Strippers and Dancers Speak Out ! (in Tower Hamlets)

Wednesday, 18 April 2012, 6.30pm St Margaret’s House 21 Old Ford Road, E29PL London, Listen to the workers of the dancing & adult entertainment industry Speakers: Vera Rodriguez (GMB), Suzanna Slack (GMB), Kirsten Neil (Equity), John McDonnell MP (tbc) Tower Hamlets council will shortly be making a decision on closing the eleven dancing and adult entertainment venues in the borough. The voices which have been absent from the public debate before and during the consultation are those of the men and women who work in this industry. Some decide to work in it and others earn their living in it because of economic necessity. In that respect it is the same as most other jobs. Just like workers in other careers the women and men in the dancing & adult entertainment industry have concerns about job security, working conditions and pay. On top of this they have to confront a public discourse which is overwhelmingly hostile to them. This public meeting, organised by dancers & adult entertainment workers who are trade unionists in the GMB and Equity, is an opportunity to listen to and discuss with the people who make their living dancing and performing in these venues. They are organising. Come and hear what they have to say.

LGBTQ and sex workers’ History

LGBT History month is ending today. To close this month, I will be attending the event organised by SERTUC LGBT network in Congress House.[1]

At this occasion, I want also to remind the links between the LGBTQ communities and sex workers. When we read about LGBTQ people’s past, it is clear that they shared many similarities with other groups who were stigmatised for being sexual deviants.

In the nineteenth century, lesbians and prostitutes were often confounded. In Lilian Faderman’s book about women’s romantic friendships,[2] she gives the example of two women who worked in a school and avoided being punished because the judge considered that only prostitutes could know that such sexual practices existed.

In Joan Nestle text Lesbians and Prostitutes: A Historical Sisterhood published in Jill Nagle’s Whores and other feminists,[3] she explains how lesbians were often arrested with prostitution charges. Indeed, women living together without being married to a man were seen as prostitutes in a brothel.

In George Chauncey’s famous book Gay New York,[4] he explains how late nineteenth century prostitutes and gay people were sharing the same spaces within New York subculture. Camp men and transvestites were often imitating prostitutes as models of femininity because they were the only women to be officially sexually active with men outside marriage.

Many of the struggles for LGBTQ liberation were shared and/or initiated by queer sex workers. In a previous article,[5] I have already questioned the place of trans’women and queer sex workers during the Compton cafeteria riots in San Francisco[6] and during Stonewall.

Since the success of the LGBTQ liberation however, many gay people tend now to forget that they used to share the same or similar status with sex workers. Maybe, it has become rare for LGBTQ people in the western world to face reformers who want to rehabilitate them, but this is still a reality for sex workers who are still criminalised and who most of them must hide themselves.

Yet, sex workers have brought some success to the queer movement. Let’s not forget for example all the homophobic politicians or religious men who were outed by male sex workers after buying their services.

On the other hand, there have been LGBTQ people who were supportive of sex workers’ struggles. In 1979, Maureen Colquhoun Labour MP and outed as a lesbian by the Daily Mail presented a Bill in Parliament for the decriminalisation of prostitution. The Bill passed a first vote but failed after an early election was called and that Thatcher became Prime Minister, killing any chance of success.

In the English Collective of Prostitutes archives, they mention the support sex workers received from their gay male friends when they occupied the Holy Church in King’s Cross in 1982. They say that they brought food to them in the church and took care of their children while they were protesting.

The Aids crisis reinforced the alliance between both communities affected by the same threat and stigmatised as scapegoats.

Today the links remain between both communities but we tend to forget that we have always been close. We need to know our common History to remain better conscious of the mechanism of sexual, gender and class oppression. Many sex workers are actually LGBTQ and would benefit by feeling welcome for who they are in both communities.

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[1] https://thierryschaffauser.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/lgbtiq-grassroot-activism-workshops-exhibition-and-live-music/

[2] http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Surpassing_the_love_of_men.html?id=BqQcJaKJoV8C&redir_esc=y

[3] http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WBDRYi9B3TwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Jill+Nagle&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TLFNT7XLHsrC0QWJopXNAw&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Jill%20Nagle&f=false

[4] http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=M27vzxO0kd0C&q=George+Chauncey+Gay+New+York&dq=George+Chauncey+Gay+New+York&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qLFNT8jfBeS40QW925WeBQ&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA

[5] https://thierryschaffauser.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/sex-workers-leading-the-people-to-revolutions/

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton’s_Cafeteria_riot

LGBTIQ grassroot activism : workshops, exhibition and live music

 

• Wednesday, 29 February 2012
•  13:00 until 21:00

As part of LGBT History Month, SERTUC – South East Region of Trade Union Council – LGBT Network is proud to invite you to a whole day of workshops, debate, photo exhibition and music to celebrate LGBTQI grassroots activism.

Doors open at 1 pm for the exhibition.

From 3 pm, we will offer a space for LGBTQI activists to come together and share their experiences of successful campaigns and actions, and ideas and strategies to collaborate with other grassroots organisations for social justice.

