Please help supply our street outreach program by supporting our Valentines fundraiser.
Essentials such as safe sex and safe injection supplies, hygiene products, clothing, snacks and hot drinks, and info on free services are available from our outreach team at these weekly locations:
SWOP-Chicago is hiring a part-time staff person with the primary responsibilities of coordinating our weekly street outreach to workers in East Garfield Park, Rogers Park, and Boystown. At outreach, we provide condoms, sterile syringes, HIV testing, other resources, and connections to sex worker-friendly organizations in Chicago. The staff person will work with a high degree of autonomy in recruiting, coordinating, and training volunteers and will report to the SWOP-Chicago Board of Directors monthly. Most of the work can be done remotely.
The successful candidate will have strong organization skills, familiarity with social media platforms, and familiarity with the sex worker community and/or social justice organizing in the larger Chicago area.
Hours and Compensation
The position will begin immediately and will average about 10 hours a week for 6 months, with an opportunity to renew employment pending grant funding. Hours may be lower or higher in a given week according to programming needs. Compensation begins at $18/hour.
Responsibilities Include:
To Apply
Current and retired sex workers, people of color, and trans* and gender-nonconforming folks are especially encouraged to apply. Please send an updated resume and brief cover letter to info@swop-chicago.org. Your cover letter should address your familiarity with SWOP, the sex worker community, and/or sex trade. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. To ensure your application receives priority review, please submit by noon on Tuesday, January 1.
SWOP-Chicago Street Outreach Coordinator
Yet another life has been cut short by a murderous cop, anti-sex worker bias, and the ongoing criminalization of sex work.
Donna Dalton Castleberry, a 23-year-old mother of two, was shot eight times at point-blank range on August 23 by Columbus, Ohio undercover vice cop Andrew Mitchell. Castleberry was inside an unmarked police vehicle when she was killed by Mitchell, who alleged that she attempted to stab him in the hand with a knife. Two days earlier, a judge had issued a warrant for Dalton’s arrest for failing to appear for sentencing on a misdemeanor soliciting charge.
Two days later, over 100 friends, family members, and supporters held a memorial vigil for Donna.
“The family is crying out for justice and answers,” said the victim’s older sister, Bobbi McCalla, on her GoFundMe campaign to cover Castleberry’s final expenses. According to McCalla, enough has already been raised for the funeral, and all additional contributions will go toward a potential legal fight against the city of Columbus and its police department.
“If I were in that position, I might lunge at someone if I feared for my life,” said Castleberrry’s cousin, Mary Laile, about Donna’s last moments.
According to a police spokesperson, other cops on the scene claimed a conversation took place inside Mitchell’s car before he opened fire. While no further information is available concerning the circumstances of Castleberry’s death, we can easily imagine that she may have gotten into the unmarked vehicle believing Mitchell to be a client, then acted in self-defense when she discovered otherwise. Just such situations are all too familiar to sex workers, who face on-the-job violence every day at the hands of both cops and clients. Due to the criminalization of our profession, sex workers are denied redress for this violence. Meanwhile, recent legislation such as SESTA/FOSTA, which targets online discourse concerning sex work, has forced more sex workers on to the street and into more dangerous working conditions. While these conditions prevail, we can expect to see an increase in murders such as Castleberry’s, and other instances of violence against sex workers.
Donna Dalton Castleberry fell victim to intersecting forces of oppression: the ability of police to kill with impunity, and the stigma that says sex workers’ lives are disposable.
SWOP-Chicago stands in mourning, rage, and solidarity with the family of Donna Dalton Castleberry, and Ohio’s sex worker community.
#sexworkersrightsarehumanrights #sexworkiswork #LetUsSurvive #nokillercops
Brown and Proud Press is holding a party to celebrate their new zine, and proceeds will benefit SWOP-Chicago!
Thursday, August 16
7-10pm
AMFM Gallery
2151 W 21st St, Chicago, IL 60608
Brown and Proud Press invites you to a nighttime celebration for their newest zine titled, “Secretos: from one hoe to another”
We will have sensual performances, vendors and music. Doors open at 7pm, 18+ for mature content. All door proceeds will pay our performers and a portion of drink sales will be donated to SWOP Chicago.
Burlesque performances by:
Mika
Delikate Doll
Guest of Honor: SWOP members
Sexy Vendors:
Gnat Glitter Kink
Marimacha Monarca Press
Xicana Moon
Kinky Photobooth by Mayra
*props will be available 
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About Secretos:
“This work is intentionally anonymous. We wanted to provide a space where womxn can express themselves freely, powerfully, vulnerably. As a collective, we believe in the healing power of sharing our stories: some of these stories are straight up hoe ass shit, others are nasty, some are funny and some are heartbreaking. We put out a call for submissions and only asked that names be changed and that the work be anonymous. With this vulnerability, comes triggering stories. Some of the work in this zine may mention mental health illnesses, sexual assault, or intimate partner violence. We ask that you respect these stories as standing entities and that you love yourself, putx.
