“If we don’t have the right to fuck whoever we want we’ll never break the glass ceiling.”

Sex worker, union organizer, “proud prostitute,” and runaway housewife, St James helped found the Hookers Ball, COYOTE, and St. James Infirmary, becoming what one longtime friend dubbed “the Joan of Arc of sex work.” For decades she stood (or assumed any other relevant position) firmly for autonomy, sex-positivity, feminism, and, in her words, “whoredom,” and against the police state.