Literacy Toolkit

This is a living conversation.

More will be continuously added…enjoy!

Literacy & Power Analysis

We chose to author this toolkit as a power analysis because we believe that understanding the structures of power that impact our lives helps us build collective, rather than individual, tools of resistance. When it comes to the liberation of people in the sex trades, it will take all of our efforts. Our project is to demystify the long-standing structures that affect sex workers in order to illuminate the reality that these structures are not inherent or natural. They can change, and they must. Our goal is for people who engage with this toolkit to be able to clearly see where they fit into the fight for the liberation of sex workers. We want to impress upon our readers that the decriminalization of sex work is an increasingly important human rights, labor, racial justice, and bodily autonomy issue. We hope that the people who engage with this toolkit commit themselves to advocating for the decriminalization of sex work in a meaningful way. This is what sex workers are owed – dignity, rights, and the full-throated support of all people, organizations, and communities who work within any and all movements to end oppression.

Our intention is that you use this toolkit as a literacy tool. What do we mean by this? We mean that we want to define terms within the sex work liberation movement as we are using them, and situate those terms within a history and context. By establishing a frame and a vocabulary, we hope that readers will be able to understand the complexities of the global sex workers rights movement and have conversations on their own, using their own language. We hope that you practice these ideas, talk to each other, and consider your role in the fight for the rights and liberation of sex workers.

We are writing this toolkit in early 2025, in a moment where the United States is facing the beginning of another Trump presidency. As students of the sex workers’ rights movement, both locally and globally, we know that this is a pivotal time to fight for the liberation of sex workers for many reasons:

Sex workers have faced historical political losses in the US context regardless of which political party is in office. In the context of the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris was instrumental in the seizure and shutdown of Backpage.com, a website where sex workers were able to advertise their services. Donald Trump later signed SESTA/FOSTA into law, a law that made website owners liable for criminal sexual activity shared by their site users, effectively shutting down many websites that sex workers used to share information with one another, and advertise safely and privately online. These opponents have colluded to stymy the rights and autonomy of sex workers, regardless of their affiliation to any mainstream political party.
The second Trump presidency and rising movements of global fascism indicate that an upswing of conservative and reactionary sexual politics has been long underway. When anti-sex work, homophobic, misogynistic, and religious fundamentalist attitudes towards sex, the body, and labor take a foothold within mainstream culture, the left has a tendency to move towards the center on these issues.

We know from the political history of the United States that while our present circumstances might be specific, we are repeating cultural conversations around sex work, porn, and moral/social codes relating to sex practices, so-called deviance, and the public. It is our aim to situate current debates and strains of thinking in a broader history, so that our readers can meaningfully trace arguments and vocabulary as they come up. When we are grounded in history and shared language, we will be unfazed by any seeming ‘newness’ and the bogeymen of this era’s fascist order will be revealed for what they really are: the same, hollowed-out entities of a dying order who have been faced with resistance time and time again.

It is our goal to make the stakes for sex workers in our broader culture of rising conservatism very clear – and to leave you with the understanding that we, as the left or as people invested in ending oppression, simply cannot afford to abandon sex workers in any way, shape, or form.

Why sex work literacy?

If you are reading this, then you are probably familiar with the basics of the language of sex work and sex worker – invented because all of the ways outsiders were writing about us as a community was deeply laced with stigma – these includes politicians, law enforcement, academics, healthcare professionals, feminists.

Building sex work literacy is about growing shared realities within community power and transforming the cultural narrative that has haunted sex workers for hundreds of years. Strong sex work literacy means that the lived reality of those who struggle to survive in the sex industry are understood and uplifted in their efforts towards collective liberation. It means centering the storytelling of our needs in such a way that carries out the modalities for the real adjustments that are necessary for our power to be deployed.

This toolkit is meant to support people who have committed themselves to the sex worker liberation movement – it is a gathering tool that supports conversation, analysis, and critique on how people in Minnesota can support the life saving work of decriminalization.

Much of what is written or researched about sex work is not done by people who are working in the industry. Whorephobia makes its way into every corner of our society – and how those avenues are carved into our cultural narrative is a big deal in how sex workers are received while fighting for their rights to exist.

Why now?

We have been here since the beginning and we will be here until the end. The first streets of Minneapolis (when it was still St. Anthony) were built in 1855. That is the same year officials first extracted resources from the sex industry. Collections through fines from madams and workers were some of the first bits of money the city used to establish this place on the Mississippi River.

We find urgency in the need to protect a community of people who have long been meticulously ignored and viciously extracted from. Current and future sex workers in Minnesota deserve better. We are here now because we know our state can be a sanctuary for people who do sex work.

Our power in Minneapolis has been cultivated in spaces that no longer exist. Once upon a time, we would take over the sidewalks of skid row (now Northloop near Nicollet, Hennepin, and Washington Avenues) and across the river on Main Street, where bordellos would line the low skyline visible to lumberjacks, railroad men, and the downtown suits.

As before and always, we work together to keep each other safe. With the little to no resources available to us, we are able to find ways to ensure connection, stability, and security among our community. The violence we have experienced for over 150 years since those first streets were laid has taught us how to navigate stormy waters.

We are expert swimmers.

Key frames used in this toolkit…

Collective v. Individual

Collective: we are a group of people working together, building power
Individual: we are not uplifting a single person, moment, #girlboss, etc.

Structural v. Isolated

What needs to change: systems, cultures, institutions
vs. finding justice for one person, arresting one person, educating individual people, getting a crumb from the state

Transformative v. Punitive

We know that harm and exploitation exists within commercial sex. We believe that dealing with this harm and exploitation through the involvement of policing and systems of detention and incarceration is not the answer.

People will always hurt each other, we are trying to find ways to deal with harm that reduces harm and dismantles systemic reasons why people hurt each other. Harm AND ALSO the reason people hurt each other wont be because of their ensnarement in a system that is committed to misunderstanding them.

More to come…

Minnesota contexts

+ How it looks at the city, county, and state level

Accompliceship v. Allyship

+ One pagers for specific groups

What is happening that needs to be addressed?

+ Whorephobia

+ Conflation

+ Criminalization

+ Saviorism

How did we get here?

+ Basics: racism, sexism, patriarchy, capitalism

+ Imperialism

+ Carceral feminism

What frames/lenses do we have to think/understand about it?

+ Queer and trans liberation

+ Transformative justice

+ An anti-work workers movement

Legal responses

+ Criminalization v. legalization v. decriminalization

What can we do about it?

+ Abolition

+ Sanctuary State: No More Dead Canaries Campaign

Want to contribute to the conversation?

Reach out if you have written pieces, artwork, or know of any other resources related to any of the topics/subjects you find in this toolkit. We would love to review it and possibly include it as we build this living conversation.