From,
One Putx to Another & Brown & Proud Press
Design Print Materials for the PROS Network Chicago!
SWOP-Chicago is hiring a graphic designer to update print materials related to the PROS-Network Chicago (Providers and Resources Offering Services to Sex Workers). The PROS Network is a directory of direct service providers and legal, medical and mental health professionals that provide non-judgmental and harm reduction oriented services to individuals currently or formerly involved in the sex industry. For more information, visit http://www.prosnetworkchicago.org.
We can offer a $200 stipend for design of a brochure that will list all of the members of the PROS Network, the services they provide, and their location in Chicago.
Current and retired sex workers, people of color, and trans* and gender-nonconforming folks are especially encouraged to apply. Please send a brief (1 paragraph) introduction and a few samples of your work to info@swop-chicago.org. In your introduction, please address your familiarity with SWOP, the sex worker community, and/or sex trade. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. To ensure your application receives priority review, please submit by noon on Sunday, August 19.
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On June 20, Chicago City Council quietly and unanimously passed a substitute ordinance that specifically outlaws “prostitution-related loitering.”
Introduced in November 2017 by Aldermen Joe Moore of Rogers Park and Jason Ervin of Garfield Park, the ordinance amends the city’s Municipal Code by adding Section 8-4-016. This new law imposes fines of $50-500, along with potential arrest and imprisonment, on individuals deemed by police to be engaged in “prostitution-related loitering.”
The new language also instructs the Superintendent of Police to “designate areas of the city in which enforcement of this section is necessary because the areas are frequently associated with prostitution-related loitering.” The ordinance also amends existing Section 8-8-060 to include more detail and specificity concerning “solicitation for prostitution.”
The ordinance was introduced in the wake of months of targeted harassment of both street-based sex workers and SWOP-Chicago outreach workers in Rogers Park, on the part of Alderman Moore and some residents.
On the advice of some members of the local social services community, the ordinance was revised prior to passage to lower potential fines for sex workers while raising them for customers, thus partially embracing an “end-demand” approach to policing sex work. While this “end-demand model” purports to transfer legal liability from workers to clients, in practice criminalizing our clientele harms sex workers by keeping our industry marginalized and our work environments unsafe.
By passing this ordinance, Chicago City Council compounds the harm inflicted on sex workers by SESTA/FOSTA, the Federal “anti-trafficking” legislation recently passed by Congress. While this legislation erases sex workers’ access to safer online means of conducting business, thereby forcing more workers on to the streets, the City of Chicago has now chosen to add to the danger faced by street-based workers by creating new levels of criminalization.
SWOP-Chicago joins our city’s harm-reduction community in opposing this new assault on the safety, livelihood, and self-determination of sex workers. The new and revised laws reflect the worst of both the dangerous criminalization of sex work, and paternalistic “rescue-based” treatment of workers. Only the full decriminalization of sex work can ensure safety and self-determination for individuals engaged in trading sexual services, whether by choice, circumstance, or coercion.
The amazing Leah Ball is hosting Erotic Plate making workshops to support sex workers Saturday, June 10 and Tuesday, June 26! Sign up for a fun time and for a great cause at leah-ball.com!
Emily is throwing a great event after the support group on Saturday to plan efforts to channel art in protesting SESTA/FOSTA/CLOUD! Read her description below.
As an Art Therapist & Current Sex Worker, I am in the process of organizing an Art Protest titled “A Funeral for the Death of Safer Sex Work” set for May 1st, 2018, (international laborer/worker rights day) as a way to collectively greave the end of an era for sex workers, as a way to object to the passing of SESTA, FOSTA & CLOUD as well as to show physical visible solidarity with sex workers experiencing negative effects from the implementation of these laws!
The first planning meeting and funeral hat making workshop will be held after the Sex Worker Support Group this coming Saturday the 21st around 3:00pm at my place (close to the corner of Clark & Lunt) in Rogers Park. I will have music, food & art supplies (but would like to empower people to bring their own supplies as well)!
I will lead a hat making workshop and allow for any further processing that folks want to do after the support group!
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/TheArtOfHoetest
a chicago community of sex workers
Mutual-aid based harm reduction for women, queer, and trans people involved in the street economies of Philly. Kensington based/sex worker focused
Frank commentary from a semi-retired call girl
Sex Worker Outreach Project - Chicago 
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