Resourcing the Fight for Sex Worker Liberation: Our 2024 Grantees
In recognition of International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, a day to gather around the world to mourn those we’ve lost and fight like hell for the living, the Sex Worker Giving Circle (SWGC) is honored to announce our 2024 grantee partners. These fifteen incredible organizations are leading the fight for sex workers’ rights and freedoms across the country despite being critically under-resourced and organizing through ongoing political attacks. We’re honored to be able to show up for sex worker-led movements today and every day.
The SWGC was founded in 2018 as the first sex worker-led fund housed at a U.S. foundation that uses a participatory grantmaking model. The SWGC was created because sex workers are best positioned to confront and transform the oppressive conditions of their own lives. However, movements led by sex workers and people with experience in the sex trade are critically under-resourced despite increasing political attacks. Over the last six years, the SWGC has grown significantly, from distributing $200,000 in 2018, to giving out $750,000 to new and returning grantee partners from across the U.S. and U.S. territories in 2024. This accounts for a total of over $3.8 million dollars redistributed to the sex worker organizing field since its inception! The SWGC gives out two-year grants for general operating support, and Third Wave Fund covers fiscal sponsorship fees so our grantee partners don't have to face that burden.
The work of our grantee partners spans from organizations who are leading the movement to decriminalize sex work in their communities, to groups utilizing the transformative power of art and performance to advocate for sex worker rights and safety, to folks providing life-saving material support sex workers and their families. The SWGC continues to operate as a fully virtual and national program, and is stewarded by the SWGC Fellowship, which brings together current or former sex workers from across the U.S. and U.S. territories to make all funding decisions.
Meet our 2024 SWGC grantees:
Best Practices Policy Project (Morristown, NJ)
Best Practices Policy Project (BPPP) is a proudly queer sex worker and trans-led organization that is committed to transformational changes in defense of sex workers’ lives and economic justice. They support community members through advocacy, mutual aid, cultural work, court support, education, and outreach.
Brushfire Collective (Detroit, MI)
Brushfire Collective (ANSWER Detroit) is a sex worker justice collective founded by current and former sex workers with diverse experiences in the industry. They use multiple strategies to address the direct impacts of criminalization in their communities including creating networks of peer support, skill-building, political education, mutual aid, community care, storytelling, and base-building activities.
Coalition for Rights & Safety for People in the Sex Trade (Federal Way, WA)
Coalition for Rights & Safety for People in the Sex Trade is a Washington-based collective of sex worker leaders working to ensure political autonomy and provide direct support to their community through initiatives like the Massage Parlor Outreach Project that organizes migrant Asian women workers at massage parlors and Aileen’s, a community organizing and hospitality space for women and gender-variant people who do street-based work and are experiencing homelessness, criminalization, and health access issues. Their main work revolves around organizing their community for policy changes in criminal justice, housing, and public health. This year, they seek to strengthen their leadership development for members of Aileen’s and capacity building through a leadership transition.
Empowering Transgender Services (Hampton, VA)
Empowering Transgender Services’ mission is to empower transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming individuals by providing comprehensive resources to improve their quality of life including; vocational education, employment readiness, and sexual health services such as HIV testing/PREP and hormone therapy. By addressing intersecting forms of structural stigma and discrimination, they aim to reduce barriers to employment and housing, enhancing the health, safety, and well-being of transgender women in sex work.
Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo (Jackson Heights, NY)
Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo (CITG) is an organization that works to promote and defend human rights and access to comprehensive healthcare for TransGNB folks, QBIPOC, and Latinx and migrant sex workers, by strengthening the social and cultural expression of diverse and gender-expansive communities in New York City. CITG provides a food pantry, hot meals, and connections to general medical and comprehensive mental health services.
