Damaged Bodies: Sex Work, HIV, and Grassroots Organizing in Italy (1982-1987)

Abstract

This article explores the intersection of mutual aid, community care, and public health during the HIV/AIDS crisis in Italy, focusing on how trans and non-trans sex workers adapted grassroots organizing strategies from the 1970s to confront the pressures of emerging neoliberal governance. Drawing on recent scholarship, I situate the HIV crisis within a broader context of political and labor struggles, influenced by U.S. theories and practices, during a period of reduced state investment and a shift toward privatized welfare under Craxi’s Socialist Party. By examining the role of sex workers in responding to the epidemic, this article challenges traditional associations of HIV and sex work with marginality and stigmatization. Instead, I argue that these groups were at the forefront of resistance, caregiving, and collective organizing. Through an analysis of oral history interviews conducted in 2020 in Italy, this article shows how sex workers, in collaboration with grassroots movements, navigated the tensions between state neglect and institutional co-optation to promote public health and labor rights. The first section demonstrates how sex worker-led efforts in Italy paralleled international HIV mobilizations, while the second section traces the gradual incorporation of grassroots activism into the third sector and the challenges posed by neoliberal governance. Ultimately, this article reconsiders the HIV/AIDS crisis as a pivotal moment in labor and social justice history, central to understanding the political transformations of the 1980s.

Keywords: sex work, mutual aid, HIV, neoliberalism, 1980s.