This is my letter to the UK Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper. I am posting it physically as well as online, as part of Decrim Now‘s letter writing campaign. If you would also like to participate in calling for the decriminalization of sex work in the UK, especially if you have personal experience with selling sex, you can send a letter anonymously to 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF. Sending a physical letter might be a bit of a hassle, but it’s worth it to be heard!
Feel free to use my letter as inspiration, but you absolutely don’t need to share personal details the way I have!
Dear Home Secretary,
I’m writing this letter to urge you to oppose measures criminalizing sex work in the UK, and to instead support the full decriminalization of it.
My name is Jack. I am a trans man and a 26-year old full service sex worker. I started selling sex when I was 17 years old, before transitioning, after suddenly becoming homeless. My options were limited due to the incredibly low minimum wage for under-18s at the time, alongside long wait lists for housing through my local council. This was not a job I chose for fun or because of force by a third party, but work I undertook out of necessity.
Over the 9 years since then, I have worked in brothels and sold sex independently. I earn just enough to keep myself housed and fed. For all the time I have been doing this work, the UK’s laws around sex work have limited me and made my life harder.
Laws against brothel-keeping have made my workplaces more precarious, leaving me with no guarantees about whether I might lose my job at any moment. These same laws make it so that I could be given a prison sentence if I decide to sell sex from the same house or flat as another sex worker for my own safety. I have been unable to report abusive brothel managers for the harm they have done to me and to other sex workers, because if we were to go to the police they might shut the brothel down and we would lose our income. I cannot verify how safe the brothels I seek employment in will be, since these establishments are forced to hide what they are and be secretive. When I am raped by clients, I know that reporting them to the police is useless and that I could be the one facing legal consequences depending on the ways I am engaging in sex work at the time.
“Welfare checks” and brothel raids by police have traumatized me just as much as assaults by clients. On one occasion a police officer posed as a client and showed up to the flat I was working from, supposedly to assess whether I was being exploited, only to pressure me into sex under the threat of reporting the brothel if I refused.
So many laws which might seem beneficial to you in theory have huge negative impacts on myself and other sex workers: if a friend pays for my taxi to see a client they can be charged with controlling or managing offenses; if I solicit on the street out of desperation I can be given a Prostitutes’ Caution that will follow me and limit my job options forever; when I want to rent a home I have to lie about my job or risk my landlord denying me out of fear they could be charged with controlling prostitution for gain. The criminalization of these aspects of sex work doesn’t protect me from exploiters, it leaves me vulnerable to them because it limits my ability to earn money and the support I can request from others.
Further criminalization will only make these problems worse. If my clients are criminalized, I will be forced to accept more dangerous clients that I would otherwise refuse and rely on third parties who can find clients for me but will exploit me in the process. We already know from the effects of client criminalization in Northern Ireland and France and various other places that violence against sex workers increases when it is illegal to buy sex. The “Nordic Model” or so-called “Equality Model” is not what I want, nor is it wanted by the other sex workers I know. It kills.
I have been raped by clients, abused by police, and stigmatized and hated by my own family for selling sex. Please do not make this even worse by criminalizing my work further. Every law put in place to restrict sex work is another blow which knocks me down from being able to climb out of poverty, trapping me in sex work managed by others instead of allowing me my independence and the freedom to leave.
Being a sex worker in the UK, I live in constant fear. So do other sex workers in my community who I love and want to protect. Right now we are terrified. I urge you to do the right thing and hear our pleas for the full decriminalization of sex work. I want a future where sex workers have workers’ rights, safe workplaces, and an end to the stigmatization of our work.
Sincerely,
Jack Parker.
Jack Talks About Sex Work 