Carol Leigh, a San Francisco activist who is credited with coining the term “sex work” and who sought for decades to improve conditions for prostitutes and others in the adult entertainment business, has died. She was 71.
Kate Marquez, the executor of her estate, said Leigh died Wednesday of cancer, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.
A former prostitute, Leigh devoted herself to campaigning on behalf of those in the “sex work industry,” a term she coined as the title for a panel discussion she attended at a feminist anti-pornography conference in 1978, according to an essay she wrote.
Carol defined sex work as a labor issue, not a crime, not a sin,” Marquez said. “It is a job done by a million people in this country who are stigmatized and criminalized by working to support their families.