Illinois Student Newsroom alum goes in-depth for St. Louis Public Radio sex worker story

Less than two years after University of Illinois student Farrah Anderson took up audio reporting in the Illinois Student Newsroom, she returned as an expert source to talk about her in-depth reporting for St. Louis Public Radio about sex workers seeking to protect abortion access.

She spoke with host Brian Mackey on IPM's "The 21st Show" on Sept. 8, 2022.

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Brian Mackey, host
This is the 21st show. I'm Brian Mackey. It's been almost three months since the US Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson women health organization. And that ruling overturned Roe versus Wade the 1973 decision that recognized a constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. When that right was struck down a trigger law was activated in Missouri, and abortion was suddenly illegal. Many pregnant Missourians seeking abortion care look to Illinois where abortion access remains enshrined in state law. But for others the cost of an abortion in Illinois including travel, lodging, childcare, and days taken off work can be prohibitively expensive. However, a group of sex workers in the St. Louis area is mobilizing to mitigate those effects from raising money to handing out contraceptives and pregnancy tests. Members of this community are taking care of their own and broadening access to abortion in Illinois. Joining us to talk about this is Farrah Anderson, a junior at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, who's been a reporter in the past in our very own Illinois student newsroom at Illinois public media. Over the summer she worked with St. Louis Public Radio and in August filed the story Missouri sex workers organize to protect their communities access to abortions. Fair is studying abroad this semester and is joining us from Sweden. Farrah, hello. Welcome back to The 21st Show.

Farrah Anderson  
Hey, Brian, thanks for having me.

Brian Mackey  
To make our schedules meet, obviously, across time zones, this conversation was taped ahead of time, so we're not taking calls, but you can always let us know what you thought by emailing talk@21stshow.org. or tweeting us in real time @21stShow. So Farrah, let's just start with some of the basic terms here. For listeners who may not be familiar with it, what exactly is an abortion fund?

Farrah Anderson  
So an abortion Fund is a pool of money basically, that people can donate to, to help other people get abortions. And it often covers the cost of travel and lodgings. Anything associated with the cost of an abortion, people will try to donate money to help people get that because often, especially because of the Dobbs ruling, getting an abortion is so much more expensive than it used to be. And especially now that many states like Missouri are banning abortions, you have to travel and that just makes the cost prohibitively expensive, especially for somebody that might live very far away from a state that is currently offering abortions.

Brian Mackey  
So you're working with St. Louis public radio over the summer, how do you learn about the work of this group of sex workers? I think they call themselves the MO-ho Justice Coalition. Amazing name.

Farrah Anderson  
Yes. Yes, I learned about the coalition because I was working on a story right after the Dobbs ruling came down about gay marriage and how many people in the LGBTQ plus community were worried about gay marriage because of Justice Clarence Thomas's decision, saying that it could reverse some other rules that had come down from the Supreme Court in the past. And I had reached out to lots of different organizers within the LGBTQ plus space. And MO-ho kind of kind of found their way to me, because they, they deal with the intersection of a lot of different identities, not just sex workers, but trans-sex workers, and LGBTQ plus sex workers, a lot of people in the Missouri community that are at risk, because of this ruling, and I kind of got in touch with them learned about this abortion fund that they're working on. And the rest of its history. I spent a lot of time with this group of individuals, you know, getting to know them and each other's story, and why the access to abortion is so critical to their community and why they're trying to work on that.

Brian Mackey  
So what sort of services does the coalition provide?

Farrah Anderson  
So sex workers are often very stigmatized, especially from their friends and family. And something that many sex workers told me is that they kind of have to choose their own family because of this increased stigma because of their work. So a lot of times, they just provide support for each other. They have community events, and they're just there to talk to each other about the struggles that come along with the work that they've chosen to do. So a lot of it is just kind of that social community-building aspect. And they also provide a lot of services to the community. They do a lot of outreach, trying to make sure that people know you know how to have safe sex and different things they can use, to have safer sex to cut down on sexually transmitted diseases, things like that and the St. Louis area. So they really want to build community. But they also want to make sure that people know exactly what sex work is. And they really work to destigmatize sex work in Missouri and throughout the country. They don't want sex work to be criminalized like it has in the past. And so they do a lot of activism to try to make sure that sex work isn't as criminalized as it has been.

