Carlton V. Bell II
Respectability politics has long cast a heavy shadow over the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. For those of us organizing at the intersections of sex work, Black liberation, trans justice, and bodily autonomy, this shadow is more than metaphorical. It’s a material barrier and systemic obstacle, a locked door to funding, to inclusion, to legitimacy. Respectability politics polices not only what is said and how it’s said, but who is even allowed to speak, survive, and thrive.
As someone who has lived, organized, and now funds at these intersections, I write this with the urgency of someone who has seen how these politics kill visions, silence movements, and perpetuate harm — even in the name of “justice.”
At Third Wave Fund’s Sex Worker Giving Circle (SWGC), we champion the voices that frequently hit roadblocks in our movements, and we call it out. We’ve got to name the truth: sex worker-led organizing is routinely expected to sanitize, shrink, and assimilate itself into frameworks that were never designed with us in mind. These frameworks often demand narratives of redemption, respectability, or reform that evoke pity rather than power. We’re told to tone it down, clean it up, make it make sense for people who’ve never had to trade their body, their gender expression, or their intimacy for survival.
And in exchange, we might get a grant. We might get a seat at the table, but only if we don’t rock the boat. We might get funded, but only if we perform our pain and pleasure in the “right” way.
But what does that performance cost us?
The Tax of Respectability
In the philanthropic landscape, sex worker-led organizations are often asked to do what others aren’t. We must prove we are not “too risky.” We must provide receipts for respectability, not just metrics. This is one small reason why SWGC utilizes a constantly evolving and interrogated “low-barrier” application process. We must center storytellers that align with a funder’s risk management plan, not our community’s liberation goals.
That tax — that additional labor — is not neutral. It’s rooted in white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and anti-Blackness. It assumes that those closest to harm are incapable of articulating or leading the solutions to that harm. It perpetuates a cycle where funders pour money into research about us, but rarely into efforts led by us. Where the bodies of sex workers are sources of inspiration, curiosity,