#12 On sex work, disability and community care.
An interview with Intimate Access for International Sex Work Day
In recent months my dear friend Lou launched a new project in Victoria called Intimate Access, a mutual aid network by-and-for sex workers. Lou is someone I have learned a lot from about disability justice, the intersections of sex-work, and the importance of building coalitions across movements. They are an active volunteer with the fernwood wellness library, local neighbourhood encampment support and someone who lives by their politics in their care work and in relationships. Lou is someone who deeply inspires me and a special person in our community that I wanted to take time to amplify.
Today, June 2nd, is International Whores Day. This day, rooted in a 1975 protest by sex workers in Lyon, France, calls for global recognition of sex work as labour and demands equal access to justice for sex workers. So in honor of uplifting those in our community that are advocating for sex workers on the south island, please enjoy this interview with Intimate Access:
Tell us about Intimate Access, how it came about? What was the inspiration for this project?
INTIMATE ACCESS is a small collective of sex workers, disability justice organizers, helping professionals and our co-conspirators based on lək̓ʷəŋən Traditional Territory. We are an accessibility-focused, community-driven resiliency project aimed at facilitating peer-led advocacy, education, financial relief & therapeutic support for chronically-ill & disabled sex workers through a Disability Justice framework. My commitment to this work is nurtured by a passion for building cross-movement solidarity, liberatory-initiatives that underscore bodily autonomy and amplify peer-led interventions of those with stigmatized life experiences who’ve experienced harm through state abandonment and the criminalization of their survival.
INTIMATE ACCESS was inspired in large part by the many sex worker-led mutual aid projects during the first wave of the pandemic. Many of the early COVID relief funds were created for and by sex workers. As we continue living through pandemic-times (and the unbearable acceptance of mass death and debility as the cost of returning “back to normal”), there are fewer operational mutual aid funds available to sex workers in the province, yet the need is arguably higher than ever.
I hope INTIMATE ACCESS sends the message to sex workers that our lives and livelihoods are valuable and worth protecting. I also hope it sends a message to our allies about the value of coalition and practicing interdependence.
What are the values and vision for the project?
Government inaction continues to threaten the survival of our most vulnerable, so care-driven coalitions are vital to fill the gaps left by the state. IA values access to peer-led support, education and advocacy which respond to and consider the interlocking pursuits of autonomy, solidarity and liberation of sick and disabled workers.
As a multiply-disabled white femme utilizing an activist and movement framework grounded in the lived experiences of queer and trans disabled folks of color, I acknowledge the deep lineage of Disability Justice as one that centers the most impacted and marginalized disabled folks. I recognize the ways I benefit from white supremacy and settler colonialism, and aim to practice accountability for my own systemic and structural advantages through uplifting sex workers whose disability oppression is compounded along other axes of power and struggle.
What are your hopes for the project?
Currently my biggest hope is to redistribute funds to workers across “Vancouver Island”. I also hope that non-sex workers and our temporarily able-bodied comrades will see their own struggles mirrored in our fight, such as the fight against economic exploitation, social discrimination, and the pursuit of more just forms of healthcare and bodily autonomy.
We’ve got plans in the works for creating a twice-monthly online Cyber Refuge for chronically-ill and disabled sex workers that will feature a series of online workshops, therapeutic sessions, resources, advocacy training, and community collaboration with allied individuals and organizations. Some personal hopes I have for the Cyber Refuge will be to share stories, skills, work hacks & to archive whore-wisdoms of working through plague-times and the fall of empire, and build collective power through resisting the stigma and ableism that keep us isolated from one another.
Why is the intersection of disability and sex work so of the times? Can you talk about the link between sex work and disability?
A majority of sex workers are people living with disabilities. Some disabled people turn to sex work as a means of economic survival due to limited employment opportunities caused by systemic ableism. Sex work has roots in many important justice-focused issues, one of which is labor rights. Historically and into the present day, both disabled people and the most marginalized sex workers have experienced an unparalleled level of civi-workplace exclusion and poverty, underscoring what many disabled sex workers already know – that non-criminalized jobs are often inaccessible. This makes underground economies, mutual aid, and collective care some of the only viable paths for survival. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it a million more times: sex workers and disabled people are the most skilled people I know at organizing around abandonment.
I think there are increasing levels of awareness and conversations around disability and sex work as more and more people discover their own lack of wellness and vulnerability in a society that puts us in competition with one another, and forces dependency on systems designed to profit from our dis-ease. Many newly disabled people with Long-COVID are experiencing firsthand the ways in which disease and illness are treated as a moral failing and/or a personal shortcoming by society and medical systems alike.
It’s well documented that both sex workers and disabled people are treated with contempt and disposability at the hands of medical and healthcare systems that have deemed us, among other things, unfit, undesirable, and a threat to the deterioration of a “healthy” society. Both of these communities have and continue to face forced sterilization, institutionalization, and discrimination inside of the medical industrial complex. Many sex workers still struggle to access adequate healthcare due to stigma, discrimination, and systemic barriers. Disabled people continue to face medical paternalism, wherein decisions affecting their own bodies are made without their consent.
