Sex Workers Are Rallying Behind a Democratic Socialist Running for New York Senate

By Aída Chávez

Julia Salazar, a candidate for the New York state Senate, is doing what few Democratic politicians have done before: taking sex workers’ rights seriously. The 27-year-old democratic socialist, who is shaping her policy by consulting the sex work community, is one of the first candidates to definitively support those workers, including by proposing concrete steps toward decriminalization.

Sex work — which refers to the willing exchange of money or goods for sexual labor, including escorts, prostitutes, pornography actors, and phone sex operators — intersects with labor, gender, immigration, race, LGBTQ, and criminal justice issues. It is often conflated with sex trafficking, which involves forcing someone into sex work through violence or other means, and as a result, nearly all mainstream political movements have failed to address the concerns of the sex work community. Salazar, who is challenging eight-term incumbent Democratic state Sen. Martin Dilan, has centered her campaign around affordable housing and other policy positions championed by the insurgent left. But her plan to defend sex workers’ rights has energized a community that has been understandably skeptical of electoral politics.

One hundred sex workers and their allies have signed up to attend a canvassing event in the Brooklyn district for Salazar’s campaign on Sunday, ahead of the September 13 primary. This follows an event earlier this month, when upward of 120 sex workers and activists hosted a pizza party for Salazar to discuss labor rights and decriminalization.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Intercept_