Respectability Politics Round Table

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Cyd Nova (excerpt): How this plays out at the clinic is a little more nuanced—we are a free health clinic and there is no right or wrong way to be a whore to get services as long as you don’t bring a gun into the clinic or something—but the ways that it plays out in staffing is a little more complicated. Many of our participants are homeless or transiently housed and work in a variety of street economies, while many of our staff could be perceived as people who would have access to doing privileged types of sex work. We aim to be as horizontal in power dynamics and as peer run as possible, but here we are. And it’s complicated—people who have more access to resources are able to gain work experience, volunteer, and be a reliable employee because they aren’t struggling to get their basic needs met all the time—but what it can look like at the end of the day is the people who are providing care and are the voice of the clinic are “one type of sex worker” while the people who receive services are predominantly another. This is something we are actively trying to challenge, but there isn’t an easy answer.

Melissa Gira Grant (excerpt): When sex workers wanted to volunteer there who had never come to clinic themselves, staff would recommend that they come to clinic first before volunteering.

“Coming to clinic” can mean a lot: not just getting an STI or HIV test, but a massage or acupuncture, going through the clothes closet, hanging out and watching a movie, getting hormones, etc. The idea was, we wanted to close the distance even among sex workers between the people who want to help and the people who get help. We could all use services. We could all use care. There’s nothing wrong in asking for that. But it could be tough, because some of us do have this self-image of being the kind of sex workers who don’t “need” anything, that harm reduction or self-care is for some other sex workers. I get not wanting to take what are unfortunately all-too-scarce resources from those who you think might need them more, but there’s something powerful about asking for the help you need. You can call it mutual aid, or community building, or just taking care of each other. It’s so important.

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“Who Gets Left Out: Respectability Politics Round Table, Part One” Tits and Sass, September 30, 2013

Issues I wish had been talked about more when I was volunteering in needle exchange and harm reduction.

I particularly like the idea of having people who want to volunteer, participate in the services from the other side first.