These past weeks were filled with heartache and resolve. Sex workers and those that love us, gathered to mark yet another year where systemic violence took too many from us.
December 17th may only take place once a year, but it’s a day filled with a cumulative grief at the injustice of all the proceeding violence, oppression, discrimination that our sex working, trading, hustling community faces every single day.
Our people are taken from us, all the time—by cops, by prisons, by people they’re relying on for shelter and companionship, by clients, by so-called “intimate partners”, by stigma and shame, by capitalism, racism, transphobia, classism…by a WHOREPHOBIC society that makes us the butt of every dead hooker joke.
We are so angry, but we are also so full of love. Love for struggle, for each other, for the vision of a better world and the fight to realize it.
In Chicago, beloveds gathered.
In Austin, beloveds gathered.
In NYC, beloveds gathered.
All around the world, beloved comrades gathered to honor our dead and recommit to fight like hell for the living.
One of our organizers wrote this, reflecting on the vigil they co-organized, “We chose Republic Square Park because it’s in the middle of downtown, it’s an area notorious for police harassment of our houseless neighbors, a central hub of harm reduction outreach, and because it’s one of the last physical spaces that remain of Austin’s historic red-light district, Guy Town. Queer, trans, sex working, immigrant people built that district and were the fabric of community (and the goddamn economy). We gathered, against the wind, with Kaia keeping the candle burning the whole vigil. Daphne brought beautiful signs, and I brought roses. Comrades joined us, sharing tears and stories. We spoke the names of those taken from this world, we brought loved ones into our circle kept from us by incarceration. We screamed into the night air, long and loud. The cops kept their distance. I am so full of grief, I am so full of love, I am so full of rage.”
What do we do with all this grief?
It feels unbearable that Cecilia, and Velvet and Hande, and Lorena, and so many other beloved comrade-whores are no longer on this earthly plane. We think it’s important to feel that grief, together, and doubly so to continue the work in their names, and to honor their legacies.
We’ve been listening to Movement Memos, but this recent conversation between Kelly and Sarah really hit hard and broke our hearts wide open. Listen here.
In the coming new year, we’ll be focusing on skilling-up in different ways: political education/analysis, hosting Ho-kit builds, learning more first aid and emergency/crisis response, sharing what we’ve developed for deescalation and bystander intervention, expanded harm reduction practices, body autonomy needs, and more.
We’ll share everything we *can* here. We’ll do our best to get creative and bring people in, offline and in-person whenever possible. Stay tuned and watch this space.
We also want to encourage everyone to look to comrades like, Buckle Bunnies, Aileen’s, Whose Corner is it Anyway, The Outlaw Project, Red Canary Song and Rio Grande Valley Harm Reduction —they are all leading and guiding examples of mutual aid/care and uncompromising action.
We’re with you, in love and struggle.
xoxo
The Support Ho(s)e Collective