In my country (Aotearoa New Zealand), the media coverage of sex worker activism lately has consisted of two major phenomena:

1. A group advocating for collective bargaining and the extension of worker protections to strippers, who currently are classified as casual, contracted workers, not part-time or full-time employees.
2. A campaign to amend the 2003 Prostitution Reform Act to extend worker protections to migrant sex workers, who were omitted from the original legislation.

All of these campaigns have been dominated by young, white cis-woman sex workers. As a John who has punted extensively in Aotearoa New Zealand, I find it peculiar that migrant Chinese, South-East Asian and Latin American sex workers are absent from both campaigns (especially the second). With the exception of one white-passing Māori woman playing a prominent role in the first movement, the lack of brown-passing Māori, tangata moana/indigenous Pacific Islanders, black and brown sex workers also seems peculiar. I think it was especially concerning that movement (1) died down a year ago after the white 30 something year old escort leading the movement exited activism due to health issues and nobody was there to step in to take the mic/megaphone. Sex workers in the two aforementioned movements seemed to be characterized by the following demographics:

• presenting or passing as cis women
• 20-35 year old age range
• white or white passing
• alternative, goth and punk

NZPC seems to on the other hand seems to do well representing a wide range of genders, ethnicities, ages and backgrounds (based on the photos they publish online).

Several questions that come to mind:

• Do you find that sex worker activism in your country is dominated by young, white and cis-women, especially if your country is a white majority society?
• Do you believe sex worker activism is predominantly an Anglophone phenomena in the West that may lead to language barriers which prevent other sex workers (namely migrant workers) from being platformed in activist circles?
• Do you believe desirability and normative beauty standards play a role that lead to younger, whiter, normatively attractive women/femmes being pushed to the front of activist movements?
• Do you believe time and energy relating to work and making time to engage in activism are major factors?
• Is sex work activism mainly the domain of those sex workers relatively more financially well off?
• Do you consider all these things to be major obstacles in contemporary global sex work activism?

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond. I look forward to reading your answers.