For Immediate Release Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Contact Bella Robinson 401-525-8757 bella@coyoteri.org
Maxine Doogan 415-265-3302 mistessmax@mindspring.com

Sex Workers Shocked But Not Surprised By Being Deleted from Democratic National Convention Platform

Media Release PDF

The 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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