Naomi Sayers is an Indigenous feminist from the Garden River First Nations, just east of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, who has also worked as a sex worker in the north of Canada. Naomi shared with A Kiss for Gabriela that some of her current work advocating for the rights of Indigenous people in the sex trade springs from a 2012 workshop organized by the sex worker organization Maggie’s in Toronto on public education and challenging stigma. After attending the workshop, Naomi started telling her own story using her own words and sharing about her own experiences in sex work, challenging the messages she had heard for so many years from authority figures–counselors, doctors, nurses, and the justice system–that indigenous women are victims and incapable of deciding what is right for them.
Via Gracie Passette