Privilege, Oppression, and InterseXionality-Day 3

Day 3
The Festival is offering a 4-day series of workshops, "Privilege, Oppression, and InterseXionality," organized in conjunction with Rhizome Consulting Project. a collaboration of social justice consultants working with grassroots and movement building organizations in the Bay Area.

The workshops run from Monday, May 20th to Thursday, May 23rd, 2013. All locations are ADA accessible. Childcare, translation and signing services are available upon request. We also ask you to assist us in making this a scent free environment (see peggymunson.com/mcs/fragrancefree.html ). Please email sexworkerfest [at] gmail.com or call 510-410-4318 to request these or other options. Also see Logistics/Accessibility.

Current and former sex workers as well as individuals who engage in sex trade and their allies and families will be coming together to join this much needed and greatly missing lens on working towards the safety, health, and dignity of all people involved in sex work.

Cost: There is no charge, however donations are gladly accepted to help cover event expenses. We also seek funds from supportive sponsors and organizations.

Wednesday, May 22nd 12-4 PM (snacks provided-smaller groups)
CAL-PEP- 2811 Adeline St. Oakland Ca. 94608

The 3rd day will focus on intersectional caucusing/small group convo's on the ways that class and sex work intersect. There will be 4-5 caucus/small group topics that we will determine as a larger group depending on the shared interests of the group, again highlighting the ways one's class intersects with their gender, sexuality, ability, size, education, health, legal status, religion belief/practice, country of origin, housing status, language, and our many other lived experiences. Together we will unpack the layers of how different class and intersecting identities impacts ones experience with sex work and/or informs our movement goals from the type/safety/location of someone's work but also the impacts of how laws and policies are enforced against certain sex workers.

Please call 510-410-4318 for more info
To register for InterseXionality, visit:
http://www.sexworkerfest.com/swfest2013/interseXionality.htm

Rhizome "is committed to transformational processes and social justice movement building to uproot the systems of oppression that perpetuate state and interpersonal violence and generational poverty. We work to instead replace them with liberatory and beautiful structures and practices."

"Poor people, young people, immigrants, people of color and others in our communities are under attack with increasingly oppressive laws and policies being enacted and enforced to further criminalize acts of survival," explains Lisa Marie Alatorre of Rhizome. "As a larger movement and community of sex workers, we want to challenge those systems of oppression collectively. Rather than allow them to fracture our work, we aim to heal and build together."

Join other sex workers and allies coming together to build support, understanding and communication within our communities and to deepen our awareness of class/race/gender and how they overlap and intersect. We will build tools to challenge and overcome oppression as we work towards creating an inclusive space to organize and strengthen our communities. We will explore identities, the dynamics of power and discrimination and how they interact within the sex worker communities, addressing our diversities including race, class, age, size, abilities, religion/belief/practice, country of origin, housing status, language, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, legal status and more.

"As a sex worker activist, I have seen that issues of class, race and privilege have been scary and divisive. Our preparation for these workshops has been mind and heart opening and I really appreciate this guidance." says Carol Leigh from BAYSWAN.

"My mind was blown in the first 15 minutes of the ARAO training with Rhizome. Having been a radical leftist and activist for over 20 years, I had spent a lot of time thinking and talking about oppression, but now I realize that I had never really gone beyond the concepts of race and class," Shannon Williams from SWOP explains. "This training taught me that there is so much more to it than that. I have undergone some intense personal growth as a result of this training, growth that will make me a better person, and a better activist."

Locations and times vary. (See above.) Space is somewhat limited. We will also offer on site registration, but reservations should be made in advance. Interested people should call 510-410-4318 to learn more about this project or to register, click here to sign up or just email us at sexworkerfest [at] gmail.com and let us know you are interested.