Supporting Sex Worker Culture: Resources for Workers & Families
From its earliest days, Maggie’s has offered Toronto’s sex workers a safe place to land. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the drop-in centre on Gerard Street East offered resource referral lists, hot coffee, supplies, and snacks; it housed a reference library on sex work, queer theory, and activism. To this day, Maggie’s facilitates courses on financial literacy, exercise classes, workshops on client screening, and more.
Fluff the clown inflates a balloon for Maggie's patrons' children at the 1992 Kids Christmas Magic Show. Photo credit: Dan Huziak.
Maggie’s programming gave patrons an opportunity to socialise with their peers outside of a work context. Family events sported children’s entertainment and activities.
The humanising power of support networks like this cannot be understated. In a world that criminalizes and oppresses you, being able to let your guard down is a welcome reprieve. Maggie’s zines and newsletters tell stories of sex workers’ joy, leisure, and love that ask us to reconsider how we’ve been taught to think about sex work and the people that do it – we are not as far removed from each other as we’ve been told.
Maggie's sponsored a panel at Mirha Soleil-Ross' festival for trans and gender-expansive filmmakers, Counting Past 2 (1999).
In addition to publishing its own creative media and collaborating in that of others (primarily zines), Maggie’s supported its community members’ endeavours. Maggie’s expansive organizational and social networks offered opportunities for advertisement beyond personal connections. Likewise, they lent financial support to queer creative programming throughout Toronto.
External photograph of the vaccine clinic held at Filmore's, published on Maggie's Facebook page on December 26, 2021.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Maggie’s facilitated no- and low-barrier vaccine clinics geared toward sex workers and their families. In a time of community-wide crisis, they stepped up with desperately needed health supports and a message of hope. In a spiritual successor to their zine initiatives, Maggie’s website is a repository of in-depth legal guides, policy updates, and licensing instructions; their social media campaigns include educational collaborations on PrEP, PEP, and safe sex.
In September 2023, Maggie’s faced another dire hurdle: their new space at Holy Trinity Church, in the heart of the city, was ravaged by fire. In the wake of this disaster, leadership changes on the Board, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Maggie’s future was far from assured (Maggie’s Instagram, September 22nd 2023). However, the strength of Maggie’s mission and the power of its community carried the organisation through: as its long tenure proves, even when the place and people change, the work of sex worker liberation continues.
The front of a Maggie's pamphlet, ca. 1980s. Illustrated by Richard Redwood.
Today, Maggie’s programming is bigger than ever. The Bad Calls List is now the Bad Dates Book. Drop-in programs, both professional and recreational, recur on weekly and monthly bases. They remain a vital pillar of Toronto’s queer scene, on the front line of outreach and advocacy efforts alike. The Maggie’s of today is built on the Maggie’s of the past: by sex workers, for sex workers.