sex worker leadership
DecrimSWCA is a sex worker-led coalition. The Steering Committee is our main leadership body, and along with the coordinator, are entirely current or former sex workers. Our allies and partners include individual sex workers and sex worker organizations and allied organizations that are not sex worker-led.
DecrimSWCA es una coalición dirigida por trabajadores sexuales. El Comité Directivo es nuestro principal ente regulador y todos sus miembros son antiguos trabajadores sexuales. Tanto nuestra coordinación como las personas encargadas de recaudar fondos son trabajadores sexuales retirados o activos. Nuestros aliados y socios incluyen a trabajadores sexuales individuales, organizaciones de trabajadores sexuales y organizaciones que no son dirigidas por trabajadores sexuales.
Steering Committee
TS JANE
TS Jane (she/her) is an empowered sex worker, a trans rights and sex workers' rights activist. She is also a contributing member of STRAP (Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines), a non-profit organization who pioneered transgender rights activism in her native country. She advocates for migrant trans sex workers and works with important issues such as safety of sex workers, prioritizing your health as a sex worker, self-care and esteem, breaking the stigma and thriving in the sex industry. She had been invited to speak about her experiences as a sex worker in various delegations and conferences such as ILGA (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex Association), Creating Change and World Association of Sexual Health. She also lobbied on Capitol Hill educating representatives about the how SESTA/FOSTA is harmful to the sex worker community. She also has organized with SWOP-USA. She loves to travel, cooking, watching TV and a huge sports fan. She resides in San Diego, California and is currently pursuing her studies in sex therapy, sexual health and sexuality education.
Steering Committee
Janelle Luster
Janelle Luster (she/they) is 29 years old and an award winning community organizer and transgender activist native of the San Francisco Bay Area. Janelle has been organizing and advocating for the rights of transgender people, PLWHIV, and sex workers locally and nationally. She strives for the advancement of transgender folks of color, specifically Black transgender women and men. She currently serves as Program Supervisor of Trans Vision, a specialty clinic within Bay Area Community Health-BACH located in Fremont, CA and was recently appointed to the Board of Directors for San Francisco Pride, to bring diversity to a historically white org. Janelle is a member of the DecrimSexWorkCA Coalition Steering Committee where she serves as the Mutual Aid and Fundraising movement team lead, and a co-lead of the Conflict Resolution Committee. She believes that in addition to policy advocacy that mutual aid is a critical tool to address the community’s immediate needs and to help sustain sex workers out of work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Janelle identifies as a formerly incarcerated Black transwoman who has been impacted by the system due to the intersections of her identities. Because of that she is dedicated to empowering those communities through access to services, resources and social empowerment. Janelle has been coordinating Black Trans Lives Matter Protest & Rallies as well as virtual social spaces of empowerment throughout this pandemic and hosted a Virtual Vigil honoring those lost to hate violence. She attended the 2020 Creating Change Conference where she was able to expand her network and build national solidarity. Janelle served as Program Associate and Director of Community Engagement for The Transgender District (San Francisco). In addition she co-leads an annual transgender empowerment retreat, TRANScend Retreat. In 2019, TRANScend Retreat facilitated the Malaysia Booker Travel Fund, partnering with Homobils to bring Black trans women from the south and midwest to join the gathering in Northern California. She also served as ambassador for the 2019 National Transgender March on Washington D.C. and under her leadership as President of FLUX Bay Area Chapter, organized Oakland’s first Trans March.
Steering Committee
Michaé de la Cuadra
Michaé De La Cuadra (they/she) navigates this world sin género (without gender). She is a community organizer and artist born and raised in Los Angeles, California (Tongva Land) with familial roots in México and Ecuador. Her work envisions a future free of gender-based violence and imagines the possibilities of a world divesting from our current oppressive systems. She has explored multiple mediums to work toward this world such as visual art, music, building community-led spaces, and engaging in policy change at local, state and national levels. Most recently, Michaé is working with the TransLatin@ Coalition as the Manager of Policy and Community Engagement where she has worked to craft and pass policies on issues related to sex work decriminalization, trans detention and incarceration, housing for trans women, healthcare access, and much more.
Steering Committee
Lotus Lain
Lotus Lain (she/her) has been a Dominatrix, Cam Model & Adult Performer since 2012. She is now the Community Relations Advocate for the Free Speech Coalition- the adult industry’s trade association; she’s a Producer and Intimacy Coordinator for tv & film; a Sex Work Consultant & an Activist working with ACLU to Decriminalize Sex Work in CA. She continues to work towards influencing change around the way sex workers are portrayed in mainstream media while shifting the perspective of how explicit sex stories are told.
Steering Committee
Lisseth Sanchez
In loving memory
Fatima Malika Shabazz
Fatima Malika Shabazz (she/her), originally from Brooklyn New York, is a long time resident of Los Angeles and the CEO/President of Fatima Speaks LLC; a Transgender led, African American owned and operated business that conducts cultural sensitivity and competency trainings as well as panel and motivational speaking engagements. She is a member of the DecrimSexWorkCA steering committee where she also serves as the Policy Advocacy movement team lead, and the co-lead of the Conflict Resolution Committee.
