Attorneys for sex workers’ rights activist Monica Jones are scheduled to argue in court Monday that the Phoenix antiprostitution ordinance under which Jones was convicted is unconstitutionally vague and infringes on free-speech rights, reports the Associated Press.
In April, Jones was found guilty of “manifesting prostitution” after she accepted a ride from an undercover Phoenix police officer during a May 2013 antiprostitution sting. She was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Her attorneys are seeking to have Jones’s conviction overturned and the antiprostitution statute struck down.
The fact that Jones, a 29-year-old black trans woman who attends Arizona State University and volunteers with the Sex Workers Outreach Project, is not herself a sex worker led many advocates to declare that the true “crime” she was convicted of was “walking while trans.”
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