What Sex Workers Want from Kamala Harris

Among them is SWOP Behind Bars, a branch of the national grassroots nonprofit Sex Workers Outreach Project-USA (SWOP-USA). SWOP Behind Bars provides legal and practical support for incarcerated sex workers and survivors of trafficking, sexual assault, intimate partner violence and forced criminality.

No matter which of the candidates ends up sitting in the Oval Office, it is a stark truth that the workers and survivors these organizations represent will remain at risk of exploitation, abuse and worse. But in a July 30 open letter to Harris signed by sex workers and by advocates for sex workers and trafficking victims, SWOP Behind Bars has laid out its vision of how a Harris administration could rein in the widespread repression, criminalization and dangers that sex workers face.

With an eye towards harmful past positions by Harris, the organizers wrote, ​“There are some concerns we need to address before stepping into the voting booth and checking the box next to your name.”

First among their concerns was Harris’ support as a senator for a package of disastrous laws passed in 2018 under Trump: the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, which together are colloquially known as SESTA-FOSTA. While the laws were intended to fight sex trafficking, extensive research as well as sex workers’ lived experiences have shown that SESTA-FOSTA actually hurt the people it aimed to help.

SESTA-FOSTA changed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 to allow internet platforms to be held responsible for hosting content advertising sexual services. As a result, websites like Backpage and CraigslistPersonals, which sex workers had long used to advertise, were yanked offline. This was disastrous because the ban on these pages didn’t just limit advertising, but also curtailed a main avenue sex workers used to share information, privately screen clients and work for themselves.

“The ability to work independently online had reduced the need for sex workers in dire financial situations to work on the streets or through an exploitative agency or third party,” independent researchers Danielle Blunt and Ariel Wolf explained in their 2020 report, ​“Erased: The impact of FOSTA-SESTA and the removal of Backpage on sex workers,” published in the Anti-Trafficking Review. ​“Not only did working online previously allow sex workers to mitigate harms, it provided some degree of financial security.”

After the ban, sex workers were forced to find alternative means of communicating with clients and planning meetings, including working with pimps who sought to control and exploit them. Without the ability to screen out potentially dangerous clients, workers were left to arrange meetings however they could, cross their fingers and hope to make it home from work unscathed. As one survey respondent told Blunt and Wolf, ​“Everything I know about being safe in sex work is because I was able to speak to other sex workers online.”

SESTA-FOSTA changed that, and Harris’ work as California’s top prosecutor was a major precursor. Harris went after Back​page​.com with gusto, arresting the CEO on pimping charges in 2016. (The charges were later dismissed.) Her lawsuit, along with another in Texas and a parallel Senate investigation, led to federal charges and the site’s shutdown by the FBI in 2018.

In the meantime Backpage had become the boogeyman targeted by SESTA/FOSTA when the bills were introduced in 2017. As a senator, Harris was not publicly involved in drafting or advancing the bills, instead reportedly handling behind-the-scenes negotiations with opposition in the tech industry. Eventually, she signed on as a co-sponsor of the Senate version, SESTA.

The senator may have believed her intentions were good, but the impact SESTA/FOSTA has had on sex workers is devastating — and there is no evidence that it has made a meaningful dent in reducing sex trafficking.

“SESTA has inadvertently encouraged the abuse it sought to eradicate, as often happens when labor regulations are passed without consulting workers on how to best combat exploitation,” declares the national organization Decriminalize Sex Work on its website. ​“If this law has had an effect on rates of trafficking in the United States, it has evidently only increased the risks sex workers and trafficking survivors face.”

The SWOP Behind Bars letter brought up another disappointing episode from Harris’ tenure as California’s top cop, when she allegedly ignored rampant sexual abuse committed by members of the Oakland Police Department against an underage sex worker. In 2016, a teenage girl using the pseudonym Celeste Guap went public about her treatment at the hands of dozens of Oakland police officers, who knew she was a sex worker and took advantage of their position to initiate sexual contact. Her attorney repeatedly appealed to the attorney general’s office, asking that they intervene in the complex case, but no response came.

“Celeste had tried to report multiple police officers, some of whom she claimed had sex with her while she was a minor and you did not take enough action to investigate or hold the involved officers accountable,” SWOP Behind Bars wrote. ​“The case is a significant example of the potential for abuse of power and the importance of accountability and transparency in policing but you have never made a public statement about it and that is troubling.”

The organization’s letter ends with a list of requests for a possible future Harris administration to consider.

