Direct services & Mutual aid
Outreach stroll
Each month we distribute condoms, lube, Narcan, cash, water, snacks, hygiene products, and beauty supplies to street based sex workers in the Los Angeles area.
Peer support group
SWOPLA hosts a safe virtual space where sex workers come together for emotional support twice a month. These meetings are facilitated by a sex worker peer leader and center empowerment, safety, healing and wellness within our community.
Community Building
Public meetings
Every month, SWOPLA gives updates on our organization’s past and current activities, discusses future projects, and brings attention to current events and legislation that affect sex workers. Involving both community organizing and political education, much of our decision making as an organization occurs through votes conducted at these meetings.
Social events
Our many past events have ranged from panels and workshops to dance parties and potlucks. While the tenor of the gatherings vary, they are always focused on bringing sex workers together to raise awareness of the current and historical challenges that affect our community. Last year, our online book club read and discussed works written by sex workers, such as We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival, and we threw “Hump Day for the Hoes”–a virtual zine launch and concert–for International Whore’s Day 2021. This past May, we hosted “Vision for LA,” a candidates forum featuring local candidates for office answering questions from SWOPLA members.
Research, Education, Political action
Research partnerships
We serve as the community partner for established research institutions like UCLA and The California HIV/AIDS Policy and Research Center. By taking part in these projects that study the impacts of criminalization on sex workers, SWOPLA both ensures that the studies are done ethically, and gains access to the results of this research for future use in advocacy work aimed at changing public policy. Recently we have been engaged in a study analyzing the impacts of SB 233, a California bill which SWOPLA supported which made it so that condoms could no longer be used as evidence that someone committed a sex work-related offense.
Public policy development
As a member of DecrimSexWork California coalition, SWOPLA works with other sex worker-led organizations and allies across the state to advocate for our rights through the legislative process. Our biggest and most recent success was passing SB 357 in California. SB 357 repeals the law that criminalizes loitering with intent to commit prostitution in California, which disproportionately affected Black and Brown people, and transgender people. SB 357 not only repeals the old law, but it also provides a way for people to get any charges under it dismissed or cleared from their records.