LIPS Florida (Apopka, FL)
Lady's Intervention Project for Success Florida (LIPS Florida) is a trans-led organization committed to inclusive, representative, and authentic leadership, dedicated to uplifting the voices and experiences of Black trans people. LIPS Florida advocates for the inclusion of transgender individuals in societal programs and policies, addressing the criminalization of transgender people due to outdated HIV laws and anti-sex work legislation.
Oregon Sex Worker Committee (Portland, OR)
Oregon Sex Worker Committee is founded and led by queer, BIPOC, neurodivergent, and parent current or former sex workers. They combat state violence and interpersonal harm through harm reduction programs, sex worker-led research projects, and public education, sourcing the voices of those most affected to challenge stigmatizing preconceptions.
Proyecto Trans Latinas (San Diego, CA)
Proyecto Trans Latinas supports the sexual wellness of their community through weekly STI and HIV test clinics, condom and lube distribution, and education on safer sex practices. While affirming sex work as legitimate, Proyecto Trans Latinas advocates for decriminalization and destigmatization, aiming to provide their community with more choices through professional development initiatives like their makeup course.
Red Light District by TW!O (Atlanta, GA)
Red Light District by TW!O advocates for current or former sex workers and erotic laborers who live and/or work in the Metro Atlanta area. Their core values include recognizing sex work as legitimate labor, supporting decriminalization, opposing violence against sex workers, and promoting self-determination and dignity for all individuals in the industry.
Rio Grande Valley Harm Reduction (Edinburg, TX)
Rio Grande Valley Harm Reduction (RGVHR) is a trans, POC, SW-led and founded harm reduction organization on the border of Texas and Mexico. Their main work centers organizing to address the lack of local Syringe Service Programs, focusing on sex workers who use drugs and distributing kits primarily to the Latinx community.
Rose in the Dark (West Hollywood, CA)
Rose in the Dark’s mission is to uplift and support Black queer, trans, and gender non-conforming artists and sex workers. Utilizing the arts as a catalyst for social change, they provide safe spaces to perform that allow freedom of artistic and sensual expression, as well as creating community centered experiences.
The Outlaw Project (Phoenix, AZ)
The Outlaw Project (TOP) is founded on the principles of intersectionality. They are piloting a Black Trans-led community space in Tucson, Arizona, providing secure housing, income opportunities, and a safe environment for organizing and advocacy.
Trans Women of Color Collective (Kansas City, MO)
Trans Women of Color Collective (TWOCC) is the first all-Black trans-led initiative in Kansas City working to combat anti-LGBTQ+ policies in Missouri and Kansas while supporting sex workers and Black LGBTQ+ individuals often sidelined by society and other groups. TWOCC empowers trans and gender non-conforming people of color through healing, restorative justice, economic empowerment, and advocacy initiatives.
Artists Revolt (Los Angeles, CA)
Artist's Revolt is a collection of marginalized artists, strippers and sex workers. They care about the state of the world and they create actionable solutions to the erroneous injustices they face due to invisibility. They also produce their own campaigns by creating artistic ways to achieve: advocacy, philanthropy and activism.
They aid other organizations of change to further their good work as well.
National Survivors Union (Greensboro, NC)
National Survivors Union (NSU) organizes and mobilizes the community to change the narrative about people who use and sell drugs and trade sex. NSU conducts skill share workshops, facilitates restorative/healing justice and circulates mutual aid.
Join us in celebrating our grantee partners and their life-giving work to protect and liberate all sex workers all year round! We also want to shout out the grantee partners who are on their second year of receiving support from the Sex Worker Giving Circle, which include: F2L Network, MO Ho Justice, MSM & Trans Lives Matter, Portland Sex Worker Resource Project, Serenity House, The CID Collective, SWOPLA, Transformations Youth Group, Unspoken Treasure Society, and Whose Corner Is It Anyway.
To learn more about the Sex Worker Giving Circle, you can visit our website. Keep an eye out in early 2025 for the opening of our Sex Worker Giving Circle Fellowship, and our grantee applications. You can support the ongoing work of the Sex Worker Giving Circle by giving now.
