Editor’s Note: Mentions death, murder, discrimination.
If your idea of Pride doesn't include sex workers, it's not liberation. It's branding.
Every June, the same tired cycle begins: rainbow flags, corporate logos, and a sanitized version of Pride that smooths the edges of queer resistance into feel-good marketing. The story we’re told—of gay rights marching toward marriage and military inclusion—erases the blood, sweat, and survival work that got us here. Especially the role of sex workers. Especially queer, trans, Black and brown sex workers.
Let’s set the record straight: sex work isn’t a side story in queer history—it’s the fucking centerfold.
Stonewall didn’t start with a slogan
The Stonewall Uprising wasn’t about visibility. It wasn’t about representation. It wasn’t even about “love is love.” It was about surviving daily police terror and systemic criminalization. And it was sex workers—trans sex workers, drag queens, hustlers, street workers—who said: enough.
Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera didn’t throw bricks for assimilation. They were both street-based, trans women of color, doing sex work to survive in a city that criminalized their existence. Rivera once said, “I was a radical, a revolutionist. I am still a revolutionist.” That’s not respectability. That’s fire. And it was born on the track.
So yeah, the first punch at Stonewall? Probably thrown by someone who had already survived more cops, jails, and johns than you could imagine.
Many sex workers are queer
Let’s get even clearer: sex workers aren’t just “allies” to the LGBTQ+ community. We are the community. We are the ones holding it down when the nonprofits sell out and the politicians forget our names. We’re not just survivors—we’re organizers, artists, and healers.
Most sex workers? We’re queer. We’re trans. We’re femmes, fags, dykes, and everything in between. We’re Black and brown and Indigenous. We’re immigrants and undocumented. We’re disabled. We’re the ones capitalism tossed out, and we built something in the ruins.
Sex work isn’t some moral failure—it’s a rational response to a rigged system. We do it because we need to live, and sometimes, because we refuse to die quietly.
Sex workers organize because we have to
Every major wave of queer activism? We’ve been there. STAR? Built by sex workers. Early AIDS mutual aid? Sex workers. Housing justice, police abolition, trans health advocacy? Still us. Why? Because we live at the intersections. We know what it means to be criminalized for how we exist, what we wear, who we love, how we work. We don’t need DEI panels—we need decriminalization. We need cops off our backs. We need to stop dying.
The groups doing the most radical queer work right now? Often led by sex workers. Red Canary Song, The Black Sex Worker Collective, GLITS, SWOP Behind Bars. None of them are asking for crumbs. They’re building something else entirely.
We’re the ones who stay
You want to talk about care? About community?
During the AIDS crisis, hospitals left our people to rot. Families disappeared. The state shrugged. Sex workers stayed. We showed up with soup, clean sheets, weed, cash, and prayer. We held dying lovers in our arms while Reagan held press conferences.
We still do. When queer and trans people are evicted, when they’re criminalized, when they’re locked out of healthcare and safety—we are the first to show up and the last to leave.
And we do it without funding, without boards, without grants. Just us, and each other, and whatever we can scrape together between clients.
Our icons were hoes. Name it.
You love to post Marsha’s photo but forget the labor. You wear Stormé DeLarverie on a patch but don’t know her name. Let’s speak the truth: some of your favorite queer icons were hoes, street queens, adult entertainers, and erotic workers.
- Marsha P. Johnson – Trans drag queen, street-based sex worker, co-founder of STAR.
- Sylvia Rivera – Latinx trans activist and former street worker.
- Venus Xtravaganza – Trans woman and sex worker whose murder remains unsolved.
- Jean Genet – Gay French hustler turned literary revolutionary.
- Ts Madison – Black trans icon and former adult film star, now a mainstream powerhouse.
- Jiz Lee, Lorelei Lee, Kay Kassirer – Contemporary queer porn stars, writers, and organizers pushing back against respectability in real time.
These aren’t footnotes. These are our elders. These are our visionaries. We owe them everything.
Pride means nothing without decriminalization
If your Pride party doesn’t include sex workers, it’s a funeral for our movement. We’re not interested in sanitized narratives that pretend queer freedom was born in a voting booth or handed down by the Supreme Court.
We want full decriminalization. Not legalization that only protects the privileged. Not rescue. Not pity. Just the freedom to survive and thrive without cops, courts, or cages.
You say “no one is free until we’re all free”? Then fight for sex workers like your freedom depends on it—because it does.
Don’t co-opt us. Pay us.
We’re tired of nonprofits using queer sex worker aesthetics to raise money for staff who have never worked a night on the stroll. Tired of rainbow campaigns that erase our names but copy our slang. Tired of the movement treating sex work like a phase to grow out of, instead of a legitimate life, labor, and choice.
We don’t need saviors. We need solidarity.
- Fund our bail.
- Show up to court.
- Pay for our therapy, our housing, our health care.
- Stop calling the cops on street-based workers.
- End the laws that get us killed.
Sex work built this movement. Full stop.
If you can’t see that, you’re not looking. Or maybe you’re too invested in a version of queer liberation that looks good in a grant report but disappears when the cops come.
As we move through Pride—our Pride, not theirs—remember: Sex work isn’t a sidebar. It’s the story, and we’re not asking for permission to tell it.
Are you a sex worker with a story, opinion, news, or tips to share? We'd love to hear from you!
We started the tryst.link sex worker blog to help amplify those who aren't handed the mic and bring attention to the issues ya'll care about the most. Got a tale to tell? 👇☂️✨
