Today, we’re turning 5 years young as a collective!!! We’re taking time to reflect on the last five years and invite you to support our work by donating to Alisha’s post-release fund, celebrating the launch of our latest yearbook zine and purchasing copies of our benefit zines + buttons! https://sxhxcollective.org/store/
In late March of 2016, we organized our first demonstration in solidarity with Alisha Walker and all criminalized/incarcerated sex workers who had survived violence. It was our first formal action as a collective. Since then, we’ve fundraised, visited, developed friendships and organized alongside LeLe and other comrades inside, protested, found pro bono legal aid (a few times over), and maintained a grassroots campaign for clemency and her release. #FreeLeLe #StandWithAlisha
We’ve compiled and shared a syllabus/reading list for political education reading groups for our sex working comrades and accomplices in adjacent queer communities utilizing our original reading group materials. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mjadXjdNracWT3ulpW8ZMDfb0wLTHBj0JqEfINakxFU/edit#gid=0
We’ve taken public space, held teach-ins, trainings, knowledge shares, hosted letter writing events, Know Your Rights events, spoken at virtual vigils + actions, and crafts workshops to demand rights, respect and protection of sex working people. https://www.internationalwhoresday.com
We’ve created art and print resources like zines, posters, banners and more to artistically intervene with sex workers’ resistance in visual culture. https://youtu.be/vhWH5NSlpTk + https://sxhxcollective.org/store/
We created guides for Letter Writing to incarcerated folx, best practices for Academics, as well as Media and Health & Wellness professionals to become sex work competent and create more ethical conditions for working with sex workers. https://sxhxcollective.org/digital-publications/
We’ve been honored to work closely with Alisha’s mother Sherri and family and have helped to facilitate numerous articles to highlight LeLe’s case for clemency. ((We’ve also pushed back on poorly written, disrespectful pieces.))
Through Alisha’s inside organizing, we’ve built many comradeships with others inside at Decatur and Logan Correctional Centers/Prisons. http://titsandsass.com/if-u-only-knew-how-they-were-really-doing-us-inside-outside-communication-during-a-pandemic/
We saw and celebrated the release of one of our comrades, Judy, who we’ve co-authored a book chapter, in “We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival,” with. We’ve engaged in mutual aid efforts to help Judy and her partner establish their new life together. https://bluestockings-bookstore.square.site/product/we-too-essays-on-sex-work-and-survival-essays-on-sex-work-and-survival/1714
We saw and celebrated the release of our comrade Ada, and have crowdsourced and fundraised for her to be able to support her daughter. (( Her CashApp is $ada3636 ))
We have continued to expand our organizing work in NYC, and are helping to build radical community amongst current and former sex working people and co-conspirators. We’ve been humbled and thankful to forge bonds with Survived & Punished NY, Hacking//Hustling, Red Light Reader, Red Canary Song, IWD NYC, Kink Out, Bluestockings, and other renegade comrades who we learn from everyday!
We can do even more as a community. We’ve got to keep lifting up our incarcerated sex worker family and work to get them free. Especially now amidst a global health crisis and pandemic. More people are learning about and deepening their mutual aid/care practices and it’s so hopeful to see. It’s going to take all of us to resist the death blows of capitalism and the racist whorephobia of criminalization + punishment.
Thank y’all for all your support along the way. Please keep sharing, keep writing LeLe, keep telling folx that she should be free–extend this care to everyone on the inside. bit.ly/AlishaAdvocate
We’ve got a long fight ahead of us, but having these years behind us, we’ve learned a hell of a lot. We are a small, extremely small, formation, and yet we feel committed and focused. We’ve learned hard lessons, and have fortified bonds of trust and love. You can be small and make shit happen.
We know folx are giving a lot right now. If you still have the means, please consider making a contribution to Alisha’s support fund for our “birthday”: https://www.gofundme.com/support-alisha-walker + buy our zines: https://sxhxcollective.org/store/