Luisa Rivera
Steering Committee
Luisa Rivera (she/her) is a Mexican-born Spanish-speaking immigrant rights activist and trans-Latinx sex worker activist who staunchly advocates for her Latinx/LGBTQIA+ community. She takes pride in leading Marcha de las putas SF. This group provides visibility to the Latinx and LGBTQIA Sex Workers community in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, CA. In addition, she is the Founder & Executive Director of “Voces Puteriles.org.” She serves as Policy & Education co-chair for the HIV Advocacy Network (HAN), a grassroots LGBTQ & HIV activist group in the San Francisco Bay Area with over 700 members who advocate for funding-related services for her community, including sex workers. She is also a member of the Decriminalize Sex Work California Coalition. She has supported extensively throughout the US, including in California, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada and internationally in Mexico, El Salvador, Peru, and Guatemala in Central America.
Steering Committee
Ashley Madness
Ashley Madness (she/her) is a transgender sex worker based in Los Angeles. Since 2018, she has worked with Sex Workers Outreach Project Los Angeles, where she currently serves as a board member. Before coming out as trans and starting sex work, Ashley attended NYU School of Law where she served as an editor on the Moot Court Board. With SWOPLA, Ashley coordinated the Emergency Relief Fund launch in early 2020 to provide cash aid during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ashley has also helped transition leadership and fundraising models and with coordinating & implementing SWOPLA’s advocacy strategies.
Steering Committee
Cesar Espinoza-Perez
Cesar (he/him) is a sex worker organizer and co-founder of Marcha de lxs Putxs. He advocates for systemic changes such as full decriminalization of sex work, immediate access to emergency housing, community based violence prevention, and against government violence & discrimination. As an HIV activist he volunteers with HAN, the HIV advocacy network on campaigns to prevent HIV & Hep C transmission, support people living with HIV, and supports harm reduction policies & the decriminalization of all drugs.
Cocoa Makati
Coordination
Cocoa (she/her) is a queer mixed-race femme who has been around the block! Drawing from over 15 years of experience in the industry, she advocates for decriminalization as the best framework to reduce sex workers’ vulnerability to violence, exploitation and trafficking because it allows greater access to health, justice and human rights protections. Cocoa has worked in the US and abroad under a range of legal frameworks, circumstances and conditions. She worked independently and under management, in full-service brothels and escort agencies, as a stripper, and in survival work. Through those experiences she learned the importance of peer education, human rights based approaches to sex work and trafficking, and community-led and evidence-based policy development. She fiercely believes that the movement must amplify, support and center the leadership of Black, Brown, TGNC, migrant sex workers and others most impacted by criminalization and discrimination. Her advocacy and research spans HIV justice, health and labor rights, anti-trafficking and more. She has worked with Red Edition migrant sex workers collective in Austria, the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective in Wellington and Auckland, and in Australia with Scarlet Alliance and SWOP New South Wales. She likes traveling, spicy food, making art and spending time with cats.
Steering Committee
partners & allies
IN LOVING MEMORY
LissetH sánchez
It is with a heavy heart we share about the passing of one of our steering committee members, Lisseth Sanchez, on Sunday July 30th 2023. Lisseth embodies the meaning of resting in power. When life refused to give her peace, she never stopped fighting to gain it for herself and her entire community.
Es con profunda tristeza que compartimos la muerte de una de las miembros de nuestro comité directivo, Lisseth Sánchez, el domingo 30 de julio de 2023. Lisseth encarna el significado de descansar en poder. Cuando la vida se negó a darle paz, nunca dejó de luchar para encontrarla para ella misma y para toda su comunidad.
her story
Lisseth was born in El Salvador. It was there that she began her work as an activist, fighting for the rights of transgender people and sex workers, her people, her community. Lisseth’s unwavering commitment as a civil rights activist led to her imprisonment and torture, pushing her to come the the United States for asylum. When she began living in the US her commitment to activism for her communities was not swayed.
Through both policy advocacy and direct outreach, Lisseth fought for the rights, well-being, and peace of her community. In recent years, she met with legislators, including Governor Gavin Newsom to advocate for the passage of SB 357, repealing California’s discriminatory law that criminalized loitering with intent to commit prostitution. She worked with St. James Infirmary to ensure sex workers were aware of their rights and provided crucial direct support. She served as a steering committee member of our coaltion, DecrimSexWorkCA (a coalition dedicated to decriminalizing sex work and reducing direct and indirect criminalization of sex workers throughout the state).
Lisseth’s ability to speak on her experiences and the experiences of her community was crucial to improving the conditions of sex workers and trans women of color in the state of California, and around the world. Both in coalition meetings and in the offices of legislators Lisseth fiercely demanded those experiences be central to any solution created or action taken. Her legacy lives on through the countless impacts she made and the values she instilled onto those closest to her.
