Paris Protest by Sex Trade survivors attacked

[OhHolyJesus]

It just never ends.

twitter.com/radfmnst/status/1368678240127234050?s=21

It's like twitter on the street. Horrifying. The men are vile - why go there and do this?. and I can't understand why women are with them joining in. FFS.

Let’s just call them what they are MRAs. They were mostly men and they were protesting against women who were protesting about sex trafficking. They have just learned that if they use the right words they won’t get called out on their hideousness.

If they cared about trans rights they would care about the violence and abuse inherent in prostitution. Most trans people who are murdered are killed possibly by the very people who are pretending to care about their rights as a cover for abusing women.

Solidarity to these French feminists. What can we do to support them?

@littlbrowndog

I think it was men using any argument to attack women

These men are now emboldened to use terf and transphobia and sex work as an excuse to show their hate and violence towards women

And so they did

I agree. This has nothing to do with trans issues.

Those poor, poor women, who in many cases have suffered hugely at the hands of men, attacked by more men for calling to an end to their suffering.

And this attack is considered 'feminism' by their attackers, seemingly also by the police. This is misogyny pure and simple.

Solidarité!

my body, my choice

But the women were trafficked, so it wasn't their choice, was it? So what exactly do those protestors think they're protesting? Are they really just mad that women...don't want to be trafficked? Wtf?

@manatsu

my body, my choice

But the women were trafficked, so it wasn't their choice, was it? So what exactly do those protestors think they're protesting? Are they really just mad that women...don't want to be trafficked? Wtf?

I think it is, like so much of current socially acceptable misogyny, appropriated from a legitimate rights movement. In this case lifted from women protesting for the right to an abortion.

But the women were trafficked, so it wasn't their choice, was it? So what exactly do those protestors think they're protesting? Are they really just mad that women...don't want to be trafficked? Wtf?

I think they're mad that they dare to talk about it and it might put people off prostitution.

morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/anti-prostitution-group-protest-attacked-in-paris

French police rarely intervene in small scale protests I understand. That does not diminish the disgraceful behaviour of those who attacked the protestors.

The link here is queer politics that is the underlying basis for trans "choice" politics and "sex work" being a "choice". Listen to Selina Todd at WPUK meeting in London.

This analysis is the basis used not just in France but in the US by Antifa and in the UK by Sisters Uncut etc.. Whether you oppose just TRA or sex work this is the signal to these male politicos to say you are a horrible women who should die or have violence acted upon you. So you might just be a Terf or you might just be a Swerf but for them this is the signal that you are the most evil element on earth at the moment and they in their rarified sanctified rightness can do anything.

And because 99.9% of the time it is women being attacked nobody says or does anything.

Having recently posted the link to an articel about whether hatred of women as in Incel culture should be seen as terrorism as trying to work out in my mind the link between Incels and these queer male activists. I suppose in both cases it is about women who are saying actually I dont accept male rules nor do I feel I should obey and do want men want.

Happy International Women's Day

This is so infuriating. Literally. If there is a go fund me for Marguerite's organisation I would definitely contribute.

The link here is queer politics that is the underlying basis for trans "choice" politics and "sex work" being a "choice". Listen to Selina Todd at WPUK meeting in London.

Bloody hell. another thing. It's evil

Thanks Stumbled - will checkout the Selina Todd vid

Jesus Christ that's disgusting.

@unwashedanddazed

It is shocking to see how anyone would want to attack survivors of trafficking, let alone young women doing it. The chants of my body, my choice as justification are naive in the extreme. I can't get over the lack of empathy.

Where does it say they are survivors of "trafficking"? It just says they are against porn and prostitution from what I can see?

Quote: Those who had joined Sunday’s protest included survivors of prostitution — which they said was “paid rape.” Both on twitter feed and Morning Star article.

So no evidence of actual trafficking then?

@MargaritaPie

So no evidence of actual trafficking then?

So that makes this appalling behaviour ok ?

