“Follow the Money”: AF3IRM, the Anti-Sex Work movement, and the Billionaire Conspiracy Against Them
This essay was co-written by trans and queer sex working women of color with former ties to AF3IRM. Recently, @PurpleRose0666 and others have faced threats and slander from AF3IRM for speaking out against the way their organization harms trans and sex working women of color. For the full context, see this timeline of AF3IRM’s carceral discourse on sex work.
AF3IRM is a feminist organization which has been criticized for years by queer and sex worker activists for their carceral position on the sex trade. In response, AF3IRM leaders have repeatedly asserted their lack of funding, while simultaneously accusing sex workers who advocate for decriminalization of being part of a Soros-funded conspiracy against them. Since AF3IRM conceals their own funding, while failing to acknowledge links to government, nonprofits, and universities which allow them valuable access to resources that are much less accessible to the stigmatized sex worker’s rights movement, these accusations of a billionaire funded “pimp lobby” conspiracy against them are unethical and dangerous.
Funding AF3IRM
AF3IRM leadership repeatedly claims that they are unfunded. Despite their claims, fact-checking reveals that they have received at least approximately $47,000 in grants and outside fundraising money since 2016 from philanthropic groups, documented publicly online. Listed in detail in the chart below, their funders include the North Star Fund; Resist, Inc.; and the Omega Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. While this is barely pocket change when compared to the millions received by their allied nonprofit organizations such as Coalition Against the Trafficking in Women, Sanctuary for Families, and Covenant House (all fellow anti-sex work members of the New York Coalition for the Equality Model [NYEM] alongside AF3IRM), it still should raise eyebrows when they claim explicitly that they do not get funding. Since AF3IRM would have had to submit grant applications to receive this money, their leadership must certainly be aware of this, yet continues to weaponize their claim of being unfunded against sex worker activists (both funded and unfunded).
In addition to this funding, AF3IRM has also received support from the nonprofit foundation A.J. Muste Memorial Institute in the form of fiscal sponsorship and a collaborative workspace, where AF3IRM has been a tenant since 2014.The fiscal sponsorship enables AF3IRM to receive tax-deductible donations without becoming a 501(c)(3) themselves, while the collaborative workspace is a valuable resource in a city where rent has long been unaffordable for working class people.
Although there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of any of these types of support, it is disingenuous for AF3IRM to paint themselves as completely “unfunded” and not to acknowledge the ways they benefit from fiscal and institutional support.
Funding AF3IRM’s Allies
When confronted with sex worker activists fighting against state violence for our basic rights, AF3IRM often trots out the refrain to “follow the money,” insisting that they are the underdogs, while sex workers are the “big money” interests. Not only do they conveniently leave out their own means of support, they also ignore that even if AF3IRM is not directly funded by billionaires, their allies in the fight to end the sex trade certainly are. While pointing fingers at the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), the largest and most visible nonprofit fighting for sex workers’ rights in the US, for recently receiving funding from the Soros Foundation, they ignore the vastly larger concentration of money and power being wielded by the non-profits and governmental organizations fighting to end sex work.
While SWOP is better-funded than any other sex worker’s organization in the US, their financial assets pale compared to their opponents in the fight to decriminalize erotic labor. They also ignore the many completely unfunded sex worker’s rights organizations, such as Red Canary Song, whose members were met with gaslighting and slander after trying to engage AF3IRM in productive dialogue. See the table below for just an example comparison of the financial resources of some of AF3IRM’s coalitional partners in the NY4EM compared to SWOP, drawn from publicly available Form 990 IRS forms.
Even when comparing SWOP’s assets to a few of AF3IRM’s non-profit allies in the New York coalition, it’s clear whose agenda has the financial upper-hand.
But this doesn’t even take into account the international arms of organizations like CATW or EPCAT, or the other US locations of nonprofits like Covenant House (infamous for the sexual abuse scandals surrounding its founder, Father Bruce Ritter), which has well-endowed offices dotted throughout the country, each with their own similarly well-endowed financial resources.
Nor does it take into account the many other wealthy organizations, besides AF3IRM’s partners in the NY4EM, who join in the fight to abolish prostitution like Exodus Cry, the Polaris Project, United Against Human Trafficking, and many others; and then there is also the well-funded police state that these groups work hand-in-hand with. Finally, each of these affluent organizations receive money from even wealthier billionaire foundations and even the US Department of Justice.
AF3IRM claims “we don’t even know these people” when it comes to powerful anti-trafficking nonprofits, despite blatantly obvious proof to the contrary.
