Sex worker fights for victims of rape, assault

Like many expert witnesses who testify in front of Sacramento bureaucrats, Kristen DiAngelo announced her name and occupation before she spoke at a public hearing last week. DiAngelo and other activists had visited the Capitol on Thursday to lobby against a law that bans rape victims, if they had been attacked while involved in an act of prostitution, from receiving victim compensation funds. After members of the California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board listened to DiAngelo’s plea - which included a story of her own rape on the job - they promised to return with a verdict later in the day. DiAngelo, who lives in a tony suburban neighborhood outside the Bay Area among neighbors unaware of her occupation, is still getting used to her new life as a crusader for sex workers’ rights. Several of the subjects, including DiAngelo, detail the traumatic events that led them into sex work at a young age. In Florida, they’ve fought “antiprostitution zones” that are becoming a popular tool for police to up criminal charges for repeat arrestees. Efforts to decriminalize prostitution, though, have often failed, with opponents viewing the act as immoral, dangerous and repressive to women. The job became what DiAngelo and activists characterize as “survival sex” - making a living so as not to return to worse conditions at home. Film’s messageMaxine Doogan, an activist with San Francisco’s Erotic Service Providers Union, recalled meeting DiAngelo in 2012 when “American Courtesans” first made the rounds at film festivals. The film has drawn social media invective from religious groups, and DiAngelo’s 800 number was hacked. […] in Sacramento on Thursday, the victims’ compensation board gave her and her allies a victory, voting to revoke the rule that excluded sex workers who were beaten or raped.