Brian Mackey  
So paint a picture for us. What does this actually look like on the ground? If I don't know if you get to witness this firsthand and your reporting? But what would someone see if they were there when this work was taking place?

Farrah Anderson  
Yeah, so right now, they're kind of just in the beginning stages of trying to see what an abortion fund could be. They're a very fast growing service, because this Dobbs ruling, it didn't come out of nowhere. But a lot of people were still shocked when it did happen, because it just felt so surreal to have something like this happen in the United States. So a lot of the work that they're doing right now is pretty preemptive, trying to see, you know, what kind of, you know, access could look like, how much money they would need to pull together, you know, how they can get in touch with more sex workers in the community, how many sex workers across the state they might need to help pay for. So a lot of that stuff is pretty pre emptive. But also trying to figure out, you know, the best places in Illinois, that people could go to from Missouri, trying to map routes, things like that. I did get to witness them doing an outreach program, where they were trying to provide different things to people in need in St. Louis, and was in Wellston, which is a very at risk community in Missouri. And they were handing out things that you might need to practice safe sex, like condoms, contraception, pregnancy tests. So people have access to these things. And if they need an abortion, they can go to other places in Missouri.

Brian Mackey  
I think since the Dobbs decision came down, there's been a lot of focus on the work of organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the Hope Clinic in the Metro East area, huge reproductive health services clinic there, as well as groups like the Midwest Access Coalition. But can you talk about how grassroots mobilizing like this, like the MO-ho coalition, how that fits into the broader work of abortion rights advocacy?

Farrah Anderson  
Absolutely, I think grassroots groups are some of the best ways that people are going to be able to find access to abortion because of these increased restrictions. Because grassroots groups are on the ground, and they're often very small. They're very in touch with specific communities, especially like sex workers, who are often stigmatized, you know, aren't often comfortable sharing their work with everybody on on social media, or everybody in in public, big public spaces. So this community is very in touch with a very specific set of people in Missouri, that often need abortions, they need abortions, because they often face higher rates of sexual violence, higher rates of unplanned pregnancy. And they often also face you know, higher rates of poverty. And they often get into sex work, because they're trying to pay for health services like abortion. So there's so many things that go into this work, that also intersect with abortion. So the fact that this community is coming together to try to protect their own communities, access to something that's so critical to them, is just really astounding to see. And they know exactly what barriers these people are facing, you know, what transportation could be best for them, what services they're they're really going to need, and how much you know, money and resources they're going to need just because they're so in touch with this community. They can, you know, kind of pre premeditate, all these things that might come about in the process that you might need an abortion.

Brian Mackey  
Let me take a moment to reintroduce our conversation. If you're just joining us. This is the 21st show. I'm Brian Mackey and we're speaking with Farrah Anderson, who is a junior at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, and file the story over the summer for St. Louis Public Radio, titled Missouri sex workers organize to protect their communities, access to abortions, again, because we taped this conversation, we're not taking calls but you can always let us know what you thought by emailing talk at 21st show.org. Or leave a voicemail for us at 217-300-2121. I want to play some of the tape that you included in your story. And first up let's listen to Dr. Heather Berg, who's a Gender and Sexuality Studies professor at Washington University in St. Louis, who studies sex work,

Heather Berg, from tape  
sex workers, always worn with policing and surveillance policy that they won't be the last one. But they're canaries in the coal mine.

Brian Mackey  
See more about that this idea of of sex workers is canaries in the coal mine.

