Margo St. James, advocate for sex workers, dies at 83

Ms. St. James was known in San Francisco as the convener of the Hookers’ Ball, a COYOTE fundraiser that for years was one of the city’s most colorful political events. At its height, in 1978, it attracted 20,000 guests, including a sizable contingent of politicians.

“In any other city in America, the photo opportunities alone would ruin a political career,” a Washington Post reporter wrote in 1996, describing that year’s attendees as clad in attire “largely constructed of leather thongs and neoprene, with lots of cutouts.”

Although her tactics at times seemed high on entertainment value — she once made her entrance at the Hookers’ Ball astride an elephant — her mission was deeply serious, part of a broader movement to gain greater health services, legal rights and financial security for sex workers.

“We are trying to funnel sex workers into the mainstream,” she told the Globe and Mail. “We’ve got to demystify it. We’ve got to accept them as human beings.”

In addition to founding COYOTE, Ms. St. James established the St. James Infirmary, a clinic that serves sex workers in San Francisco. In the 1980s, she moved to Europe with Gail Pheterson, a fellow activist and author of the volume “A Vindication of the Rights of Whores.” There Ms. St. James helped organize international conferences of sex workers in Amsterdam in 1985 and in Brussels the following year, hammering out a World Charter for Prostitutes’ Rights.