It’s been five years since the historic anti-FOSTA/SESTA Whore’s Day March brought over 300 sex workers and supporters out to raise Hell on Hollywood Boulevard and tell every federal and state representative in LA we could find that:

Sex Worker Rights are Human Rights, FOSTA/SESTA must be repealed, Sex Work is Work and Sex Work must be Decriminalized—begging them to just #LetUsSurvive.

While our community has lost far too many incredible points of light since then, the 2018 Whore’s Day march/poster making/lobby day brought renewed vigor and commitment to SWOPLA. Since then, we’ve grown and matured immensely, accomplishing an incredible amount of incredible work, while building a lasting organization for sex workers of LA (and our darling supporters

Over the past five years at SWOPLA we:

DECRIMINALIZED LOITERING & CONDOM POSSESSION
Have you ever been waiting for a ride after a session, wondering if a cop might show up and arrest you on the basis of how you’re dressed and the money in your bag? Well, it is now no longer a crime to “loiter for the purpose of committing prostitution” in California!

Through our work with and support of DecrimSexWorkCA, we were able to pass SB 357, leveraging our public goodwill, activating our network of supporters, and co-sponsoring the bill to remove the former “crime” from our penal code entirely. SB 357 also provides for record-clearing for people who had previously been charged under the old BS loitering law.

We’ve convened and participated in town halls, panels, forums, political coalitions, and public presentations, to get sex workers directly in front of audiences who will listen to us with respect, and made sure that sex workers got paid for it, and made an impact doing it.

Through our political activation, we also helped pass SB 233 in 2019, which made it so the possession of condoms could no longer be used against someone as evidence they performed illegal sex work and persuaded West Hollywood to recategorize sex work as a “lowest priority” offense.

HELPED RAISE OVER $1.4 MILLION FOR SWER DRIVEN RESEARCH 
While the biggest grants have the most strings attached, we have been able to help secure a huge amount of money for sex worker driven research, mostly by helping bring together broad collaborative efforts with the support of university partners and other community organizations (like our successful SW LEARN application and recently-published SB-233 study), but also by fundraising for our own small-scale research projects that are 100% SWOPLA-member driven, like the Photovoice Study and the Sex Worker Parent Study.

MADE WAVES WITH MUTUAL AID
We launched a sex worker COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that was able to begin distributing electronic cash payments in the first week of April, 2020. The SWOPLA ERF raised & distributed about $25,000 to SWers during its operation in the early pandemic and formed the basis of our current street cash program.
In collaboration with Chinatown Community for Equitable Development, and with advice and support from Red Canary Song, Massage Parlor Outreach Project, and Butterfly Asian and Migrant Sex Worker Support Network, we were able to launch our Massage Worker Outreach Program earlier this year, and begin spending the $9,000 we raised and earmarked for it last April.

SUPPORTED SEX WORKER ART & EXPRESSION
In addition to platforming sex worker perspectives politically, we foster sex worker art and creative expression.

We coordinated a performance art showcase and gallery exhibition “The Art of the Act” in 2018, hired sex workers to perform as dancers, DJs, and entertainers for parties like “Hump Day for the Hoes” and “Baring it All”. We also compiled and published a SWOPLA Zine paying sex workers for their contribution. Through all of these, and by writing up a sophisticated analysis of SWOPLA-produced art and creative expression for publication (which was accepted for presentation at the International Communications Association conference this year!) SWOPLA has pushed SWer art and expression into public awareness.

WE PAID OVER $130,000 TO SEX WORKERS SINCE 2019

In addition to straight up handing out cash as mutual aid, we make it a priority to pay sex workers in general.

Since October 2019, we have distributed over $15,000 to sex workers as stipends for participating in research, community advisory boards, panels, and other programs to amplify sex worker perspectives.

Since April 2020, we have distributed over $35,000 to sex workers as cash aid, via the ERF and on our street-based strolls.

Since April 2021, we have paid over $4,000 to sex workers to publish or platform their art and creative work

And, since first beginning to pay our volunteers in 2019, we’ve distributed over $75,000 to sex workers as stipends carrying out our day-to-day work and leading SWOPLA. While we aren’t able to pay much and are powered mostly by the passion of our membership (and free volunteer hours), stipends help make the work more accessible and sustainable to the SWOPLA members who make it all happen.

We owe another huge thank you to the ACLU of Southern California, for supporting our advocacy from Whore’s Day, 2018 through the present, and their incredible support of DecrimSexWorkCA.

We owe a years-overdue THANK YOU to Jessica Drake, for her early financial support of SWOPLA and $5,000 donation to the SWOPLA Emergency Relief Fund in April of 2020.

Thank you for everything!
❤️
SWOPLA