Sex Worker Collectives Within the Whorearchy: Intersectional Inquiry with Sex Workers in Los Angeles, CA

Abstract

Our ability to provide affirming care to individuals who engage in sex work is limited by punitive foundations of social work. This study originates from within the sex worker rights movement. I utilize qualitative dialogues aligned with participatory principles to consider how a Black feminist disability framework can be employed to explore how intersectionality weaves itself into the lives and networks of 13 sex workers in Los Angeles, CA. Specifically, this study engaged in Participatory Action Research (PAR) and collective knowledge production to examine how criminalization operates within larger intersecting systems of oppression and complicates workers’ relationships with each other. The results of this study put forth the conceptualization of the sex worker-informed stratified social hierarchy – described as the “whorearchy” – and the ways that collective care is used to combat it. I conclude with a discussion on centering restorative sex worker narratives in order to examine how criminalization hinders sex worker solidarity and how, similarly, the state's role limits the ways social workers can support sex worker liberation.