On the eve of the first ever Still Fierce rally on our capital city Canberra, Scarlet Alliance pledges support. Scarlet Alliance, the Australian Sex Workers Association, recognises that Australian Intersex, Sex & Gender Diverse (ISGD) communities are made up of people working in many industries and that sex work is one of these industries. Sex workers have long been, and continue to be, visible, active, and vocal, members of many ISGD communities.
Scarlet Alliance will continue to recognise the historic place ISGD people hold not only in the sex industry but in the sex worker rights movement in Australia and internationally. Whilst Scarlet Alliance celebrates the sex and gender diversity of all sex workers, we also recognise that sex work still forms part of the mainstream media’s negative stereotyping of ISGD people. Scarlet Alliance is committed to eradicating sex worker stereotypes and stigmatisation in the public consciousness.
ISGD sex workers face legislative, legal, social and economic discrimination two-fold due to the whorephobia and transphobia that occurs in many facets of our society, including, but not limited to: access to housing, health insurance and financial institutions. As the national peak representative body for Australian sex workers, Scarlet Alliance will continue to challenge any government at any time when and where it implements legislation, policies or law enforcement practices which are discriminatory and/or repressive to the rights and autonomy of sex workers.
The human rights of ISGD people have too long been neglected by the Australian government. Scarlet Alliance recognises the necessity of, and fully endorses, the memorandum of demands placed upon the federal government by Still Fierce Collective.
Link to Still Fierce Website
Link to Still Fierce Media Release
Support the Still Fierce Memorandum of Demands:
- Implementation of the AHRC Sex Files (2009) recommendations
- Legal protection against enforced medical treatment of ISGD children
- Federal antidiscrimination laws protecting all ISGD people
- Full Medicare funding for medical and psychological procedures needed by any ISGD people
- Full Marriage rights for ISGD People.
- Enshrinement of the right to establish ones’ own sex and/or gender identity in federal law.
10 May 2011