Contact Margo: 360-376-4313
Email:margostjames@gmail.com
What's a nice girl like you? was the usual reaction of men to my becoming a
feminist as well as my becoming a prostitute. The difference for me was I chose
to be a feminist, but I decided to work as a prostitute after being labeled
officially by a misogynist judge in San Francisco at age twenty-five. It was
1962. I said in court, "Your honor, I never turned a trick in my life!" he responded,
"Anyone who knows the language is obviously a professional." My crime was I
knew too much to be nice girl.
The forerunner of COYOTE was WHO, Whores, Housewives and Others. Others meant
lesbian, but it wasn't being said out loud yet, even in liberal bohemian circles.
The first meeting of WHO was held on Alan Watt's houseboat. The name COYOTE
came from novelist Tom Robbins who dubbed me the COYOTE Trickster. I was living
in Marin. Richard Hongisto, a liberal sheriff elected in San Francisco about
that time attended my parties. He had been a cop, and had a sociology degree.
I cornered him at a party once and asked him what it would take to get NOW,
and Gay rights groups to support prostitutes' rights, because he seemed to have
most of the support of the liberal groups in town. He said that we needed someone
from the victim class to speak out, and that was the only way the issue would
be heard.
I decided to be that someone, even though I had only worked for four years,
and wondered what effect speaking out would have on my life. I received support
from my family, my mother, the housewife-secretary, my sister, the gospel singer
with eleven children, my sailor brother, my son, the salmon fisherman, their
families. Together with friends across the country and around San Francisco,
they convinced me that speaking out was the right thing to do. My father stopped
talking to me.
In 1973 I decided to reconnect with the lawyers and bail bondsmen I had known
and I hoped the hookers would join me The PR people responsible for getting
the sheriff elected volunteered to help me with COYOTE. They still remembered
me. I had gained some notoriety at the time of my trial and I successfully appealed
the conviction, but it didn't help me find other gainful employment. A professor
at UC gave me some good leads and resources. Another old friend got a job as
a jail doctor, so I had inside information from him and from the girls. Prostitutes
were still being quarantined at the time which meant you had to be examined
for VD before you could get out of jail. We stopped the practice the following
year.
A liberal mayor was elected, George Moscone, and he hired an out-of-town Police
Chief who the cops didn't like because they had so far managed to keep minorities
and women off the force. We all know what happened to the Mayor, and a Gay Supervisor,
murder by a former cop. The climate changed after the murders, and the liberals
became afraid to speak up about the issue.
I started organizing internationally with a close friend, Jennifer James, an
anthropology professor in Seattle in 1973. She coined the word decriminalization
and was responsible for getting NOW to make it a plank in their 1973 convention.
COYOTE published a newsletter from 1974-79 and the Hooker's Ball became popular,
attracting 20,000 people in 1978 at Cow Palace.
I began attending international conferences starting with the United Nations
Decade of Women Conferences in Mexico City, the 1976 Tribunal of Crimes Against
Women in Brussels and the 1977 International Women's Year Conference in Houston,
the 1980 Decade of Women Conference in Copenhagen, and 1976 Democratic Convention
in New York, where St. James orghanized 'loiter-ins,' and the Republican Convention
in Kansas City. She worked closely with Gail Pheterson, (editor of Vindication
of The Rights of Whores from Seal Press and author of Prostitution Prism from
University of Michigan Press) beginning in 1983 in Rotterdam, and with Priscilla
Alexander (co-editor of Sex Work from Cleis Press) since 1977. In 1984 COYOTE
hosted a Hooker's Convention and drafted a Bill of Rights which was the underpinnings
for the World Whores' Charter drawn up by the International Committee For Prostitutes'
Rights in the European Parliament in Brussels. The conservative swing in the
US and the women's movement prompted me to move to Europe so I could put more
energy into international organizing, Although those wanting to abolish prostitution
were more active than ever, there are politicians and women's groups willing
to stand up for prostitutes in many countries.
In 1993 I moved back to the United States, married San Francisco Examiner journalist
Paul Avery, and resumed my efforts to repeal the prohibition and claim human
rights for hookers in San Francisco, which had been my home since 1959. COYOTE
was going strong again thanks to the efforts of Samantha Miller and others who
kept it alive.
Editor's Note:
Margo has been very active since she came back, in COYOTE, on the San Francisco
Task Force on Prostitution, on the Drug Abuse Advisory Board, in the Harvey
Milk Lesbian, Gay and Bi Democratic Club, and in many other groups and contexts.
She is currently running for Supervisor in San Francisco. With her broad-based
support (no pun intended), we expect to win.