In addition, the nonprofit CATW is also the fiscal sponsor of NY4EM, allowing them to collectively accept tax-deductible donations as a group for their campaign against decriminalization of sex work in New York. Together, AF3IRM and the other members of NY4EM have campaigned together on the streets of New York, for instance in the #NoBuyerNoPimpState rally against sex work decriminalization on March 11, 2019. Being on the steering committee of this alliance benefits all of these groups, but especially to those smaller organizations like AF3IRM who would otherwise have less resources. Yet they continue to insist that not only is AF3IRM completely unfunded, but also that AF3IRM has no association with the mainstream nonprofits they literally ally with and have marched alongside.
It is hypocritical of AF3IRM to claim that their opposition is funded by billionaires because SWOP has accepted some grant money that leads back to George Soros, when one of their closest and most long-standing nonprofit partners, Monsoon Asians & Pacific Islanders in Solidarity, receives funding from billionaire Warren Buffet via the NoVo Foundation. This Iowa-based nonprofit is run by AF3IRM member Mira Y and had an end-of-year net assets of $167,525 in their 2018 IRS Form-990, which is about the same as SWOP-USA (the most well-funded sex worker’s org in the country). AF3IRM has collaborated closely with Monsoon and their sub-program NAPIESV for years on events, workshops, travel, and summer youth programs.
Funding from Warren Buffett for a Monsoon project with AF3IRM involvement.
Again, no one should shame a small organization for accepting grants, but AF3IRM’s refusal to acknowledge these parallels when slandering SWOP is disingenuous. We would not slander a small nonprofit like Monsoon as being part of a vast billionaire-funded conspiracy just because they have accepted grant money, and AF3IRM should not propagate sweeping unfounded claims towards a highly marginalized group either. It also makes it doubly concerning that AF3IRM lies about its own foundation support. Even if it is small, that does not excuse hiding it for activist cred.
AF3IRM’s Institutional Support
Despite AF3IRM receiving some grants, it is still likely true that AF3IRM is an all-volunteer organization with a limited operation budget. However, this can’t be taken as evidence of being immune to powerful influences, because institutional support is just as valuable as financial. AF3IRM’s direct connections to state and academic institutional actors enables them to get audiences and enter spaces that most sex worker’s organizations cannot due to the stigmatization and criminalization of sex work.
Khara Jabola-Carolus, a former lobbyist now leading the Hawai’i State Commission on the Status of Women and founder of AF3IRM Hawai’i, and has played a significant role in AF3IRM’s development as an organization on a nationwide level. She is married to congressman Kaniela Ing. While there is nothing wrong with politicians engaging in activism, it is dishonest to deny the special privileges and benefits provided to organizations who are willing to accept this kind of leadership.
Indeed, like many AF3IRM leaders employed in influential institutions, Jabola-Carolus has not been shy about melding her paid and activist work together. For instance, her state office claims credit for recent legislative victories, but AF3IRM also claims the same victories as their own. When arguing with sex worker activists who feel harmed by their campaigns, they often shut us down by saying that AF3IRM “has the most real wins for sex workers,” citing this type of legislation while failing to mention their direct connection to a government office.
They also fail to mention that in passing this legislation, they also throw their full organizing and institutional power behind obstructing sex worker activists’ struggle for full decriminalization. In 2018, Khara Jabola-Carolus and AF3IRM spoke out against decriminalization when it was on the table. No wonder that it feels like a slap in the face when AF3IRM repeatedly boasts “the most real wins for sex workers.” Far from collaborating with us, they stand against us again and again, while paternalistically claiming they are fighting for us.
In addition to legislative influence, AF3IRM’s state connections enable them to offer opportunities such as their “Justice for Women Fellowship”, a college internship in the Hawai’i state legislature to be taken for academic credit.
There are few radical women of color organizations in the country who can directly offer “mentorship by legislators.” It is unclear whether this fellowship takes place at the Commission on the Status of Women under Jabola-Carolus or elsewhere in the state capitol, but either way, this shows a position of significant influence that AF3IRM must acknowledge. AF3IRM’s platform states that they are critical of the US government and the police state, but do not acknowledge that they are also in fact empowered by these same institutions with leadership literally running a statewide government agency that is essential in their plan to abolish prostitution.
In addition to state support, AF3IRM has had the advantage of strong university connections. Founded by Ninotchka Rosca, Filipina feminist author and intellectual who received the American Book Award in 1993, it is unsurprising that AF3IRM has always attracted academics and occupied a respected space in academia. The vast majority of AF3IRM leadership is college or graduate-educated in areas like social work, law, or humanities. Many work as lawyers, university professors, politicians, union leaders, and nonprofit directors, and AF3IRM chapters often center around university networks. In many cases, member’s professional careers overlap significantly with their AF3IRM activism.
