EVENTS
- This event has passed.
No Saviors, No Prisons: Sex Workers Speak! – 106
April 15, 2023 @ 4:30 pm – 8:30 pm
💌 RSVP for updates from the organizer HERE. 💌
Date: Saturday, April 15, 4:30 – 8 PM
In-person and Virtual Event: RSVP for link and updates!
💻 To be Live-Streamed and Recorded on the UH GCSW’s Youtube page
🌻 Community event, open to all!
What To Expect:
- Panel Discussion
- Community Tabling
- Fun Activities
- Potluck
😷 Bring a mask! 😷
Social Work’s relationship with people in the sex trades overwhelmingly endangers, incarcerates, and controls those it claims to support. The profession routinely neglects the perspectives of sex workers, leading to practices that violate its ethical standards of social justice, self-determination, and the dignity and worth of the person.
No Saviors, No Prisons: Sex Workers Speak! urges us to commit to liberatory work by and with people in the sex trades as part of the larger abolitionist movement.
Social workers must challenge anti-sex work laws and practices that further the state’s criminalization of BIPOC, trans, queer, immigrant, and houseless folks. Likewise, sex worker advocates must center our work in the abolitionist struggle to upend white supremacy, capitalism, cispatriarchy, and imperialism.
💛 Together, we can build a world rooted in care, not punishment 💛
Join us to challenge carceral practices and imagine social work that strives alongside sex workers toward liberation!
Speakers:
- Emi Koyama is a multi-issue social justice activist and writer synthesizing feminist, Asian, survivor, dyke, queer, sex worker, intersex, genderqueer, and crip politics, as these factors, while not a complete descriptor of who she is, all impacted her life. Emi is currently the Coordinatrix of the Coalition for Rights & Safety for People in the Sex Trade (https://link.edgepilot.com/s/abe6b75c/uXRpigmXc0ayf-kYH1UAUQ?u=http://www.rightsandsafety.org/) and a co-founder of Aileen’s, a peer-led community organizing and hospitality space for women working along the Pac Highway in south King County, Washington.
- Christen coco Valentine (she/her) is originally from Detroit, Michigan but resides in Houston, Texas. I am an entrepreneur. I also work in a nonprofit by helping trans people get health insurance and other things that they need. I am an activist for my community. I am your sister, I am your mother, I am your friend. I am your ear to talk to. I am a living example of overcoming adversity and making the best out of nothing.
- Nina Mayers (they/them) is a Black queer sex worker advocate and proud protector of their communities. They are the founder of Houston Community Fridges and a previous core organizer of Harm Reduction HTX. Nina engages in community organizing that prioritizes autonomy, the livelihoods of marginalized peoples, and above all, upholding love.
- Rusty H. is a Two Spirit community organizer and founder of Harm Redux Houston, a sex worker-run harm reduction and mutual aid group that prioritizes services for BIPOC sex workers and Black trans women.
Organized and moderated by Jessica Zeigler, MSW student at the UH Graduate College of Social Work.
Follow on Twitter and Instagram for updates!
Sponsored by University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, New Moon Fund, Houston DSA, and Lilith Fund.
Special Thanks to fiscal sponsor West Street Recovery.
