Cupcake Girls Pt. 2 — Final Thoughts and Personal Experiences
By: Sophie Ladder
Tags: Cupcake Girls, Sex Work, Charity

Now I’d like to share some more experiences people have had with The Cupcake Girls. These are stories people reached out to me with after seeing my original article just two days ago.

A counselor who worked for Gender Justice Nevada that I talked to said “they [GJNV] had this idea that the CCG should get training to be more informed to handle trans clients that come to them, since so many sex workers are trans.” One member of GJNV reached out to the CCG to schedule this meeting and was never contacted back. The Cupcake Girls article proudly says that 60% of their clients are LGBTQ+.

The same licensed counselor said Cupcake Girls has referred clients to her as a resource for mental health, but that the CCG do not help pay for it, leaving her to either work for free or not see the client.

One client says the Cupcake Girls were uninterested in what she had to say on sex work being empowering for her, but “perked tf up” when she told them about taking a year long break from sex work — due to a stalker. They asked for a copy of her resume to give as an example to “Sex workers looking to leave the industry.”

One struggling sex worker reach out to the Cupcake Girls for food assistance and they gave her what was supposed to be a $100 grocery gift card. When she went to the store to use it the balance was instead $0. Imagine getting all your groceries in your cart and getting rung up only to find the money you thought you had to pay for it didn’t exist.

One brothel worker and porn performer I spoke to said (edited for conciseness and clarity):

“I went to them after pineapple [support] let me down. I needed resources because I took a really hard hit earlier this year […] and then my bank account was hacked and I was facing eviction. They had me jump through hoops and then told me I was approved for the full amount I needed and all checks were sent out but they only sent a check to my cheapest utility bill and they received it really late. […] I ended up just getting really lucky with the universe having my back and the courts let me stay until my lease was up and a local grant covered part of my utility bills I had. Now I’m unfortunately but gratefully stuck back with my toxic family because I couldn’t come up with F/L/S and cover all the debt from my utilities. Had they been honest in the first place I could have just avoided all the stress and moved on to find another resource instead of thinking I was actually being helped.”

The Cupcake Girls posted private info of this person on twitter in response to a message because “Our director isn’t super familiar with twitter and made the mistake wanting to make sure the msg was received”

The Cupcake Girls talked to her about a financial grant they could offer repeatedly before giving her the application, which they then denied, and referred her to the services she had already reached out to and been denied by.

Another performer and brothel worker I spoke with told me about her experience when the Cupcake Girls wanted to hire her as their community outreach person (emphasis mine).

“I sat with them to talk about being basically their community outreach person (a brand ambassador), and my duties were to be mainly being their cheerleader. Introducing my sex working peers to CCG, and speaking of them in only positive ways. At the time, I had a vanilla job, and at the end of my meeting, they asked if they could have my resume for vanilla work to show other sex workers that you could in fact write about your sex working skills on a resume to get out of sex work. I both declined the position and declined to let them use my resume. I just knew it would be shoved down the throats of sex workers who were not looking to get out of sex work. I declined the position to be their community outreach person because the paper work essentially said I could not be honest. I had to be a lap dog and preach to the online sex worker community about their respect, resources, and relationship bullshit. And you can bet, I was not going to be compensated in any way for being their cheerleader. It was a volunteer position. This was years after I went to them for help several times. The first time I needed help finding a therapist and transportation. I was told transportation wasn’t possible, even though it was listed on their website as a service offered. But they did find a therapist for me. I found a way to transport myself. But walking into an office completely covered with crosses and religious quotes on the wall, I promptly walked out. Then later, my partner and I both had similar experiences. We needed help finding a therapist to help with past trauma. They sent us to a life coach. Life coaches and therapists are not the same. Therapists work with past trauma and healing. Life coaches help you form a game plan for current life goals. Our life coaches were not at all prepared to help us with what we needed help with. So we both stopped seeing them. When I asked for dental assistance, they referred me out to a dentist who was not at all offering free or even discounted services to CCG clients as I was told. I had to pay full price and CCG informed me they could not give monetary help for this. I could not afford to go to the dentist, and my health suffered for years before I was able to afford it myself. The only true help I ever received from CCG was a $50 Albertsons card and a $50 Amazon card. In my 7 years of on and off reaching out to them for help, this is all I ever received. Oh, and they’ve curled my hair a few times. That’s it. This year for my birthday, they sent me nearly expired beauty items that leaked all over the package that was clear were meant to be handed out at their AVN suite.”

Multiple sex workers have told me stories like the last part, where the CCG sent them a birthday gift that was actually leftover goodies from their AVN suite, between 2 and 10 months after the expo happened.

One sex worker said she requested to be in their intensive case management program to meet with an advocate weekly to make S.M.A.R.T. goals. Instead of doing that they kept referring her out to different services. Intensive case management and resource referral are listed as two separate services on their website and literature, and she says she was specific about needing the former.

One performer said (emphasis mine):

“When my partner and I got rent and bill assistance from them earlier this year, we were told those were once in a lifetime grants, and we even had to sign paperwork acknowledging that we could never get financial assistance from the Cupcake Girls again. The money didn’t even come from them, it came from the Salvation Army, and when I told my case worker that I took issue and was uncomfortable with putting my legal name and info on a piece of paper and stating that I was referred by Cupcake Girls on the Salvation Army application, a notoriously anti-sex work anti-queer organization, she first told me that I had to put my legal name on there because that was on my lease. After I was approved, they told me they couldn’t write me a check and that it had to be made out to my landlord. Not only did I not have a proper landlord, (the building I lived in was owned by a corporation), but the front office didn’t accept checks. So I had to drive to the cupcake girl’s office, meet with someone in person, log into my resident portal account, and then have my rent paid via a Cupcake Girls company credit card.”

The limit for that grant is reportedly $500.

When sex workers have asked the Cupcake Girls for rent assistance the CCG tells them that they can send a check to their landlord. This tells the landlord you are in a precarious financial situation which you probably don’t want them to know, and possibly reveals to your landlord that you are a sex worker.

The performer quoted above said “why do I have to risk being outed to my leasing office/landlord to receive rental assistance that isn’t even coming from you, it’s coming from a religious, anti-sex work, anti-queer organization?”

Another performer says “I don’t like being promised things that I was never going to receive (like the life time grant) when I was apparently never applicable. I ended up foolishly wasting time I could have used to track down some other means of help before I ended up technically homeless.”

One sex worker says “I had a friend before covid that they helped out with groceries, and they sent a shopper with them to make sure that that’s what they bought….” Not trusting the sex worker to actually spend the money on food. I think this is why they like giving out gift cards so much.

Another sex worker “They sent my rent thing directly to my landlord, but it took over a month and the check got lost (a maintenance guy found it on the ground). So I ended up having to pay my own rent anyways. They could have just given it directly to me and saved me the trouble of waiting almost 2 months.”

And another sex worker “When I needed help with a lawyer for my restraining order, they didn’t get back to me until after my hearing.”

As I was getting ready to publish this article I received yet another email.