Farrah Anderson  
Yeah, this is something that came up in my, in my reporting a lot. Dr. Heather Berg wasn't the only person who said this. Sex workers have often warned that with different policies that affected them specifically, that they aren't going to be the last ones. And that's something that's that's happened a lot over the course of history, a lot of policies will first start with targeting specific types of people, like trans people like sex workers, outlawing them from doing certain things. And then slowly and slowly, we see that policy move closer and closer towards everybody else. So sex workers often say, you know, things like, you know, online security, online product privacy, things like foster sesta was a was a big law that was passed a couple years ago, you know, kind of taking away some some privacy that you had online. And, you know, they're trying to say, hey, this isn't something that's just going to affect us, it is just right now, but it's going to get closer and closer to everybody else who's not a sex worker who's not trans, who's, you know, not in these marginalized communities. So this was something that sex workers had been saying, for a long time, you know, hey, we need to be looking out for something like this. We're worried about, you know, bodily autonomy, we're seeing these rights stripped away. And we should really be focusing on this. And then when the Dobbs ruling came about, you know, this wasn't a surprise to a lot of people in the sex work community. So this kind of canaries in the coal mine ways, you know, a good way of saying that this community was was worried about something like this happening, and they they were sounding the alarm, but a lot of the times they don't feel like they're being heard, because of you know, the marginalized state of their of their work.

Brian Mackey  
Say more about some of the people you spoke with for this story, what motivated them to start organizing?

Farrah Anderson  
Yeah, so a lot of people kind of felt very marginalized by the work that they were doing. And they just needed a sort of community, and one sex worker that I spoke with, she told me about two abortions that she had had in the past, and how critical that was for her. And, you know, I think a lot of times when we talk about abortion, a lot of people who, who can get pregnant, that have abortions, they feel like they need these these big reasons. But at the end of the day, she said, you know, I just wasn't ready to be a mom. And I think that's something that, you know, can resonate with a lot of people. And she said that, because she had access to abortion a couple of years ago, that now she's seeing these rights stripped away, and she really wants to make sure that other people have access to abortion, because of the experiences that she had in the past. And the abortions that she had, was so critical to, you know, her being able to continue her life in the way that she wanted. And so now she wants to take a lot of the energy that she has, and channel it into the work that she's doing organizing for this community.

Brian Mackey  
We have some more tape from your story, let's let's listen to a little bit from Esmerelda, a sex worker living in St. Louis, who has had two abortions,

Esmerelda, from tape  
Knowing that I had that option, and how difficult was at those moments in my life. And knowing now that a lot of like people, um, not they don't have the option that I had. And it put me in a position of like, I need to do something about this. Sex work is with our own bodies. And we're always in the verge of like, you know, getting pregnant or getting an STD.

Brian Mackey  
What unique insights do these individuals provide in the fight to restore access to reproductive health services and abortion care?

Farrah Anderson  
I think that's something that, you know, really resonated with me when I was talking to, to a lot of sex workers is just that, they were realizing that, you know, people might not want to listen to them, because they might not agree with the choice of their work. But they recognize that, you know, the fight for bodily autonomy is very intersectional. You don't have to necessarily agree with, you know, sex work to agree that, you know, people should have the right to do what they want with their bodies. And that was something that they really wanted people to understand is that this affects everybody. It doesn't just affect sex workers, but this is something that that's kind of doubly hard on their community. So I think that, you know, that part of the conversation was just really important to them that, you know, you might not be a sex worker, you might not think you know a sex worker, but this is something that's impacting everybody. And if you know this one portion of people, if we can target this one specific group of people and try to help them get access to the care that they need, you know, that's the goal. And ultimately, you know, we want everybody to have bodily autonomy they were saying, but right now, it's important that they want to focus on this one specific group of people that really need this access.

Brian Mackey  
We want to give the last word in our conversation to Indigo Hann, a sex worker and co-founder of the MO-ho Justice Coalition. Farah, you also spoke to them for this story. Let's take a listen.

Indigo Hann, from tape  
Sex workers are not only a insight into the playbook of reactionary policies and what they might target next, but also what are ways of finding solutions. Sex workers offer a beacon of wisdom, guidance and hope in a post-Roe world.

Brian Mackey  
Farrah Anderson, thank you for being with us and sharing your reporting with us today on the 21st show.

Farrah Anderson  
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Brian Mackey  
Farrah Anderson is a student at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Her story for St. Louis Public Radio is "Missouri sex workers organized to protect their community's access to abortions.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Read more and listen to Anderson's story: "Missouri sex workers organize to protect their community's access to abortions."