For those of us invested in broader struggles against healthcare systems that are not broken, but working exactly as they’re intended to, our project asks: How can we nurture interdependent and self-sustaining work and lives when we (inevitably) get sick? How can we ensure sustainability in our work and lives in general? What does care look like that disrupts the Medical Industrial Complex?
Can you talk about the importance of mutual aid and community care in sex work communities?
A longstanding tradition in the sex work community, especially in BIPoC and queer communities, is community care and mutual aid. Disabled folks and sex workers alike intimately understand that at the end of the day, we keep each other safe amidst politics of disposability which consider some lives more valuable than others. Sex workers are a vital part of the labor economy, and are well known for effectively redistributing wealth and sharing abundance in and among their communities.
I believe that care work is direct action. Care webs, mutual aid, and other forms of collective care in the face of systems that have failed to provide us care, or worse, have actively caused harm to our communities, are more important than ever, and are something I remain personally committed to.
How has the COVID pandemic impacted sex workers?
During the lockdown era (see how I didn’t speak of the pandemic in the past tense?), sex workers rallied to crowdfund and distribute financial relief to those who were suffering a loss of clients, many of whom did not qualify for government benefits that were offered to other types of workers. It’s well documented now that the first-wave COVID benefit cheques in our country for $2000/month were almost $500 more than the monthly disability rate in BC, which sent a clear message of disposability to disabled folks and sex workers alike.
The pandemic has also underscored for me how sex workers are skilled harm reductionists and are often the most knowledgeable people in the room when it comes to illness prevention and navigating pandemics, as evidenced during the AIDS crisis in the 80s. Sex workers are adept at assessing and weighing a variety of risks, often on the fly, and sharing resources and information about safety quickly and efficiently among their networks from the ground up, because we know damn well the state doesn’t have our best interests in mind.
Why do you think organizing at the margins falls on people with disabilities? Can you talk about your experience organizing while being sick?
I think it has to do with lived experience of the types of exclusion and neglect that gives us the fuel to advocate for a better, more dignified world than whatever this one is. For many disabled folks, activism and organizing are not optional but necessary for their survival.
Regarding my work, I’ve learned (begrudgingly) to move slowly if I want to keep all of my work sustainable. I have to be so, so careful to not over-exert myself, otherwise I’ll obliterate any capacity I have remaining to think, write and produce. Being predominantly housebound (and often bedbound in a darkened room) means I’ve been forced to adapt to a pace that I can somewhat safely produce without becoming sicker. I am still learning to be okay with how that doesn’t look like the capacity I had even just 4 years ago. I’ve started to write about my condition at
with the hope of raising awareness about post-viral disease.
I know you’ve been a long time educator at PEERS, tell us about your research with PEERS and the findings?
Since 2018, I’ve designed and co-led a harm reduction training program, PHAT (Peer Health Advocate Training Program) for people with lived experience in the sex trade and/or who use drugs. Between two cohorts per year, we graduate 10-15 health advocates who go on to complete a paid community-based practicum, and often continue their work with local harm reduction orgs. Some of the goals of the training are to reduce internalized stigma, increase access to local health services and accessible employment options, and knowledge-sharing among trainees’ networks. Our program has had a really positive impact on our trainees and community, though it has also highlighted the need for increased low-barrier employment opportunities locally.
I think the aim of confronting/resisting internalized stigma has been an important feature of the program’s success as it plainly shows the ways that stigma and ableism operate to isolate people from their communities and their supports, a theme I think about a lot with INTIMATE ACCESS. Peer-led interventions that enable us to resist isolation, to resist (or heartily embrace!) markers of social “deviance”, and find connections are powerful.
In many ways, PHAT has helped me expand my thinking of what harm reduction can encompass when we look beyond the scope of safer sex and safer drug use. The question I’m currently sitting with is what can harm reduction praxis look like when considered through a disability justice lens? And of course, what is the role of Disability Justice in the sex worker rights movement…
And last year you did a fellowship at SFU?
Last summer, I was a fellow at the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University. They accepted my proposal for scholar-activist work using Disability Justice framework for dreaming sex worker liberation.
While my work on the Intimate Access project itself did not progress as much as I would have liked during the 4 weeks in SF, the fellowship experience inspired much reflection on larger themes related to activism work, including:
Building relationships based on dignity, mutuality, and belonging
Internalized ableism within Disability Justice spaces
Trust building and conflict resolution between fellow activists
Now, nearly a year later, I feel grounded in my partnerships and renewed in my commitment to my communities of struggle.
Is there anyone you want to shout out?
To all the professional sluts: thank you for the pleasure and wonder you imbue in this dilapidated-ass world.
Where can we find you and support?
Boost us on Instagram @iacollectivex
If you have class privilege, inherited wealth, or are well-salaried, well fed, and safely housed, please consider supporting our mutual aid fund at: https://opencollective.com/intimate-access-sw-mutual-aid
So many working class people I know have given generously from their savings and/or their wages to INTIMATE ACCESS, so I want to extend the invitation for folks with greater financial power to give big and give now to grassroots organizers.
Solidarity forever,
Lou