Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

We focused on restoring agency and sense of power to sex workers. If they can avoid the abuser, they already feel empowered. We learned about how to emotionally manipulate abusers and police to reduce harm. For example, make the police feel like we appreciate their protection and make thieves feel like you understand their story and are on their side. Workers being robbed would say, “I know you’re in desperate need. Don’t worry. I understand. Here, take the money!” and give him one stash of money. While doing that, she would tell him a sob story about how she hoped he would just leave her enough money to get home and her ID—all while noticing all his features so she could later report him. He thinks it’s all your money and sometimes feels bad for you. Sex workers also learned to negotiate with a rapist to use a condom or, if not, to reduce injury, or get him to cum quickly and leave. The most important thing though isn’t how these self-defense strategies affect the aggressor. It’s that this makes the sex worker feel powerful. Facing a rapist or thief can be mentally destroying, but this approach gives agency back to the sex worker, gives the sex worker the time to collect evidence, and connects the sex worker to the aggressor’s humanity. This is so important for building resilience. How you manage your agency in crisis really affects how much you are traumatized. To deal with crisis, you need to manage yourself, manage the situation, manage the aggressor. This is why “trau...