Savannah Sly
FOUNDER & CO-DIRECTOR
Savannah Sly has been advocating for the rights and welfare of sex workers since 2013. An organizer at heart with a passion for spreadsheets, Sly excels at networking, program management, and big picture strategy. Sly has played a powerful convening role as a community and coalition organizer for ACLU-WA (in particular the Tech Equity Coalition), #OldProProject, and numerous grassroots sex worker initiatives. Under Sly’s leadership as Board President of the Sex Workers Outreach Project USA (2015-17), the network developed centralized banking and communications tools, modernized it’s public image, and substantially increased Chapter engagement. Sly presently serves as an advisor to the Woodhull Freedom Foundation and the Global Lab for Research in Action at UCLA Luskin. Sly’s commentary is published in Brookings, Teen Vogue, and Psychology Today. Learn more at SavannahSly.com.
Melodie Garcia
CO-DIRECTOR
Melodie Garcia is a harm reductionist and consultant specializing in human services program design, grassroots organizational development, and community engagement. Melodie has 12+ years’ experience organizing and providing education around reproductive health, harm reduction, and direct service provision. In her consulting practice, she helps government agencies develop trauma-informed programming for low-resourced and over-policed communities including drug users, sex workers, and people living unhoused. Melodie is also a policy analyst, writer, artist, and skillful facilitator. Melodie has a Master’s in Public Administration and brings important lived experience as a peer in behavioral health and sex workers’ rights advocacy spaces. Melodie is a Board Member for SWOP Behind Bars and is the owner of Orange Cap Consultation in Seattle, WA.
J. Leigh Oshiro-Brantly
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
At the intersection of people, policy, research, and creativity is where you will find longtime sex worker and survivor J. Leigh Oshiro-Brantly. As a multi-racial non-binary person who has lived with disabilities, poverty, food/housing instability and violence, they have brought this experience to their research and advocacy. Whether co-authoring academic papers, conducting interviews or focus groups, community organizing, lobbying or making documentaries, J. Leigh is passionate about addressing LGBTQIA+ issues, sex work, race, gender-based violence, human trafficking, casual sex, disability, and the creativity of the human spirit.
Serving at organizations like The Ishtar Collective, GLITS, SOAR Institute, Decriminalize Sex Work, and New York Transgender Advocacy Group has been their career since 2016. They were an advisor for the Museum of the City of New York’s Transgender Activism Exhibit and received the 2019 Marsha P. Johnson Community Leader Award from New York Transgender Advocacy Group, where they have served as the president of the NY State Gender Diversity Coalition since 2019.
Bea Wharton
OPERATIONS & RESEARCH
Bea Wharton is a data analyst, systems administrator, and researcher who works with nonprofits in order to structure new programming, analyze existing data, and provide research towards new opportunities.
Bea is a student of Political Science at Southern New Hampshire University, with a focus on constitutional law and the tracking and reporting of civil and human rights violations. She is the administrator of and a volunteer at the Sex Worker Community Support Line as well as the Data Manager for SWOP Behind Bars.
When she’s not at her desk, you’ll find Bea foraging, hiking, growing veggies and enjoying sunsets on a beach with her beloved dog, Pepper Ann.
thot scholar
SPOKES HUB
CO-COORDINATOR
moses moon, also known as “thotscholar,” is a writer and self-made scholar whose work focuses on race and racialization, sexuality, gender, and genre. She is a former member of SWOP-USA’s Board of Directors and has made a name for herself through questioning stale conventions and highlighting racial, sexual, and socioeconomic entanglements. Her work has
been published in the Yale LPE blog, Columbia Human Rights Law Review, VICE, Afropunk, and Duke University’s SAQ. Her book low end theory is forthcoming. Sign up for her substack: thotscholar.substack.com or follow her on Twitter @thotscholar.
Paula kravitz
ADVISOR – DEVELOPMENT
Paula Kravitz is a management consultant for social impact organizations including philanthropies, non-profits and social impact initiatives within the private sector. She worked for a decade at the Skoll Foundation where she led strategic initiatives, the Skoll World Forum on social entrepreneurship and also global partnerships. Since leaving Skoll she has consulted with TED on their Climate Countdown initiative, the Jeff Skoll Group on long range planning, TPW on their Global Summit among others. Prior to Skoll she consulted for nearly a decade with Fortune 500 companies on brand, communications and online marketing strategy.
chris o’keefe
ADVISOR – TREASURER
Chris O’Keefe graduated in 1997 with a BS in Accounting. He worked in the tax Industry for over 25 years including tax departments in various Public Accounting Firms providing guidance to small businesses, pass through entities, not-for-profit organizations and individuals. Chris earned his CPA license in May of 2000.