Meet the Team
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Carol

Founder

Leigh's activism spans decades, as a COYOTE member, founding member of ACT UP and SWOP, and co-founder of Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Project.

She has performed internationally as Scarlot Harlot, including several years touring with the Sex Worker Art Show Tour. In 1999 she founded the San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival. Leigh was lead organizer of the San Francisco Board of Supervisor's Task Force on Prostitution.

She has worked closely with Desiree Alliance supporting an intersectional / economic / racial / gender justice emphasis within the sex worker rights movement. She has worked with Joseph Kramer, creating sexual health / education videos including work on 'healthy porn watching.'

Leigh served as a consultant for AIM For Human Rights' "Trafficking Policy Impact Tool" (Netherlands). She currently sits on the Sex Workers / Trafficking Policy Impact Committee on The San Francisco Mayor's Task Force on Prostitution.

Leigh received a generous grant from the Creative Work Fund for the Sex Worker Media Library in collaboration with the Center for Sex and Culture. For several years she has been focusing on this library and the collection of work, Collateral Damage: Sex Workers and the Anti-Trafficking Campaigns.

Erica

Director

Erica Elena, had been the director of the Sex Worker Film + Arts Festival since the early days. This year she is shifting to focus on her other important work, and also helping the Fest and also produciing Whores Bath. Erica is a San Francisco local. She is a cis femme, Jew / witch and an aspiring healer who dreams of a 24/7 Whore's Bath queer land project close enough to the city to be able to still go to the movies. She is the creator of the Whore's Bath, which has been replicated nationally and internationally.

She has been quietly organizing sex workers since the early 2000s, starting with an Oakland Whore's Brunch, and has been co-producing the Sex Worker Fest since 2003. She is an ex-street kid and is inspired by the intersections of labor, gender, sexuality, moral panic and structural oppression that sex worker rights organizing addresses and looks forward to connecting, learning, and taking part in all the massive culture-building that the festival brings.

Elizabeth

Festival Director

Elizabeth Dayton grew up in queer organizing in the Central Valley of California. After starting at community college, she went on to pursue her B.A. in Women and Gender Studies and Human Sexuality from San Francisco State University where many of her papers read more like rants over mainstream media's frequently horrible or flat depictions of sex workers and the sex industry. This brought her to the festival, and she has been a 'sex worker art' fan-girl ever since. She is currently a Phd candidate in Gender Studies at UCLA, where her work examines the significance of art as a form of activism and survival for sex working and trading communities. She frequently jokes about how if it wasn't for the 'fake' money from her 'un-real' job, she would have been able to make it through when her 'real' jobs didn't quite cut it.

Raven

Event Producer

Raven Elisabeth Deverux is a graduate student of sociology at UCLA. Her work has always been rooted in communities from which she has come. Embarking on an independent research project that would ultimately earn her a paid stipend, Raven explored the racialized labor exploitation within strip clubs. Raven grew up in the East Bay and dealt with a significant amount of trauma and structural issues resulting in her exposure to the streets and all they have to offer. Her journey towards sociology and study of power and identity was solidified. Having been an “entertainer” in the SF Bay Area for some years by the time she was to transfer to Cal for bachelorette the sociological exploration of the strip club’s political economy was undeniably ripe for study. Her master’s thesis took a close and personal look at grieving as political resistance within system-impacted communities.

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