{"id":319,"date":"2012-06-14T10:17:36","date_gmt":"2012-06-14T17:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/?p=319"},"modified":"2012-06-15T20:12:13","modified_gmt":"2012-06-16T03:12:13","slug":"dear-oakland-occupy-patriarchy-you-are-scaring-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/entry\/319","title":{"rendered":"Dear Oakland Occupy Patriarchy: You are scaring me."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sex worker activists and others are protesting H.E.A.T. Watch anti-trafficking conference<\/a> this week, because it is a conference of law enforcement agencies and its allied “anti-trafficking” groups to promote further criminalization as a solution to the complex issue of commercial sex trafficking of young people.<\/p>\n

Among the activist groups protesting the conference was Oakland Ocupy Patriarchy<\/a>, whose “disruption” of the said conference has resulted in at least one arrest<\/a>. But in the statement announcing their protest\/disruption<\/a>, they prominently use a quote from my article in Bitch magazine<\/a>, identifying me as a “sex worker and activist” (they also have another quote later in the post):<\/p>\n

\"OOP<\/p>\n

However, in Bitch<\/i> article I do not identify myself as a sex worker. While I do not make secret of my history in the sex trade, I use discretion as to when and where I refer to myself as a sex worker for my safety–not just safety from violence, but from prejudice, discrimination, and police surveillance.<\/p>\n

People involved in Occupy movement more than anyone else know that the law enforcement is closely observing what they are doing, and they will certainly read statements they post on their official website. They should also know that identifying individuals as “sex worker” publicly, even if the information is already available elsewhere, would pose extra threats to their safety and livelihood. It is especially threatening when the sex worker is associated with a quote that is critical of the law enforcement on a website that discusses occupation, disruptions and direct actions.<\/p>\n

This is the kind of incident that makes me distrust the Occupy movement, with its white boy sensibilities and priorities, despite the participation of wonderful women and queer\/trans people of color, and even as they intend to actively fight the patriarchy. I would also add that it reminded of me how I was grabbed, physically restrained, and sexually harassed by two white men at Occupy Oakland last November, and nobody stepped in to do anything (after pestering me about having sex with them, they finally let me go and told me “I was just joking”–haha, funny).<\/p>\n

I appreciate the fact that Oakland Occupy Patriarchy recognizes that the law enforcement is exploiting the serious problem of commercial sexual exploitation of youth (CSEY) to further the militarization of our society and profits of the prison industrial complex. I appreciate that they are protesting the conference in support of sex workers’ rights groups. I’m just frustrated that many of Occupy activists do not seem to “get” the amount of fear people in the sex trade are in every day, and do not seem to get that they don’t get it<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\n

Update 06\/15\/2012:<\/b> It appears that Oakland Occupy Patriarchy has removed my quote from its website. I appreciate that, although I wish they had thought about it beforehand. For the record, I do not object to having my work quoted; the Bitch<\/i> article is a published work and I have no problem with it being used by other people. I object to being identified as a “sex worker” when I did not label myself as such in the context, and especially so when people are quoting me to justify their potentially illegal activities like direct action and disruption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sex worker activists and others are protesting H.E.A.T. Watch anti-trafficking conference this week, because it is a conference of law enforcement agencies and its allied “anti-trafficking” groups to promote further criminalization as a solution to the complex issue of commercial sex trafficking of young people. Among the activist groups protesting the conference was Oakland Ocupy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,16],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}