A Historic Breakthrough for Sex Workers' Rights

Back in February, advocates for sex worker rights in New York announced their intention to fully decriminalize prostitution in the state. But no one really suspected then that within two weeks, Democratic candidates for president would be pledging support for competing legislative visions of what they called (at times, incorrectly) sex work decriminalization. Quite suddenly, the enlightened thing to do—or at least to say you were doing—was to support these measures, a development that came as a shock even to many sex workers who had long campaigned for decriminalization. On Monday, that same group of advocates, DecrimNY, will see a bill they have helped draft introduced in the state legislature that promises to give practical shape to the goals sex workers have pursued for several decades. The bill is groundbreaking for the United States: If passed, it would make New York the first state to fully decriminalize sex work.