The cluttered floor is lined with flavored lubricants in candy-like storage boxes, colored condoms and black t-shirts with pink writing stating, “Be Nice to Sex Workers.” It’s the office of HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive) located in Adams Morgan, dedicated to “assisting female, male, and transgender individuals engaging in sex work in Washington, D.C. lead healthy lives.”
When I told friends I was going to volunteer at the organization, most were shocked. I received responses like, “you’re going where?” and “isn’t prostitution illegal?”
The office was located above an old restaurant that is no longer in business, a small, messy hole-in-the-wall. I was required to volunteer five hours of my time at the office in order to get an interview with the director. I had no idea what to expect. Walking up to the door of HIPS, I felt like I must have been mistaken. The building looked abandoned, the intercom to call upstairs was broken, and the door which should have been locked was open.
I took a deep breath, pulled open the door and walked upstairs. As I climbed, I could hear voices and phones ringing. When I entered the office, a tall black woman, Elisha, greeted me and introduced me to five other volunteers. They were a random mix of transgendered individuals, older residents, and students right out of college. I was assigned the task of taping orange condoms, in honor of Halloween, to postcards advertising HIPS and safe-sex information for an event the following week.
Elisha was getting ready for the HIPS party to introduce their new logo that coming Sunday. She constantly answered her cell phone, made flight reservations on her computer, sang out loud to the blaring radio and gave me little tasks throughout the afternoon.
Soon after I arrived, a weekly support group meeting ended. Several tall black women (or so I thought), dressed in brightly colored tight clothes, walked out of the small back room in high heels, loudly discussing the night’s activities and their plans for the weekend. I later realized it had been a meeting for transgendered individuals.
My interviewer, Clay, was young and hip, with blue hair, wearing old jeans and a HIPS t-shirt. She began volunteering for HIPS in 1996 after hearing about the program at a benefit show advocating the organization. She graduated from the University of Maryland in 1997 with a major in psychology and has been working here ever since.
In Clay’s office, her computer displayed 531 unread emails, the walls held stickers advertising “religioussex.com” and “Asylum Bar and Lounge,” and boxes overflowed with envelopes and cards with the new HIPS logo. Although her office is understaffed and under funded, Clay is strongly committed to her job. She works towards changing people’s perceptions of sex workers as dirty and breaking down the barriers between law enforcement officials, social workers, pimps, and sex workers so they can work together. “It’s not just HIV prevention,” she said.
Every Tuesday before Halloween, HIPS holds their annual “Drag Queen High Heels Race” in Dupont Circle. This year, the orange condoms I worked on during my volunteer hours were passed out to attendants of the event.
When I arrived to watch the race, the crowd was packed 10 people deep, eagerly awaiting the start of the race. People arrived an hour early to watch each drag queen walk down the street to the starting line in elaborate, creative costumes. They wore huge platform heels, had hair up to 10 inches high and outrageously done-up faces. I saw Martha Stewart in handcuffs, Princess Diana, cheerleaders, and flight attendants. One group came as firefighters, calling themselves the “Hoes with Hoses.” They all lined up to race for the $500 grand prize.
HIPS is the only organization of its kind in DC and its programs set examples for the nation. Although HIPS has helped 350 people leave the streets, Clay finds this is not the only way to measure seccess. Every time someone agrees to see a doctor, takes a condom, accesses health services, or attends a support group meeting, they have a moment of “feeling the power,” in Clay’s terms.
After my experience there, I was impressed with how much actually gets done. With so little funding, staff working mostly as volunteers, and many community members who don’t want to help, Clay and HIPS make the most out of their situation. Although I was initially taken aback by the array of flavored condoms, lubricants and safe sex information, the unusual office atmosphere where the phone never stopped ringing reminded me how easy it is to make generalizations, and how wrong it is to do so.
