- Location
- Zoom
- Series/Type
- Alumni Event, DLSPH Event, Faculty/Staff Event, Student Event
- Format
- Online
- Dates
- March 3, 2025 from 2:00pm to 3:30pm
Links
In this interactive workshop for sex workers and our allies, we’ll go through what sex workers need to know while navigating healthcare encounters, using so-called British Columbia’s medical system as our grounding example. As we explore some risks and benefits of disclosing our sex work to our healthcare providers, we’ll think through the often-fraught experience of trying to seek care for our bodies and minds in the context of anti-sex-worker stigma, violence and criminalization. And in the spirit of amplifying sex worker community care, wisdom and survival strategies, we’ll explore tips and tricks for advocating for ourselves within the medical system, gleaned from our personal experiences and stories and mentoring from our communities. We’ll also reflect on ways that researchers, healthcare workers and community advocates can shift our practices and leverage our power and institutional access to show solidarity with and improve healthcare access for sex workers.
Bridget Simpson is a registered nurse, a queer, a person with lived experience in sex work, and an uninvited white settler living and working on unceded, stolen and occupied xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) territories. Bridget has been active in 2SLGBTQ+ community organizing for over 20 years. Since 2016, she has developed nursing practices in harm reduction-based community primary care, sexual and reproductive health and gender affirming care. As a 2023-24 2SLGBTQ+ Health Hub trainee, Bridget collaborated with PACE Society and the Vancouver Community Sex Work Alliance to create trainings for both sex workers and healthcare workers to improve healthcare encounters for sex workers.
In all her practices including nursing and organizing, Bridget strives to uphold community liberation, to centre bodily autonomy and self-determination, and to practice openness, humility and accountability. She is happiest with her nose stuck in a book or giggling with her almost-6-year-old.