Recent releases, and resources for media, sex workers, and allies.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 28, 2025
Contact: Maxine Doogan stoptheraidsusa(AT)gmail.com
Sex Workers, Call Foul on Media Junket Who Perpetuate Super Bowl Sex Myth
Media Release PDFNews agencies should beware of false claims made by law enforcement and nonprofits alike during prostitution raids
“We may have had certain precincts that were going gangbusters looking for prostitutes, but they were picking up your everyday street prostitutes. They didn’t notice any sort of glitch in the number of prostitution arrests leading up to the Super Bowl.” — Phoenix police Sergeant Tommy Thompson, following the 2008 Bowl, quoted in the Phoenix New Times
New Orleans — Super Bowl LIX law enforcement, NOG’s and for profit corporations have joined forces using myths of forced labor in the sex trade as cover for harassment and arrest of sex workers. The Stop the Raids Committee 2025 calls for the halt of harmful prostitution arrests and street sweeps under the guise of stopping sex trafficking, and advises the news media to beware the claims made by law enforcement and nonprofits who justify them.
Every year, law enforcement backed by their government funded nonprofits use long debunked claims of sex trafficking at the Super Bowl to justify mass arrests of sex workers and clients. During these periods, police often use entrapment (even posing as children), or use misleading titles like “Human Trafficking Operation” to hide the fact that few if any arrests involve trafficking, in an effort to secure positive press coverage and more funding for themselves.
These raids are violent and dangerous. Sex workers, like other members of the public in New Orleans, have just gone through a traumatic experience of being in close proximity to a terrorist attack whose effects on their economy are still being felt. Now they are being further targeted by federal, state and do-gooder non profiteers’ false and misleading information and the prostitution sting operations that will further disrupt their stability
Additionally this year immigrant community members are in fear for their lives with no way to gain citizenship to avoid being deported. These prostitution raids, done under the guise of rescuing victims will most certainly result in the violent xenophobic deportation process of women who are just trying to support themselves and their families. We demand these dangerous and damaging raids by law enforcement be stopped! Adults should have the right to not have their private, consensual sexual activities criminalized.
The Stop The Raids Committee educates about the truth behind the Superbowl myth. We welcome the chance to talk with the media about the truth behind the raids.
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For Immediate Release Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Contact Bella Robinson 401-525-8757 bella@coyoteri.org
Maxine Doogan 415-265-3302 mistessmax@mindspring.comSex Workers Shocked But Not Surprised By Being Deleted from Democratic National Convention Platform
Media Release PDFThe Democratic Party released on Sunday its official 2024 platform for the upcoming 2024 presidential election, with the new text omitting sex worker protection language from the 2020 platform that had stated a commitment to “protect the lives of sex workers.” With serious implications for the outcome of this election, the Democratic Party and their presidential nominee risk losing votes.
“Harris has a long history of saying one thing and doing another when it comes to consenting adults,’ said Maxine Doogan, a long time prostitutes’ rights activist in San Francisco. “Like other politicians, Harris grandstands on caring about protecting children who are selling sex to survive in this country but really she’s just criminalizing adult speech and now our community’s rights have been removed from the Democratic platform altogether.”
Harris stated that she supports the decriminalization of sex work in a 2019 interview with Roots but she opposed a 2008 San Francisco City wide ballot measure to remove criminal penalites for consenting adults engaging in prostitution. In 2016, two weeks before she won her Senate Seat, she used her power as California State Attorney General to illegally arrest Michael Lacy, Jim Larkins, and Carl Ferrer, the owners of Backpage. A judge threw out the charges telling Harris they had not broken any laws. Then, as a US Senator, she expanded her crusade and subpoenaed them to Congress to be screamed at for hours calling them child sex traffickers. They’ve never been convicted as such even after 2 federal criminal trials.
“If the Democrats prevail in 2024 it will be because they threw sex workers under the bus,” said Bella Robbinson of Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics Rhode Island, COYOTE RI. “It’s a fraud against the people that politicians like Harris and other congressional Democrats have authorized BILLIONS over the last 20 years, funding misinformation campaigns on child sex trafficking. Meanwhile they failed to provide proper services to our youth in every state, especially to kids in state-run homes. Criminalizing adult speech perpetuates the foster care-to-prison pipeline.”
Harris co-sponsored the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), and then President Donald Trump signed it into federal law in 2018. This landmark restriction on free speech made the already criminalized conditions of sex work activities more dangerous. COYOTE RI surveyed sex workers within 2 weeks of FOSTA passing to understand the immediate effects of this law. Another 2022 nationwide study “Four Years of FOSTA Survey” revealed that the removal of access to online speech reduced sex workers’ opportunities to be self supporting and sex trafficking increased exponentially after FOSTA. The survey results were used in an amicus brief to repeal FOSTA. The DOJ had warned that FOSTA was unconstitutional. Meanwhile, adult websites moved overseas, where they no longer have to comply with US subpoenas rendering this federal overreaching law useless.
Sex Workers will be gathering online to discuss these and other related election issues in Tru The S$xWorker Vote, on Saturday, September 7, 2024
#wewontforget #decriminalizesexworker #repealFOSTA
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