Testing - Intimate Access

Sex work, disability justice and mutual aid

ABOUT

INTIMATE ACCESS is a collective of sex workers, disability justice organizers, helping professionals and our co-conspirators based on lək̓ʷəŋən Traditional Territory. We are an accessibility-focused, community-driven resiliency project aimed at facilitating peer-led advocacy, education, financial relief & therapeutic support for chronically-ill & disabled sex workers in the province through a Disability Justice framework. Our commitment to this work is nurtured by a passion for cross-movement solidarity, liberatory-initiatives that underscore bodily autonomy, and amplify peer-led interventions of those with stigmatized life experiences, and those who’ve experienced harm through state abandonment and the criminalization of their survival.

The title for the project was inspired by the works of Disability Justice advocate Mia Mingus’s writing on Access Intimacy, which she describes as “that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else ‘gets’ your access needs” (2011).

VALUES

As a collective composed of multiply-disabled white femmes utilizing an activist and movement framework grounded in the lived experiences of queer and trans disabled folks of color, we acknowledge the deep lineage of Disability Justice as one that centers the most impacted and marginalized disabled folks. We recognize the ways in which we benefit from white supremacy and settler colonialism, and aim to practice accountability for our own systemic and structural advantages through uplifting sex workers whose disability oppression is compounded along other axes of power and struggle.

FOSTER COALITION-BUILDING/CROSS-MOVEMENT SOLIDARITY

Intimate Access seeks to promote much needed cross-movement solidarity between the disability rights community and the sex worker community. Both communities face intersecting challenges and systemic barriers that often go unrecognized or unaddressed due to societal stigmas and misconceptions. Our collective aims to bridge this divide by creating a platform for mutual understanding, collaboration and coalition. By fostering dialogue and building trust, we believe that we can amplify the voices of these marginalized communities that share common goals of autonomy, dignity, and justice.

RESISTING ISOLATION THROUGH DIGNITY & BELONGING

Sick & disabled sex workers are at a compounded risk of isolation stemming from whorephobia, stigma and ableism and eugenic policies, all of which can push workers into the shadows in an attempt to avoid being outed/doxxed. More, medically high-risk sex workers who’ve been shut out of society due to COVID-19 minimization and pandemic denialism makes attending in-person events inaccessible. We want to offer a more accessible way of being in community and fostering connection that doesn’t put workers at an increased risk of exposure while doing so.