New intern Daisy helping us organize condoms! Are you a sex worker in the New York area in need of some? Get in touch with us and we can arrange for you to stop by our offices.
Are you in NYC this Saturday? Come to our 6th Anniversary Gala! Hosted at the sex shop, The Pleasure Chest, you can take care of your work (and fun!) shopping whilst 15% of proceeds are donated to the Red Umbrella Project.
Enjoy watching members debuting their newest pieces about sex work from our spring writing workshops while you sip on a cocktail. Mix and mingle with fellow sex work activists. Come on over and have fun with us!
#Blacksexworkerslivesmatter: White-Washed ‘Anti-Slavery’ and the Appropriation of Black Suffering
redupnyc reblogged
This week Red Umbrella Project is celebrating the WORLD PREMIERE of the Red Umbrella Diaries documentary at Portland Film Festival. We’ll have two screenings, plus cast members are running a writing workshop and a media training (both FREE and for current and former sex workers only).
To celebrate. I’m posting pictures of cast members and their pets!
PORTLAND WE’RE COMING FOR YOU!
Details on screenings and workshops here.
redupnyc reblogged
workingitinportland-deactivated
The only No True Scotsman I’ll accept wrt feminism:
Real feminists support trans women and sex workers
PROCEEDS GO TO SUPPORT MONICA JONES Whose life was interrupted and made a living hell through carceral diversion policies supported by prohibitionist feminists
thedailyshmir
“Real Feminists Support Trans Women and Sex Workers! Commissioned by fierce Trans and sex worker activist Monica Jones - this shirt articulates the type of feminism we need and want in the world. Profit from this shirt goes directly to help resource Monica so that she can continue to do her advocacy work both nationally and internationally.“
redupnyc reblogged
#GirlsLikeUs - Tomorrow SATURDAY 2 - 6pm
THE @NYCBlackPride TRANS CONFERENCE
Helen Mills Event Space & Theater 137-139 W 26th St, NY. NY 10001
Trans people of African Descent discuss Health & other issues affecting our community.
Expect a great panel and surprise speakers!
This event is being Presented by NYTAG and Supported by Destination Tomorrow.
FOLLOWED BY @NYCBlackPride : THE HERITAGE BALL 2015 at 11pm at @GramercyTheatre THE HERITAGE BALL 2015 Both events are FREE !! Watch VIDEO Invite :
(at Helen Mills Event Space & Theater)
We are very excited to announce the World Premiere of The Red Umbrella Diaries feature documentary! The film will be screened publicly for the first time at the Portland Film Festival on September 2 and will go on to have its first New York City screening at the New York City Independent Film Festival on Friday, October 16. The filmmakers and many cast members will be in attendance at both screenings, and you can follow #redupdoc across the internet to get the latest on our progress.
The Red Umbrella Diaries, based on RedUP’s long running live storytelling series, tells the personal stories of seven diverse New Yorkers who work in different sectors of the sex trade and come together to tell their tales on stage at Joe’s Pub. The film digs deep into the personal experiences of people who trade sex for a living, and illuminates the complexities and contradictions that sex workers face as they try to do right by themselves and people they care about. The film explores the question: what happens when people whose voices are never heard in mainstream media take control of their own stories and how they are presented to the world?
redupnyc reblogged
Here she is. Our heroine. I couldn’t watch this without crying.
redupnyc reblogged
redupnyc reblogged
workingitinportland-deactivated
In the end, the most affected by this will be the most marginalized among us. Many of the higher echelons of sex workers in the US don’t advertise on Backpage at all, and those who do are more likely to have the resources to learn how to use Bitcoin, pay high fees for prepaid cards, or move on to more expensive, less accessible sites.
Backpage has never had pretensions of being “high-end” or “upscale.” The cost and barrier to entry to advertise on the site are low, and the workers who use it are numerically more likely to be poorer, browner, and less gender-conforming than the smaller and more homogeneous populations of higher-end sites—those with fewer resources, who have fewer options. Preventing these workers from being able to advertise makes it more likely for them to be driven onto the streets, into the hands of pimps or managers, or simply into more desperate poverty.
Politicians may not see this as an issue, but all of us should. As conservative Canadian senator Donald Plett put it in reference to End Demand bill C-36, “Of course, we don’t want to make life safe for prostitutes; we want to do away with prostitution. That’s the intent.”
