A Season of Solidarity - From Mourning to Movement
- Alex Andrews
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
As we move toward December 17 - the 22nd Annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers - we remember those we’ve lost and honor the fight that continues.
For many of us, this day is not just a memorial. It’s a reckoning. It’s the reminder that every name read aloud at a vigil represents a life cut short by stigma, criminalization, poverty, and indifference. And yet, even in mourning, we find movement. Grief has always been our catalyst.
This week, as we close our Season of Solidarity campaign, we’re reflecting on the power of remembrance - and how honoring the dead means fighting like hell for the living.
The Names We Carry;
Every December, we read names - hundreds of them. Names gathered from news reports, advocacy networks, and our own community. Some are known, others are “Jane Doe.” All matter.
We speak their names to make visible what the world tries to erase. We gather because remembrance is resistance. Because silence is complicity.
Every candle lit is a declaration: We were here. We are still here. We will not be erased.
Grief as a Catalyst for Change;
In a world that criminalizes survival, grief is a political act. It pushes us to ask hard questions:
Why are sex workers still dying at disproportionate rates?Why are Black, Brown, Indigenous, and trans women most targeted?
Why do we keep funding raids instead of resources?
Each year, we transform grief into action - through policy advocacy, harm reduction, peer support, and storytelling. We don’t just mourn the violence; we confront the structures that create it.
This is the work that SWOP Behind Bars does every single day: turning remembrance into resistance.
Beyond the Candlelight;
The rituals matter - the vigils, the reading of names, the shared moments of silence. But our community knows that the work cannot end there.
A hotline answered at 2 AM.
A reentry kit delivered at a prison gate.
A mentor’s letter arriving in a cold, gray cell.
These are our living memorials - proof that love, care, and solidarity outlast violence.
What Justice Really Means;
Justice isn’t a court sentence or a headline. Justice is someone coming home safely.
It’s a community that refuses to abandon its own.
It’s every survivor who gets to live another day, another year, another future.
When you fund this work, you make justice tangible. You help transform mourning into motion - from despair to dignity, from loss to legacy.
Carry Their Names Forward
This December 17, we invite you to honor those we’ve lost by supporting those still here.
🌹 Make a gift in memory of a loved one or fallen community member.
💬 Share their story with the hashtag #FromMourningToMovement and #Dec17.
🕯️ Join or host a vigil in your city
💸 Donate to sustain the work: www.swopbehindbars.org
Every action - no matter how small - adds to the collective promise: never again without us.
We end this month where we began - in community. We started by saying, We take care of us. And we end by remembering why we must.
Our grief is real. But so is our power.
Our losses are deep. But so is our love.
Every candle, every donation, every act of care is a refusal to give up - a declaration that we are still fighting, still organizing, still dreaming.
From mourning to movement, from silence to solidarity - we remember, we resist, and we rise.
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