Support to Survive or Surviving Support? Barriers to Seeking Gender-Based Violence Services for Sex Workers

Abstract

Although there exists a surfeit of information about gender-based violence (GBV) survivor’s experiences seeking support, sex workers are left out both in the mainstream anti-violence discourse as well as the academic scholarship. Additionally, sex workers disparately experience violence by the state, intimate partners, clients, and strangers (Fehrenbacher et al., 2020). Sex workers with experiences of GBV are uniquely positioned to illuminate marginalized experiences of service provision. Specifically, their unique positionality at the intersection of sex work criminalization (within the US), neoliberal social services, and pro-criminalization efforts to address GBV, sex workers have cardinal insights into the accessibility of GBV services, particularly for survivors at the margins. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 34 racially and gender diverse sex workers who had experiences of GBV for which they sought support for at GBV agencies. Qualitative analysis revealed several themes including challenges navigating the whore stigma, organizational barriers to seeking services, experiences of racialized services, and the impacts of what we call carceral perceptivity on accessibility of formal support services. Implications for both broader structural and systemic changes and institutional recommendations for GBV service providers are discussed.