Strippers United — 2025 Impact & Year in Review

A giving-season message to our community, supporters, and future funders.

In 2025, Strippers United continued to defend the rights, dignity, and safety of strippers and sex workers across the United States. From fighting harmful legislation in California to building national coalitions, supporting workers through retaliation and wage theft, expanding mental wellness support, and sustaining mutual aid — SU’s work has reached farther than ever before.

With no corporate sponsors, no big donors, and a small volunteer team, we turned passion, community power, and lived experience into a measurable impact.

We Fought Harmful Laws & Defended Our Rights

This year, Strippers United formally opposed AB 379, a bill designed to increase criminalization of sex workers and clients.

SU led:

  • A public educational breakdown of the bill

  • A statewide call-in and email campaign

  • A Google form to gather public comments

  • Partnerships with advocacy organizations

  • Demands for harm reduction, community oversight of funds, and full decriminalization

Unfortunately, this bill was passed.

We Trained Dancers and Built Worker Power

  • Know Your Rights trainings expanded this year, thanks to support from UCLA labor students and legal partners. (NOTE - We didn’t do any group trainings this year) 

  • Our PALS Committee held one-on-one intakes with dancers in California, Colorado, Utah, and Kansas.

  • SU assisted workers facing wage theft, misclassification, retaliation, and digital platform shutdowns.

  • We began building tools and drafting a survey to engage community input for a future Stripper Bill of Rights in Los Angeles in partnership with organizers, professors, and lawyers. .

Community by community, we’re teaching dancers how to navigate the legal system and advocate for themselves — and each other.

We Showed Up on an International Stage

  • SU contributed to a major human rights survey led by the Best Practices Policy Project, on behalf of the Black Sex Worker Collective.

  • Those findings will be presented to the United Nations in April 2026, with SU named among contributing organizations.

  • We participated in International Pole Dance Day

We Invested in Community Care & Mental Health

The SU Wellness Circles, led by Selena, continued throughout the year:

  • We had 53 sign-ups and 6 sessions

  • Grounding exercises, peer connection, trauma-informed support

  • Free to attend, with optional donations

  • More sessions scheduled for early 2026

Because strippers deserve community and healing, too.

We Expanded Digital Safety for Strippers

The Digital Opt-Out Mixer helped dancers learn how to remove personal information from data brokers and improve digital security.

  • Guests received a “Data Deletion Goodie Bag” with step-by-step tools

  • Mixer partnership with Certas earned SU an affiliate link for ongoing support

  • Attendance and interest were so strong that SU will now host one mixer per season

We Distributed Mutual Aid – Directly to Workers

After the LA fires, SU partnered with the Black Sex Worker Collective to raise emergency support:

  • $2,942.50 raised

  • 66 applicants

  • 10 workers selected, with a transparent, needs-based distribution model

  • Categories included parents, students, new (“baby”) dancers, queer workers, FSSW, veterans, and location equity

This was one of SU’s most successful and widely shared mutual aid efforts — and we plan to do it again.

We Built Solidarity & Visibility Nationwide

  • GLOW invited SU to present the Star Garden organizing campaign as a case study for national labor organizers

  • SU supported dancers in multiple states with legal advocacy resources

  • SU donated a 10-foot U-Haul of clothing to The Sidewalk Project, enough to support months of distribution for street-based workers

  • SU members were invited as guest speakers at UCLA’s Labor & Occupational Safety program to educate public health students about stripping as labor

When workers see each other, learn from each other, and organize together — the industry changes.

We Made Art, Education, and Culture

  • International Whores Day (June 2) was produced on a micro-budget and still generated:

    • $1,702 in performer tips

    • $885 ticket sales

    • $190 in merch and raffle sales

  • Funds were split between SU, Artist Plex, and performers

  • A full printed edition of BARE Magazine is underway, and SU members will receive affiliate links to earn commissions from sales

The future of this industry is creative, political, and community-driven — not hidden.

What’s to come for 2026

  • Immigration-focused Know Your Rights workshop in the planning phase

  • SoCalCOSH grant will be awarded for a workers’ health and safety collaboration

  • Expandinng onboarding and volunteer roles

  • New Stripper Bill of Rights partnerships

  • Seasonal Digital Privacy Mixers

  • 2026 event calendar in development

With more support, we will increase direct services, policy work, coalition building, and mutual aid in the coming year.

Why Support Strippers United?

Strippers United is entirely community-funded.
No corporations.
No government contracts.
Just dancers helping dancers.

Your donation helps us:

  • Fight harmful laws

  • Support dancers facing retaliation and wage theft

  • Run Know Your Rights workshops

  • Provide mental and wellness circles

  • Launch mutual aid

  • Build a Stripper Bill of Rights

  • Create political and cultural change

If you believe in bodily autonomy, workers’ rights, queer liberation, labor justice, and harm reduction — support the people who live at that intersection every day.

Call to Action

Donate today.
Share our work.
Join the movement.

Sex work is work.
Strippers deserve safety, dignity, and power — now.