Another example of how AF3IRM benefits from respectability in academia is the “sex trafficking” research coauthored by Khara Jabola-Carolus, AF3IRM Hawai’i founder, and Dominique Roe-Sepowitz of Arizona State University’s highly influential Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research (STIR). Their research was sponsored by the Hawai’i State Commission on the Status of Women and STIR, funded by the Colorado-Springs-based Kaimas Family Foundation, and has been highly criticized by many sex worker activists and academics. STIR in turn is a partner of the McCain Institute at ASU, funded by Cindy McCain and married to the late Senator John McCain. While AF3IRM insists this collaboration with ASU STIR is insignificant, it is difficult to believe when one of their leaders applied for funding and implemented three research papers with Roe-Sepowitz over the course of three years, as well as presenting on multiple anti-trafficking panels together with her.
In contrast, sex workers have always had to fight to gain access to these types of institutional powers; we often face stigma, lose jobs, and being kicked out of educational institutions for daring to speak up or even discuss sex work decriminalization. While the movement has made significant progress in the past decades, it is still dangerous for sex workers to come together and fight for our rights.
The Soros Conspiracy
Sex worker advocates laugh when groups like AF3IRM point at SWOP as evidence that sex workers are part of a vast Soros conspiracy rather than a movement for worker’s liberation. We don’t fight for decriminalization because a billionaire is paying us (if they were, we likely wouldn’t be doing sex work); we fight for it because we have witnessed our community be marginalized, maligned, and criminalized by very violent institutions. Anti-trafficking non-profits spend majority of their funding creating and disseminating propaganda that they are saving us, while at the same time collaborating with our oppressors. It is fine to criticize SWOP or any organization for accepting foundation money — there are many serious problems with the non-profit industrial complex — but it’s hypocritical to turn a blind eye to the much greater magnitude of wealth and power concentrated on stopping sex work decriminalization. When AF3IRM asks their followers to “follow the money”, we believe that they need to see the whole picture in context, not just the unfounded claims of a conspiracy theory against them.
When AF3IRM says you should “follow the funding” to see that their opposition is backed by billionaires, they are spreading misinformation. Sex work decriminalization is led by sex workers and it is a workers movement. The fact that George Soros’s Open Society Foundation is recently somewhat sympathetic to our cause after sex workers have spent decades of organizing against the violence of criminalization doesn’t mean that our movement is a billionaire’s agenda. The Open Society Foundations supports a wide array of liberal and human rights causes, and a tiny portion of that money goes towards sex work decriminalization.
Open Society Foundations has also given money to promote causes like racial equality, LGBTQI rights, and other human rights. Would it be in good faith criticism for AF3IRM to claim that Black Lives Matter is funded by billionaires, because they also received some funding from Open Society Foundations? Because this is exactly what conservatives and the far right do when they talk about leftist social movements as being funded by the global elite. When fox news spreads propaganda saying leftist activists are actually paid protestors, they are pointing back to this very same Soros conspiracy that AF3IRM also chooses to leverage against sex workers.
The history of the George Soros conspiracy is fascinating and far-reaching. Because the Open Society Foundation is so vast and implicated in many liberal-leaning causes, fascists all over the world have been able to use Soros as a catch-all conspiracy to imagine their opposition as a Jewish billionaire instead of marginalized people. Propagation of the Soros conspiracy theory was used many times by Trump and QAnon, and has even led to the mass shooting of 11 people in a synagogue. The fact that anti-trafficking orgs have also chosen to participate in this conspiracy theory, shows us how embedded they are with far-right politics. AF3IRM should have better principles and decency than to participate in these baseless fascist politics, and instead join us in calling out the anti-trafficking industry for using anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
There is much to criticize about the non-profit industrial complex and Open Society Foundations itself, but to only be critical of them for supporting sex work decriminalization is dishonest and hypocritical. Whether AF3IRM likes it or not, the discourse sex work decriminalization has become a human rights issue, not because of a billionaire agenda, but because of the increased political consciousness about the police and carceral violence. Sex workers have been organizing for decriminalization, fighting the state, and protecting our own for decades and only very recently have human rights and workers rights groups decided to join us. Claiming that billionaires are on our side to discredit us is an unethical lie and it needs to stop now.
We criticize AF3IRM, not because of an antifeminist billionaire agenda, but because they are prejudiced against sex workers. If AF3IRM truly believed in “following the money” to get to the truth, they should take a critical look at their own allies.
Additional Screenshots and information.
The documented evidence to justify the use of the Soros conspiracy used by Esperanza F. cites the following article. Much of the paper uses cites a source from hacked materials that are no longer available and still only shows a tiny portion of Open Society Foundations overall budget going sex work decriminalization and transgender rights advocacy. This article also cites a number of notable transphobic “gender critical feminists” like Meghan Murphy and Julie Bindel. The author also makes a call for prostitution abolitionists to collaborate even more closely with law enforcement instead of continuing to use false narratives about the prevalence of actual sex trafficking.
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1087&context=dignity
Documentation of grants used to calculate AF3IRM’s funding.