The human effect is just collateral damage—if we’re even considered human at all.
redupnyc reblogged
Also, another thing I haven’t heard anyone mention is that Backpage has been trying to encourage everyone to pay with Bitcoin for quite a while now. Like they give discounts for it.
So clearly they have some kind of massive Bitcoin stash on a server farm somewhere as a form of tax evasion (the IRS actually considers Bitcoins property, not currency…pretty weird).
They probably even speculate on the Bitcoin market for all we know. I’ve been checking the exchange rate the past couple days to see if this affects it at all. So far it’s remained about the same, but if this is really the future we’ll probably see massive inflation.
And like, they have over $100mm/year in revenue with seemingly minuscule operating costs so for all we know they’re basically like to Bitcoin what the Chinese government is to the US dollar.
Idk, I’m only starting to learn about this, but it seems like if even half of Backpage users switch to Bitcoin then Backpage would have the ability to manipulate the value of Bitcoins based on how they price their ads and in turn see a substantial profit off the Bitcoins they’ve been hoarding.
redupnyc reblogged
Oooh I just got this from backpage guys
Actually I just tried this and it didn’t work?
Apparently it’s only working for new ads and not for upgrades or bumping up to the top… Which is kinda good maybe because otherwise would some ppl just put their ad to the top like every 2 seconds and make the whole site utterly useless?
Lol, that’s what I was going to do! Tbh I have hardly used BP in years so should probably make the ethical choice and leave this for those who need it to maintain their business. But thanks for the info, hopefully others will see it and take advantage.
redupnyc reblogged
This is terrifying. They are cutting off the largest site for SURVIVAL SEX WORKERS. High end girls if you don’t think this effects you, you are dead wrong. They will come for higher priced sites next. This is so fucked up. What can we even do?!
beachbunnyescort
Please reblog and spread the word guys, someone out there with more knowledge of law may see this and give ideas for how to fight it. Survival sex workers need BP Trans sex workers need BP This is not a small issue this is an attack on sex work and an attempt to further criminalize our work, making work conditions far less safe.
beachbunnyescort
I’m going to be boosting this all day. Please help spread the word. We need to get voices out there, we need people to understand this is not ok.
evolvingmatter
I’m trying to get some press attention to this here in the hope of embarrassing Mastercard and Visa’s Australian operations, and may have succeeded but don’t want to get too excited until it’s confirmed.
But y'all in the states are fucked considering the moral panic facing Backpage right now. People need to get familiar with Bitcoin: it’s the only way you’re going to be able to keep using the site, and it’ll tide you over until someone creates a replacement that isn’t a disaster.
redupnyc reblogged
blaaaaaank-deactivated20210314
[aggressively supports other sex workers]
redupnyc reblogged
workingitinportland-deactivated
“l’m not exploited.”
“I find my work empowering! I love sex! It’s fun!”
“I chose to do this. I could do lots of other things. I have a degree!”
These are some of the things I see people saying when we’re talking about decriminalisation and rights, and I’m happy for you, I really am, but what you’re saying is completely irrelevant. And sometimes it’s downright harmful.
…
The truth is that you deserve rights if you like your work, but you still deserve them, (and probably need them more) if you don’t like your work. Responding to prohibitionist claims about how unpleasant sex work is with cries of empowerment and enjoyment means taking the bait and moving the focus of the discussion away from the work of sex work. When we do that, we’re caught up in a never ending game of top-trumps in which we endlessly compare people’s experiences of sex work and try to find an essence somewhere at the centre of it all on which to hinge our opinion of whether or not workers should have rights. We need to stop hunting for the essential sex work experience. It’s not there, and it never was. And we don’t need it to be, because the whole conversation is a pointless, irrelevant distraction.
People are entitled to rights, justice and safety, regardless of their experiences. So the fact that you enjoy your work or have good feelings about it is nice (it might even be useful information sometimes, since we are battling stereotypes here and it’s good to introduce the idea that some people have a okay time doing sex work in order to balance the fact that we’re often all lumped together and imagined as reduced to desperate, miserable wretches– but it’s not an argument for rights. If anything, the reverse is true. Ever had a job you didn’t like? Did you find yourself thinking “‘what I really need right now is just … fewer rights. That’d really improve things for me.”
Anonymous asked:
Are you selling those shirts anywhere? I'd love to wear one with pride!
Right now we are totally sold out of shirts but we’re restocking this coming week and will put them for sale online then.
redupnyc reblogged
61-70 100 Days of Pleasantries by Jacq the Stripper