, and cissexism - as I've found they are.
"Using decoys armed with remote audio systems and aided by "arrest teams" and undercover officers,..."
Using decoys armed with remote audio systems and aided by "arrest teams" and undercover officers, the Police Department, over three days last month, made 195 arrests and seized 55 vehicles in what police officials called Operation Losing Proposition.
An analysis of the arrest data provided by the police shows that the crackdown spanned all five boroughs, on dozens of street corners, in 28 precincts. …
The concept behind Operation Losing Proposition has been a staple of police work for decades. But this time, as it was carried out Jan. 12 through Jan. 14, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly sought to have officers focus not on supply but on demand, by arresting the clients, or johns.
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"It is not a sound policy," said Audacia Ray, 31, director of the Red Umbrella Project, a nonprofit group that assists prostitutes, who believes the street trade will never fade. "I don't think we'll see a big drop in prostitution because of these arrests."
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As Other Crimes Recede, Police Crack Down on Street Prostitution - NYTimes.com
1. I didn't copy it here because I don't want to keep the language in circulation, but the lede of this article is horribly transmisogynistic and refers to "men dressed as women" and also creates a lurid picture of street work. I emailed Al Baker, the reporter who interviewed me, first thing this morning after I read the piece, but have not gotten a response and the lede is still the same. It's important to speak out about this horrendous "reporting" on transgender women. I encourage folks to email him: albaker@nytimes.com and email the corrections address too: nytimes@nytimes.com. The best thing to do is critique the language they used and offer the correct terminology.
2. All the stuff I said about structural economic injustice, of course, didn't make it into this piece, just the quote above. Specifically, when I was asked about why police stings don't reduce prostitution, I said that its largely because the arrests don't change the economic situations of the people doing the work. Sex work is treated as a crime, and we Americans loooove arresting criminals, but the supply side of the sex industry is driven by economic imperatives. Sex work that is done by choice or circumstance is work, and when you arrest sex workers you arrest workers trying to make ends meet, just for doing their job. Furthermore, if you arrest people who are trafficked into the sex industry and don't want to be there, you're just further traumatizing them - and often not even getting them services!
February 9, 2012
"I was told multiple times by editors at another women's mag to feed a source a quote—as in, "Can you..."
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Their So-Called Journalism, or What I Saw at the Women's Mags | Tooth and Claw
I am "glad" (I guess?) to see that this happens regularly on stories that are not about the sex industry or other controversial issues in which interviewees have little social cache. Oy.
I'm authentically glad, though, that a journalist is writing about these ethics violations.
February 8, 2012
harmreduction:
Great little resource from the ACLU to help us...
Great little resource from the ACLU to help us learn about our rights when stopped by law enforcement. View sections and download the entire booklet: Know Your Rights When Encountering Law Enforcement
Sex workers: deadline for submitting Intl AIDS Con abstracts is Feb 15
Do you want to present at 2012 International AIDS Conference in DC this July? Would you like to co-present with other sex workers? Do you want to present but do not want to do an entire workshop? Are you interested in on criminalization and HIV, sex work and trafficking, HIV medical model, prevention treatment and care services for sex workers, sex worker research or something else, reach out to other sex workers and activists? Please join http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/2012IACsexworkerorganizing/ to talk with other sex work activists and find a way to collaborate (I'm one of the mods of the list). The majority of international sex workers will be unable to attend the country due to US travel ban (more here). So we need as many people as possible to propose sex worker workshops.
The deadline for proposals is February 15. The main conference has several different tracks of scientific and medical presentations, and the Global Village (which is free to get into) activities include sessions, forums, oral presentations, awards, networking zones, NGO exhibition booths, marketplace booths, art exhibits, film screenings and performing arts. The Red Umbrella Project will be putting in a proposal for the Global Village. You should consider it, too!
February 1, 2012
The next Red Umbrella Diaries storytelling event is themed Love...
The next Red Umbrella Diaries storytelling event is themed Love and Riches – February 2
Starring Sinnamon Love, Tina Horn, anna saini, ben rosenberg, and the Incredible, Edible Akynos.
Tomorrow night!
