User:WikiESPLERP2/Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research Project

Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) is a diverse, community-based, erotic service provider led group seeking to advance sexual privacy rights through legal advocacy, education, and research. In its legal advocacy it seeks to create change through a combination of impact litigation, decriminalization, policy statements, and voicing concerns for the erotic community in political arenas. Through educational training and outreach, it addresses discrimination of erotic service providers and the greater erotic community. Its research aims to ensure the community

ESPLERP was formed as a nonprofit IRS 501c3 by Maxine Doogan, an outspoken prostitute and sex worker rights activist. She formed ESPLERP in the wake of the loss of a San Francisco city wide ballot measure attempting to decriminalize prostitution in 2008 titled ‘Prop K’. ESPLERP strives to archive and rate much of the research which has been done by and of the sex worker community, and build on this history with research which seeks to be increasingly inclusive, respectful, and ultimately, relevant to erotic service providers and the larger erotic community.

ESPLERP currently has regional bodies in San Francisco and Denver

ESPLERP Legal Advocacy
In 2008, ESPLERP founder championed the San Francisco city wide ballot measure attempting to decriminalize prostitution titled ‘Prop K’.

In 2012, ESPLERP President, Maxine Doogan, provided testimony against CA Prop 35 Ban on Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery and won the endorsement of the LA Times ESPLERP was the California State registered opposition to the statewide ballot measure.

In 2017, Louis Sirkin esq. was retained to head up a federal case challenging the California prostitution penal code 647(3)b on behalf of ESPLERP. The ESPLERP v Gascon case focused on sex workers health and safety and fourteenth amendment rights. The court upheld the status quo, stating that "ESP’s claims may yet convince the California legislature to change its mind. But this court cannot change its mind for them."

ESPLERP Educational Training and Outreach
ESPLERP leader has attempted to educate the public through various interviews  and has supported various public forums.

ESPLERP Research
ESPLERP has posted a variety of research on legal models regarding prostitution and sex trafficking. It also has developed a Research Evaluation Tool© to "help the public, the media and the community to learn how to gauge if the research they’ve read or are embarking on or participating in meets the standard as to increase respect, inclusion and relevance."