At a time of return to moral values led by the governement, institutionalisaton of racism and islamophobia, attack on the youth and working class, as well as disabled people, cuts on public services inluding fund for HIV services, SERTUC LGBT Network is inviting you to discuss how to develop strategies and ways of connecting our work for greater social justice, not only for LGBTIQ individuals but for all.
Collectives and Organisations involved include:
Act Up, Queer Strike, Gay Liberation Front, Countdown on Spanner, UK Black Pride, Stop Criminalising Hackney Youth, No Borders, Queeruption, Dyke March, Englsih Collective of Prostitutes, X-talk, Sex Worker Open University and many more as we receive confirmation.

The photo exhibition will show pictures from LGBT grassroots activism such as early pride events, solidarity actions with other campaigns by photographers Vera Rodriguez and Pam Isherwood.

We will also exhibit the work of the Queer collective “Queer Beograd” about direct action and anti-fascism.

The workshops will take place between between 3 and 7pm.
In the evening, we have a full live session with many performers:

Holly Hayes
Catherine Brogan
Ste Mc Cabe
Krista Papista

See the comment below from clips of our live artists and more info on exhibition !
See you there.

http://www.facebook.com/events/265130133554468

 

Sex workers bring good to the Labour movement

FEATURE: Sex work is work

Published by the LRC on 17th February 2012

“Within the LRC I don’t need to apologise for who I am”, says LRC member and sex worker, Thierry Schaffauser

Recently I have been elected secretary of the Hackney LRC where I live. Although a majority of people supported me, I was surprised that I was questioned whether my public profile as a sex worker, and the porn films I did, could bring a bad image to the LRC. I was challenged because I state publicly that I am a sex worker on my Facebook page which can be seen from the LRC one.

I answered as calmly as I could that of all my life, I have never let anyone, whether my family, my friends or my boyfriends, tell me anything about my sexuality or my occupation, and that I wouldn’t start with my comrades in my own movement.

The concern was that my refusal to hide my job could be seen as a form of promotion of the sex industry criticised for being detrimental to women. So I feel the need to explain that my pride to be a sex worker means that I refuse to be ashamed and nothing else. When sex workers say that sex work is work, we are not saying that sex work is fun but that it’s work. We don’t glamorise it.

Work can appear as a form of fulfilment and accomplishment for middle class people who benefit from the status work gives them. For most working class people, work is just something we do to pay the rent, transports, and tuition fees, to fill in the fridge, to support our family, etc.

People have different opinions about the sex industry and whether it’s bad or not. But what should be clear is that sex workers are not bad and that we shouldn’t be blamed for violence or sexism in society, even when we refuse to be portrayed as victims. Being a victim has nothing empowering while being a worker means that we are part of the working class and that we share a History of struggles.

The LRC has taken a position in 2009 to support decriminalisation of sex work and sex workers’ unionisation. This is the reason why I joined the group: I could see that I had a place. I felt that I was respected as a real worker and real trade unionist as a member of GMB. Within the LRC I don’t need to apologise for who I am.

Sex workers’ unionisation is relatively new, because like women before us, we have been for a long time excluded from trade unions. This doesn’t mean that sex workers never resisted or never participated in the social struggles of the working class. We did and we will continue to do.
Nowadays, many workers have to work in a decontractualised and a casualised environment. Increasingly many workers are like sex workers; deprived of labour rights. Trade unions need to realise that younger generations no longer work in the usual workplaces and factories but are disseminated, and isolated from each other. More than ever, sex workers’ working conditions actually look like those of other workers.

Of course, the stigma attached to sex work remains very strong and makes such a difference. But precisely by coming out, we try to fight against it. So please don’t reproach us to be proud when we just try to resist to our oppression. We are part of the same class.

Sex workers leading the people to Revolutions

I have always asked myself some questions about my ancestors. What were sex workers doing during past struggles? Have they been eternal passive victims as we are often portrayed or have they been part of the social movements of the working class?

Among the women of the people of Paris who took the king from Versailles on the 5th October 1789, were there only servants and domestics or were there also sex workers?

Who were the women who led the riots for bread and were ready to do anything to feed their family?

Who were the women occupying public spaces and the streets during the revolutions of the nineteenth century?

Who were the women who alerted the Parisians in the middle of the night in the morning of 18^th March 1871 which started the Commune?

Who were the spies who provided crucial information to the Resistance by sleeping with German officers?

(picture of Mata Hari, sex worker and spy during WWI)

Who were the transgender women who rioted in the Compton’s Cafetaria in 1966 San Francisco?

Who were the young queers and Trans who started the Stonewall riots in 1969?

Who were those people who felt they had nothing to lose and dared doing things that most people would have never done? Were there sex workers among them?

We need historian sex workers to answer these questions.

The sex worker movement is often said to start on the 2^nd June 1975 when French sex workers occupied churches all over the country. Among them, Grisélidis Réal, was also called the revolutionary whore.

I believe sex workers have always been part of struggles and resistances.

We have power.

(This picture shows the occupation of the Holy church in London King’s Cross 1982 by the English Collective of Prostitutes)

An interview

Hello,
I have accepted to answer the questions of a student who made this video project. Here is the result. I feel I am always saying the same things but anyway.

You can see more of her work here http://goroyesque.blogspot.com/

Working 9 to 5 in Portugal

I guess you like videos so here is a trailer of a new documentary about the sex and adult entertainment industry in Portugal.

 

and of course Dolly…