What a weird angle to take- if they weren’t trafficked, they deserved threats and an egg to the face?

I do recall that one of the articles I read yesterday said that there were survivors of trafficking among the women. I can’t lay my hands on it now, but definitely read it.

I see from the tweets they were calling people "pimps" because they disagree with porn and prostitution. Name-calling isn't the way to get what you want, and there are many different views on sex work besides their views.

I can't judge without seeing a video but if they were being abusive then people are going to react to that. I'm not condoning what anyone did but that is generally what happens.

If it's just all a wonderful empowerfulising industry, presumably pimp is a perfectly reasonable term? Strange that people supporting prostitution and porn would be so precious about it.

They were calling them pimps because one of the organisations represented in the egg throwing crowd, which styles itself as being pro- sex worker, is in fact notorious for being a lobby for pimps. It’s quite common, this is also happens in the uk and is one of the reasons feminists prefer to avoid the term “sex worker” because it makes it too easy to collapse the group to include pimps and madams whose interests are not aligned with prostitutes/ prostituted women.

Have a look at the video if you haven’t quite understood what’s going on- the level of intimidation and anger from this crowd is terrifying. You’ve also missed the salient point which is that they were attacked for being “t*rfs”- is that the correct response to being called a pimp?

My god this is terrifying. The police NOTHING!

Every day I feel more and more they I've fallen down some rabbit hole.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

If it's just all a wonderful empowerfulising industry, presumably pimp is a perfectly reasonable term? Strange that people supporting prostitution and porn would be so precious about it.

Quite! If they can shout "No feminism without whores" then surely "pimp" can't be a derogatory word for them.

@Sophoclesthefox

“There’s no conflict between trans rights and women’s rights!”, screamed the mob throwing things at sex industry survivors while berating them for not including born males in International Women’s Day events.

This is exactly it, in a nutshell.

But the women were trafficked, so it wasn't their choice, was it? So what exactly do those protestors think they're protesting? Are they really just mad that women...don't want to be trafficked? Wtf?

I cannot speak about this particular event, however there is a long history of sex workers organising into unions and campaigning groups and protesting in Paris, IMMIC sex workers have been protesting in Paris as far back as the 1960s.

If you search on YouTube for Paris + prostitutes + protests you will find many videos of these protests, although they only go back 12 years or so (at least that I could find).

The sex workers protesting are mostly women, however trans women have been very visible in the protests for some years and the trans rights movement has been allied to the sex worker's rights movement for many years, I suspect because sex work has always included trans women / MtF transsexuals.

Scirmishes have broken out in London some years ago between Reclaim the Night protesters and sex workers whose ability to earn money was hampered by the protests.

I worked in a supportive, health promotion service for women who sold sex at the time of the skirmishes (early 90s?). My understanding of the concerns of the sex workers were that they needed to earn money to feed their children / pay the rent / buy drugs / whatever and the protesters claimed to support vulnerable women but were making their lives worse. I spoke to many extremely vulnerable women who were furious about the RtN protests and were very angry that the marches had been organised without consulting them and had not been stopped or diverted when they gave the protesters a piece of their minds.

The ECP were involved in the counter protests to the RtN in quite an aggressive manner and the RtN protests helped the ECP to recruit vulnerable women into their movement.

I believe that no women should be assaulted at protests, whether trafficking survivors or sex workers or any other woman or trans woman.

I don't have time to post more, I just thought that readers might be interested to check out the videos on youtube.

There is a significant LGBTIQ/whatever presence at the protests in the videos that go back to 2009.

I actually met women from the sex worker's collective / union in Paris in the early 90s as part of my NHS work. Some of the women I met were lesbians or bisexual. I believe that MtF transsexuals were involved back then but not to the extent that they are today (this was before "trans" was a thing). It is also clear from the YT videos that some gay men were involved in the protests from 2009 onwards. I do not recall meeting any gay men in the meetings I had, however it was a long time ago and I only met representatives of the protesters. I did not attend any protests.

Just sharing some thoughts