Thread by @cmclymer

If someone with a typical office job was brutally murdered and someone said they had a garden variety 9-5 office job, you wouldn't hear someone else reply: "Are we sure they had an office job? We should know this as a fact before saying it. Just to be sure." (thread)

And yet, if someone who might be a sex worker is killed and someone says they may have been a sex worker, the immediate response from many is: "Are you sure they were a sex worker? You really should be sure before saying that."

Are there people who might say this for a good reason? Sure, there are circumstances where that makes sense. But let's be honest: most of the folks saying that this week are saying it because being a sex worker is looked down upon by a lot of uninformed, condescending people.

I understand this topic brings up complicated feelings, but what bothers me is the extraordinary lack of knowledge about sex workers coupled with an arrogant and unyielding opinion on sex workers that implies you know everything there is to know about sex workers when you don't.

I'm bringing this up because there continues to be this pervasive dehumanization of sex workers and condescension toward their life experience that is based on something the opinion holder saw in film and television and tragically uninformed reporting.

They don't actually know any sex workers, or at least, they don't know sex workers in the way one might know a friend or family member or colleague, according them the respect of an adult with agency instead of a projection of the opinion holder's insecurity and ignorance.

This matters because it directly enables the way sex workers are vulnerable to a level of dehumanization that would never be tolerated toward another occupation. If a sex worker dies, they're not "just a sex worker" as I saw many say recently. That's bullshit. That's wrong.

This isn't about your opinion on the complexities of sex work and how it should be regulated and why it's different from sex trafficking; there's nuance in all that among reasonable adults. It's about dehumanizing sex workers via a one-dimensional prism out of willful ignorance.

When you enable this dehumanization of sex workers, you're making their lives and your apparent perception of their perceived struggles much harder under the guise of care and concern for people you clearly don't know with experiences you clearly don't understand.

Here's an ACLU report combining vast research on the live of sex workers that actually--surprise--includes the experiences and knowledge of sex workers.

Regardless of where you fall (or think you fall) on this issue, you really should read it: aclu.org/report/sex-wor…

/thread