December 17: We Were Never Invisible

For more than two decades, December 17 has stood as a beacon of remembrance and resistance - the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

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It began in 2003 in San Francisco, when sex workers and allies gathered to mourn the victims of the Green River Killer - women whose lives were erased not just by one man’s violence, but by a society that barely noticed they were gone. From that first vigil organized by St. James Infirmary, a movement took root. Candles were lit, names were spoken, and grief became a rallying cry: No more stolen lives. No more silence.

Every year since, sex workers around the world have carried that flame - from red umbrella marches in New Zealand to memorials in Kenya, from street vigils in Chicago to online ceremonies connecting hundreds of us across borders and time zones. We gather because we remember. We remember the names they didn’t print, the stories that never made headlines, the brilliance the world refused to see.

And still, too often, we remain unseen. The violence continues - in alleyways, in courtrooms, in policies written without us. But so does our resistance. We build safety where systems fail us. We create a community where stigma isolates us. We transform mourning into movement, and movement into change.

Ending violence against sex workers isn’t only about what happens in the streets. It’s about dismantling the structures that make that violence possible - criminalization, poverty, racism, transphobia, and misogyny. It’s about building a world where safety is not a privilege, but a right; where dignity is not debated, but guaranteed.

Tonight, as the candles burn and the names are spoken, we remember that every light represents not only loss, but legacy. Each flame is a promise - that we will not disappear quietly, that we will not accept invisibility as our fate, and that we will keep fighting until every sex worker, everywhere, can live free from fear.

Because we were never invisible.

We were never voiceless.

And we will never stop demanding a world without violence.