About Us

2013:  OUR FUTURE STARTS NOW!

The Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance (WSFA) is always working to advance the recognition of sexual, gender, and family diversity. As the nation’s leading sexual freedom and human rights organization, honored by Proclamation in Washington, DC, we are uniquely positioned to bring together allies and partners, thereby maximizing our effectiveness and theirs. Together, with your support, we can move mountains!

Just look at what your support allowed us to do in 2012….

We launched the Family Matters Project, which is dedicated to advancing and protecting the fundamental human right to family by eliminating discrimination based on family structure and relationship choices.

WSFA’s Family Matters Project helps establish rights, respect and recognition of for all families by working to raise public awareness of family diversity.  We will be sharing stories and research using social media, providing education about human rights at conferences and public events, and facilitating collaboration with other organizations to draft and promote model policies and legislation preventing discrimination based on family form.

We continued to lobby at the State and local levels for sexual freedom, ensuring that the issues include a focus on human rights that is often missing from political debates.

Anti-shackling legislation:  We successfully Ended shackling of incarcerated women in labor in Florida through our collaboration with the Florida ACLU.  Our testimony, in support of House Bill 367 and its companion, Senate Bill 257, which introduced the International Human Rights framework into discussions, was instrumental in building support for the bills and allowing both to pass with an overwhelming margin of victory.

Prostitution-free zones:  Working with United Nations human rights treaties as a foundation, we testified in Washington, DC against proposed “Prostitution Free Zones.” Our testimony pointed out the PFZs violate DC’s own human rights policies, the US Constitution and the United States’ commitment to the United Nations with regard to ending violence against sex workers.

No condoms as evidence:  Part of an on-going effort to eliminate the use of condoms as evidence of commercial sex work in New York, Woodhull joined advocates representing a broad coalition of public health and reproductive rights advocates, civil and human rights organizations, LGBT groups, and sex workers’ rights organizers to meet with dozens of legislators to ask for their support in moving New York SB323/A1008 to a vote in 2013!

We continue to work collaboratively with other organizations, even at the level of the United Nations, to advance and affirm sexual freedom as a fundamental human right.

Chairing the US Human Rights Network’s Sexual Rights and Gender Justice Working Group gives us a way to insure that the human rights movement in the US maintains a focus on sexual freedom, and to insure that the sexual freedom movement understands the importance of the Human Rights framework.

As part of this collaborative effort, we participate in the ongoing United Nations Universal Periodic Review monitoring process for human rights violations in the United States.  We are currently working with others on a report highlighting violations of our fundamental right to family and to sexual freedom.

We conduct trainings and give workshops on the integration of the human rights framework into existing advocacies. 

This year found us at George Washington University, American University, the Free Expression Network, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Creating Change conference continuing to provide trainings and workshops on the use of the human rights framework as an important tool in the sexual freedom movement.

We honored three Sexual Freedom Heroes in our third annual Vicki presentation. Amber Hollibaugh, Jeffrey Montgomery and Esther Perel were all recognized for their extraordinary individual personal achievements in advancing sexual rights and freedom.

The Vicki Sexual Freedom Award, established in 2010, recognizes those individuals whose life and work embody the mission and values of the Alliance and who have made landmark contributions to the sexual freedom movement.  The award is named after Victoria Woodhull, the namesake of the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance. Ms. Woodhull was an American suffragist born on September 23, 1838, who was described by Gilded Age newspapers as a leader of the American women’s suffrage movement in the 19th century. She became a colorful and notorious symbol for women’s rights, free love, and spiritualism as she fought against corruption and for labor reforms.

Building on the formal recognition of Sexual Freedom Day (September 23^rd, Victoria Woodhull’s birthday!), we held our third annual Sexual Freedom Summit.

Our third annual Sexual Freedom Summit brought together almost two hundred scholars, activists and advocates for sexual freedom.  Our flagship event provides opportunities for collaborative work and conversation in support of our fight for human rights and sexual freedom, and against the denial of our identities, relationships, and families; criminalization of our pleasure; and the stigmatization of our sexual expression.

As we look to 2013 we ask you to please join us in support of this important work.   You know what we can do.  We want to make sure that you know that we can’t do it without you!