Reyna Ortiz (left); Illinois State Senator Celia Villanueva (right) | LinkedIn / Facebook
Reyna Ortiz (left); Illinois State Senator Celia Villanueva (right) | LinkedIn / Facebook
The Chicago City Club is hosting a panel forum on whether Chicago should make prostitution legal.
The forum, titled "Decriminalizing Adult Consensual Sex Work: Ensuring Safety, Rights, and Dignity," is scheduled for noon on April 25 at Maggiano's Banquets, 111 W. Grand Ave. in Chicago's River North neighborhood.
Panel members are Brian C. Johnson, CEO of Equality Illinois, Reyna Ortiz, Chair of the Sex Worker Advisory Group, and Illinois State Senator Celina Villanueva (D-Little Village).
"In light of increasing violence against sex workers, Equality Illinois and the Sex Worker Advisory Group (SWAG) have united to launch a campaign to keep adult consensual sex workers safe by decriminalizing sex work. Two-thirds of (cross dressers) killed in the past decade were sex workers and three-quarters of all sex workers will experience violence in their careers," says the Chicago City Club announcement.
Equality Illinois is a pro-homosexual and cross-dresser "rights" group.
The "Sex Worker Advisory Group" was started by the "LGBTQ+ youth of color" non profit, "TaskForce Prevention & Community Services," based on Chicago's West Side. Ortiz is a man who cross-dresses, wearing the clothes of a woman.
It receives government grants to offer sexually transmitted disease testing to black homosexual prostitutes.
Villanueva served in the Illinois House from 2018 to 2020, then moved to the Illinois Senate in 2020. Her district includes the Chicago neighborhoods of Brighton Park, Clearing, Gage Park, Garfield Ridge, Little Village, West Lawn, and the West Cook County municipalities of Bedford Park, Burbank, Cicero, Forest View, Lyons, McCook, Stickney, Summit and Riverside.
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