ABOUT
Mission
Bay Area Workers Support (BAWS) is a peer-led community organization rooted in the ongoing struggle for sex worker liberation. Based in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, we organize from within our community — building power, coalitions, and relationships with accomplices and allies — to provide material resources, information, and culturally grounded advocacy for workers across the region.
Through quarterly community events and strategic partnerships throughout the year, we concentrate on 4 pillars of organizing work:
Advocacy & Research
Amplifying Sex Worker Narratives
Resources & Support
Building Community
These 4 pillars define and guide the scope of our work, keeping us both focused and adaptive. Together, they work to ensure sex workers are known, seen, safe, and in community with one another.
“Sex worker justice is inherently tied to the justice of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQ, disabled, undocumented, poor or low-income, and drug using communities. We live in a time where civil liberties are threatened by legislation and doctrine. From net neutrality, Black Lives Matter, the Bay’s housing crisis, to immigration laws, marginalized groups are experiencing heightened levels of persecution and violence. It is crucial that we recognize sex workers within these struggles.”
our values
Coinciding with the 4 pillars of our work are our 4 core values:
Autonomy
Pleasure
Sustainability
Connection
With these 4 values as guides toward an active vision of sex worker liberation, we strive for self-determination, unapologetic visibility, improved quality of life, and a sense of belonging for all workers.
Our values are deeply informed by the elders and contemporaries working in the movements for racial justice, harm reduction, trans liberation, anti-poverty work, and abolition. Rooted in solidarity, we stand with poor and working-class people, drug users, the disabled, queer and trans communities, and BIPOC sex workers. That commitment is ongoing, not a destination.
We strive to remain radically accountable as an organization, and to honor the capacity and commitment of our small team, our volunteers, and the community we serve. That looks like:
Our meetings and events are designed to be accessible — we share accessibility information in advance, every time.
We support sex-working families by providing childcare at as many events as we can.
We recognize that burnout and interpersonal conflict are real in sex worker activism. It is our goal to bring support, connection, pleasure, and care into the labor of organizing — because how we work together matters as much as what we're working toward.
our HISTORY
BAWS was founded in 2018 by Arabelle Raphael and Maxine Holloway. What began as gatherings in Oakland living rooms — workers coming together to make sense of the landscape-changing legislation FOSTA-SESTA — grew into a network of information and resource sharing, and eventually into a leading mutual aid effort in California.
From 2018 to 2023, BAWS distributed tens of thousands of dollars directly to workers through a long-running grant program and cash-in-hand initiatives. Along the way, we hosted and co-produced countless events: marches, fundraisers, celebrations, and community gatherings that kept us rooted in each other.
As need grew through the COVID-19 pandemic and into the present, so did we. BAWS has scaled into an organization with a broader vision — one that honors our mutual aid roots while reaching toward something larger. We believe sex workers in the Bay Area have always had the knowledge, creativity, and power to lead the way toward a more just and free world. BAWS exists to make space for that leadership.
Current seasonal PROGRAMS:
• SPRING / Autonomy / Advocacy & Research
Skill-building workshops: BAWS facilitates workshops — increasing knowledge, growing capacity, and preparing to emerge.
• SUMMER / Pleasure / Amplifying Sex Worker Narratives
Community celebration: Our programming centers a community celebration — amplifying our stories and remembering that joy and togetherness keep us fortified.
• FALL / Sustainability / Resources & Information Sharing
Resource fair: The community comes together for a resource fair — connecting workers to tools, referrals, and support so we stay steady in lean times.
• WINTER / Connection / Building Community
Mutual aid: The season brings a mutual aid drive for outdoor workers — exchanging resources and services on principles of solidarity and connection.
