In April of last year, President Trump signed what looked like a feel-good bipartisan bill in an era of congressional gridlock. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or SESTA (and its House companion bill, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA), made online platforms responsible for advertisements offering illegal sexual services. Lobbyists for the bill said it would shut off human-trafficking pipelines and ostensibly saving thousands of people. On the recommendation of large anti-trafficking nonprofits, law enforcement, district attorneys’ offices, and major tech companies came out in support.

Sex workers themselves, though, spent the first months of 2018 warning that SESTA would jeopardize their safety by taking away crucial tools for screening clients and connecting with one another. Traffickers, they feared, would be pushed further underground, making their victims harder to find. But the bill nonetheless sailed through Congress, netting just 25 no votes in the House and 2 in the Senate. Every Democrat now running for president who served in Congress last year — Corey Booker, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren — voted in favor of it. In the months following its passage, as predicted, many sex workers were pushed onto the street and into harm’s way. Police officers reported they had lost important avenues for setting up stings or finding missing people.

Now, as the 2020 race heats up, sex workers and advocates are using the opportunity to put their experiences in the national spotlight and challenge candidates on their records. Through online organizing and demands to meet with candidates, individual sex workers and organizations representing them hope to force politicians to answer for their SESTA votes and change Washington’s understanding of sex work and trafficking. “An elected official's integrity is determined by their advocacy for the most marginalized people, even when that position is unpopular, and all of our presidential candidates have failed that test,” Nina Luo, of DecrimNY, a new coalition pushing to decriminalize sex work in New York state, said.

It’s the latest move in a months-long organizing campaign following the passage of SESTA. In the immediate aftermath, sex workers created or migrated to new platforms and formed organizations like Survivors Against SESTA (which has since dispersed into smaller, local groups). They organized rallies against the legislation across the country. In June, more than three dozen sex workers took to Capitol Hill for a lobbying day, meeting with a handful of congressional Democratic staffers to educate legislators on the realities of their lives. Another contingent visited Capitol Hill last week.

Sex workers are not a voting block politicians have courted in the past. But this is a mistake, Chicago-based sex worker and writer Suprihmbé tells Teen Vogue. “Sex work is not a single issue, and there’s no way you can categorize us as single-issue voters,” she said. Some sex workers have escaped domestic violence or trafficking. Others are immigrants or single parents. The ones most impacted by criminalization are queer, trans, or people of color. Support for such marginalized groups is traditionally a liberal cause — except in this case. “Politicians say they care about these things, but they can’t mean it if they’re not including marginalized groups like sex workers,” Suprihmbé said.

Although none of the 2020 candidates responded to requests from Teen Vogue, a few have already been asked about sex workers' rights. In a February interview with The Root, Kamala Harris said she supports decriminalizing sex work “as long as no one is being harmed” and claimed she has long advocated against arresting sex workers. This marked a significant change from her previous positions: As San Francisco’s district attorney, she called a 2008 measure to effectively decriminalize prostitution brought by sex workers “ridiculous,” and as California attorney general, she repeatedly targeted Backpage.com, a key platform for sex workers that the FBI raided and shut down days before President Trump signed SESTA into law.