Navigating COVID19 For Sex Workers & Allies: Info & Support Guide

Sex workers are having to make difficult decisions about our health and livelihoods. We want our communities to have accurate information and support to help navigate this pandemic and shelter in place. Below is health and resource information, based on harm reduction practices, geared for folks in the sex trade. We will require the love and support of our community to keep our Bay Area workers housed, fed, and cared for during this pandemic. Please share it widely.

This is a living document and will continue to be updated.

How to Support Sex Workers During COVID-19

  • Donate to BAWS’ Emergency Grant Fund so we can continue to provide financial relief for workers in the Bay Area tinyurl.com/BAWSupport

  • Ask to donate directly to your provider’s Venmo or Cash app

  • Many providers are pivoting to online or phone services: subscribe to our onlyfans, AVN stars, or niteflirt, book a private skype session 

  • Purchase our online video content

  • Help a provider get tools to make video content (stand to hold a camera phone, lighting, etc)

  • Pre-pay for a session that you both can enjoy after COVID-19 passes

  • If you do decide to meet with a provider in person, please shower and wash your face and hands, use Listerine before and after. Let them know if you are having any symptoms. Please follow any new safety protocols your provider may be practicing

  • Donate clean blankets, warm jacket, umbrellas, money, clothes, hygiene supplies, food/grocery items, gift cards to St James Infirmary Clinic’s naughty nurse mobile. Call clinic to arrange to drop off stjamesinfirmary.org, (415) 554-8494

  • Say hello. Many of us are having a hard time dealing with social isolation, communal panic, and a loss of income. If you are not in a position to financially contribute, reaching out with words of support, encouragement, and funny memes can be meaningful. *Do not necessarily expect a response, many of us are dealing with a lot right now.

  • Reach out and check on your fellow worker right now. Ask if someone needs support or a friend to talk with. Everything is heightened and scary, let’s keep connecting with each other.

Why Physical distancing is important


MUTUAL AID & RESOURCES for sex workers (Bay Area)

SW Mutual Aid - NATIONAL & WORLD WIDE

Diversifying your income

Harm reduction practices if you must keep working to survive 

  • Do not see clients if they have signs of a fever, dry cough, difficulty breathing, headache, body-ache

  • Avoid clients who have recently been exposed to high-risk areas (Washington State, Bay Area, NYC, Italy, China, EU, and counting) 

  • Do not discriminate against or stigmatize specific ethnicities when assessing risk for COVID-19

  • Avoid clients who have been exposed to people with symptoms

  • Ask all clients to shower, wash their face and hands, use hand & face wipes, use Listerine to not spread germs through your workplace or you

  • Wash your own hands before, during, and after time with a client

  • Minimize physical contact as much as possible, the coronavirus can be spread through kissing, coughing and contact with body fluids

  • Sanitize your work-place before and after clients

  • Think about possible exposure on your commute to and from work. Avoid touching bus, train, Lyft, door handles, railings as much as possible. Wear gloves & masks if possible. 

  • If possible find alternative work methods

  • Know that you can spread the virus up to two weeks when you are a-symptomatic and for some that could be fatal

  • Remember, this will pass but it will take all of us to slow the virus down

STATE BENEFITS

In April Hacking & Hustling hosted a very helpful webinar about accessing state benefits for sex workers.  This link will take you to the video of the webinar and below are links to resources mentioned.

Other ways to support

What to do if you have symptoms

The following Covid-19 symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure: Fever, Cough, Shortness of breath, symptoms may vary (CDC 2020) cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html

  • If someone gets sick, stay home and physically isolate. Most cases are mild. There is very little you can do at a hospital that you couldn’t do at home. But if symptoms are no longer manageable at home (trouble breathing, fever will not go down), you are older, autoimmune compromised, or have lung or cardio-vascular problems, read on. (UCSF Expert Panel, March 2020) tinyurl.com/qqsqwc8

  • Symptom management & supply needs tips from a Registered Nurse (RN @smashingteacups, 2020) tinyurl.com/t9gnj3r

  • Navigating COVID19 and chest binding (Jack Metcalf & Amelia Arnold, 2020) instagram.com/p/B9u0z_GBe05/?igshid=1vyi7bgnf0glu

BAWSlogo.jpg