SU HISTORIA
Lisseth nació en El Salvador. Fue allí que empezó su trabajo como activista luchando por los derechos de las personas transgénero y de los trabajadores sexuales, de su gente y de su comunidad. El inquebrantable compromiso de Lisseth como activista de los derechos civiles condujo a su encarcelamiento y tortura, lo que la obligó a venir a Estados Unidos buscando asilo. Vivir en Estados Unidos no afectó su compromiso con el activismo por sus comunidades.
A través de activismo político y esfuerzos de difusión directos, Lisseth luchó por los derechos, el bienestar y la paz de su comunidad. En sus últimos años se reunió con legisladores y con el gobernador Gavin Newsom para abogar por la aprobación de SB 357, la anulación de la discriminatoria ley de California que criminaliza merodear con intención de cometer prostitución. Trabajó con St. James Infirmary para asegurar que los trabajadores sexuales conocieran sus derechos y les ofreció un valioso apoyo directo. Fue miembro del comité directivo de nuestra coalición, DecrimSexWorkCA (una coalición dedicada a descriminalizar el trabajo sexual y reducir la criminalización directa e indirecta de los trabajadores sexuales en todo el estado).
La capacidad de Lisseth de hablar de sus experiencias y de las experiencias de su comunidad fue esencial para mejorar las condiciones de los trabajadores sexuales y de las mujeres trans de color en el estado de California y en todo el mundo. Tanto en las reuniones de la coalición como en los despachos de los legisladores, Lisseth exigió que estas experiencias fueran tomadas en cuenta en toda solución creada o acción tomada. Su legado vive a través del incalculable impacto que tuvo en su vida y de los valores que inculcó en quienes estaban más cerca de ella.
a letter for lisseth
Una carta para Lisseth
Written by Luisa Rivera | Escrita por Luisa Rivera
Dear Lisseth,
Today we gather to say goodbye to you, a brave revolutionary who tirelessly fought for a more just and equitable world. Your departure has left an immense void in our hearts, but it has also left an indelible legacy in the history of the fight for freedom.
Your commitment to revolutionary ideals inspired us all. You were not afraid to face the challenges and adversities that life presented your way. You always carried the banner of justice high, standing up for the rights of the oppressed and fighting oppression with courage and determination.
Your indomitable spirit and your passion for equality were the spark that ignited the flame of revolution in many hearts. You were a leader and mentor to those around you, always ready to lend a helping hand and lend your wisdom and knowledge to those seeking guidance.
At every march, every protest, and every rally, you were there, out front, leading by example and demonstrating your unwavering commitment to the cause. Your bravery and dedication will never be forgotten.
Today, as we bid you farewell, we pledge to carry on your legacy. We will continue the fight that you loved so much, defending the principles that moved you and seeking a fairer world for all.
Your name will be remembered with honor and your memory will last in our hearts. Rest in peace, dear Lisseth. May you find the peace and tranquility that you so deserve, knowing that your life was an example for all of us.
Goodbye, revolutionary comrade.
With deep respect and affection, your comrade LUISA
Querida Lisseth:
Hoy estamos aquí reunidos para decirte adiós a ti, una valerosa revolucionaria que luchó incansablemente por un mundo más justo y equitativo. Tu partida ha dejado un inmenso vacío en nuestros corazones, pero también dejó un legado permanente en la historia de la lucha por la libertad.
Tu compromiso con tus ideales revolucionarios nos inspiró a todos. No tuviste miedo de enfrentar los desafíos y las adversidades que la vida te puso por delante. Siempre llevaste el estandarte de la justicia en alto y luchaste por los derechos de los oprimidos y contra la opresión con valentía y determinación.
Tu indomable espíritu y tu pasión por la equidad fueron la chispa que encendió la llama de la revolución en muchos corazones. Fuiste una líder y mentora para quienes te rodeaban y estuviste siempre dispuesta a ayudar y a compartir tu sabiduría y conocimientos con quienes te pedían consejos.
Estuviste en cada marcha, en cada protesta y en cada manifestación dirigiéndolas con tu ejemplo y demostrando tu inquebrantable compromiso con la causa. Tu valentía y dedicación nunca serán olvidadas. Hoy, mientras te decimos adiós, nos comprometemos a continuar tu legado. No abandonaremos la lucha que tanto amaste y no dejaremos de defender los principios que te conmovieron y te hicieron luchar por un mundo más justo para todos.
Tu nombre será recordado con honor y tu recuerdo permanecerá en nuestros corazones. Descansa en paz, querida Lisseth. Queremos que encuentres la paz y la tranquilidad que tanto mereces sabiendo que tu vida fue un ejemplo para todos nosotros. Adiós, camarada revolucionaria.
Con profundo respeto y afecto, tu camarada LUISA.
