Stop the (false) arrests

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Video and creative projects by PJ Starr. Works in progress, retrospective, eye-spy with my little eye.

PJ Starr is a sex worker rights activist and friend of transgenders everywhere.

Stop the (false) arrests

Sex worker organizing with the support of allies is taking off in NYC. Yesterday ten members of SWOP-NYC and friends came out to support the rally to stop the false arrests of gay men in porn stores in NYC. Maybe these arrests seem mind-blowing (undercover cops approach men browsing literature in the stores, negotiate sex, at the last moment say “and I’d like to pay you $50” then the handcuffs are out…) to your average person on the street, but sex workers are no strangers to illegitimate policing. Police can pick up sex workers when they are walking home (false arrest), going to the store (false arrest) or when they are working (technically an “okay” arrest but we protest this).

Speakers at the rally organized by a coalition to stop the arrests, came out against the arrests of young people, trans people and people of color. SWOP-NYC cheered in approval when Robert Pinter asked us to keep fighting for sexual liberty in NYC.

Sex workers placards were the most colorful and arousing. We asked the police to keep their laws “out of our ass.”