YES, WE DO HAVE RIGHTS! Changes in California policies and law have been won by grassroots sex worker led campaigns over decades. These changes provide crucial protections for sex workers, formerly incarcerated people, and others impacted by poverty. But few know about them as government officials are not publicizing them as they should.
This booklet spells out what our movement has won and what we have a right to. It aims to strengthen our power to demand that the state implement what it has agreed to do. We hope it will also inform and empower people in other states who have been pressing or might want to press for similar laws and policies.
This booklet comes out of the experience of sex workers, starting with Black women and other women of color, including trans women, who work on the street and are up against sexism, racism and transphobia, and who along with immigrant women are particular targets of police violence and abuse.