At the top of the list is a clear call for the full decriminalization of sex work. ​“Consensual adult sex work and trafficking are distinct issues,” the letter explains. ​“The criminalization of adult consensual sex work pushes us into the shadows, making us vulnerable to violence, exploitation, and human rights abuses.”

In a 2019 interview with The Root, Harris was asked point-blank if she supported decriminalization. ​“I think so; I do,” she replied. ​“When we are talking about consenting adults, I think that, yes, we should really consider that we can’t criminalize consensual behavior as long as no one is being harmed. But at the point that anyone’s being harmed or exploited, we have to understand that that’s a different matter.”

The statement showed a marked evolution from 2008, when Harris served as district attorney of San Francisco and dismissed the idea of decriminalization, saying it would welcome ​“pimps and prostitutes to come on into” the city. So perhaps here is the potential for movement toward full decriminalization and away from a position more in line with the so-called Nordic model, which treats sex workers’ clients as criminals. In a sweeping 2016 report, Amnesty International found that Norway’s criminalization of clients seven years prior had led to policing of sex workers and an ​“increased risk of stigmatization, marginalization and violence.”

The letter’s other asks concern improving sex workers’ working conditions and addressing the risks they face from clients, law enforcement, stigma and discrimination. Protection from violence and exploitation is a major priority, and SWOP Behind Bars calls for stronger laws to hold abusers accountable and proper training for law enforcement to improve their behavior towards the community and create safe, respectful avenues for reporting abuse.

The same stigma that complicates sex workers’ relationship with the police — who are (in theory) meant to offer protection — can also follow sex workers into healthcare and social services settings, especially for those who have multiple marginalized identities. ​“We need policies that ensure our right to health, including non-judgmental and inclusive healthcare, mental health support, and social services,” the group writes. ​“This includes addressing the specific needs of transgender sex workers, who face additional layers of marginalization and health disparities.”

In addition, the group zooms out to emphasize the need for economic justice and labor rights, noting that many sex workers become involved in the industry due to a lack of economic opportunities and systemic inequalities, and calling on Harris to address those root causes. ​“Recognizing sex work as legitimate labor also means ensuring our labor rights, including the right to organize, unionize, and work under fair conditions,” the letter adds, wisely tying in sex wokers’ lack of representation in the organized labor movement with their broader exploitation.

While many sex workers are classified as independent contractors and thus ineligible to formally unionize, some not only can but have organized themselves for collective bargaining. In the 1990s, when workers at the Lusty Lady in San Francisco successfully unionized with SEIU, supported by the National Organization for Women and a strong local sex work advocacy community, they were outliers. Other sex workers union campaigns around the country fell victim to successful union-busting. But workers have won change through other kinds of organizing, including legislative advocacy; just this March in Washington, the advocacy group Strippers Are Workers won a Strippers’ Bill of Rights that creates necessary new protections for the state’s dancers. And the recent unionization wave has swept up the sex work industry: As of 2023, the Star Garden in Hollywood, California, and Portland, Oregon’s Magic Tavern are now represented by the Actors’ Equity Association, a 50,000-member union for live performance professionals.

Finally, the letter asks that Harris do something to address the whorephobia, harmful narratives and overall stigma that sex workers face, noting that dehumanizing language and policies increase the likelihood that these workers will experience discrimination and violence. 

Any administration or politician who professes to care about vulnerable workers must make it clear that they include sex workers in that category — and listen to them when they explain what their community needs. The presidential bully pulpit is a powerful tool, and SWOP Behind Bars is hoping for a future in which a President Harris uses it to recognize their work as legitimate and emphasize respect and dignity that all workers deserve. As they wrote, ​“We need to know that our lives matter to you and that you are committed to learning from past missteps.”

Given Harris’ record, it wouldn’t be surprising for advocates to come in hot, but SWOP Behind Bars’ communique maintains a respectful, even friendly tone — while still reminding Harris that millions of sex workers will be watching closely as Election Day draws nearer.

“There are an estimated 2 million criminalized sex workers and another estimated 2 million online content creators (That’s a lot of votes!) who need to know that you are going to be inclusive and respectful regarding their safety and dignity,” the letter reminds her. ​“We see you coming so close to supporting our bodily autonomy — but we’d like to help you frame your narrative to ensure we make forward progress on this very important issue.”

Thanks to the public-facing work of organizations like SWOP Behind Bars, SWOP-USA and others, no one — even someone working on a high-profile presidential campaign — can pretend they haven’t gotten the message. Now it’s on Harris to prove that she cares enough to listen.