Sex workers and their allies were calling on anti-porn activist Gail Dines to give them a voice in discussions about the sex trade on Thursday.

Stepping Stone, a Halifax organization that promotes safety for sex workers, organized a protest in front of the World Trade and Convention Centre on Thursday while Dines was speaking on women’s human rights at the Emergent Learning conference inside.

Dines, author of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality, has focused obsessively on the hypersexualization of women and girls.

But Fiona Traynor, the chair of the board at Stepping Stone, thinks the way Dines presents these issues is damaging.

“Ms. Dines is kind of a catalyst for people who want to say that all sex work is bad and … leads to the subjugation of women, completely ignoring the fact that there are men and transgendered sex workers within the porn industry and in the sex work industry itself,” she said.

A ticket for the conference cost $250 – a price Stepping Stone contends is extremely restrictive.

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