Join Us for Our Vancouver Launch!
Kerry Porth and I are pleased to announce the Vancouver launch of our book, Beneath the Red Umbrella: Sex and Solidarity (University of Toronto Press 2026)! Hosted by the DTES Heart of the City Festival, the launch will take place at the Enabling Arts Event Space and Bookstore on 4 November 2026, from 5:00-8:00. We hope you can join us!
The event will involve a discussion of the book, including of how we ended up creating a hybrid academic monograph/graphic novel to develop an evidence-based argument for the decriminalization and destigmatization of sex work. Addison Finch, our illustrator, will be joining us as well to discuss the process of creating this book.
We will be fundraising for PACE Society, and will have our saucy tees, totes, and tea towels for sale by donation directly to this local “by, with, and for” sex-worker support organization.
Here’s the Eventbrite link to register: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/beneath-the-red-umbrella-book-launch-tickets-2002548027056?aff=ebdsoporgprofile
A Creative Combination of Academic Research and Intimate Storytelling
Beneath the Red Umbrella combines academic research with the intimacy of storytelling in a genre-crossing graphic novel. At the heart of the story are three university students, Selina, Jaz, and Julie, whose evolving friendship unfolds over the course of an academic year. Through honest, sometimes uncomfortable conversations, they confront misconceptions and injustices faced by those providing sexual services.
As the friends learn from each other, readers are drawn into a conversation about solidarity, justice, and the responsibilities of researchers. Interwoven with the narrative are two powerful academic arguments: first, that scholars working with marginalized communities – such as sex workers – must collaborate with them by supporting their goals and contributing to their empowerment; second, that the everyday injustices faced by sex workers are rooted in a deeper stigma that frames them wrongly as “social deviants.”
Combining storytelling with a critique of stigma, criminalization, and institutional exclusion, Beneath the Red Umbrella makes a case for the decriminalization and destigmatization of sex work and offers a model for how we can have difficult but necessary conversations about the demands of justice and human rights.
Pretty Great Reviews!
We’re so pleased that early reviews are pretty great. We are very grateful to our reviewers.
“Genevieve Fuji Johnson and Kerry Porth have demonstrated solidarity in co-research and authorship, solidaristic research design, and consequently contribute to an important shift in the normative underpinnings of how society should think about sex work. Moreover, this research demonstrates the potential for “collaborative governance” to transform how we think about injustice while we try to address its intractability.” Brooke Ackerly, Vanderbilt University
“This is not your typical academic book. By combining thorough scholarship with an engaging graphic novel format, it remains accessible while offering depth and practical guidance for students, researchers, activists, policymakers, and the general public. It invites readers to reconsider ideas about sex work and human trafficking and to thoughtfully explore complex issues with curiosity, empathy, and respect. At a time when conflating sex work and trafficking increasingly stifles meaningful dialogue and evidence-informed policy, this book fosters nuanced, critical engagement. It is a vital resource for anyone seeking deeper insight into some of today’s most debated social policy issues.” Alison Clancey, Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women Canada
“Beneath the Red Umbrella offers a smart, creative, and engaging account of the challenges sex workers face in our contemporary political economy, while also illuminating how scholars, activists and other allies may learn with and support sex workers’ liberatory projects. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in sex work, research methods, and building solidarity to fight injustice.” Samantha Majic, City University of New York
“Vancouver-based scholar-activists, Johnson and Porth, distill years of rich collaboration into an electrifying hybrid: Beneath the Red Umbrella vividly intermingles illustrated comics with trenchant, accessible analysis of ontological and epistemic injustices that impede sex workers’ sovereignty, safety, and security. Repudiating harmful laws and whorephobic stereotypes, the authors insist that sex workers are curious, skilled, funny, creative, and compassionate policy actors who fight for a future industry that is decriminalized and destigmatized. Unapologetically rooted in solidaristic research, this transformative text sets a new benchmark for emancipatory knowledge-making. A binge-worthy must-read, it crackles with verve and insight.” Becki L. Ross, University of British Columbia
“Through everyday conversations, this book introduces readers to the person before the stigma. With storytelling grounded in reality and evidence, it challenges assumptions about sex workers and the policies that continue to harm them. The combination of academic research and comic illustrations makes this book an engaging and important read.” SWAN Vancouver
Can’t Make the Launch?
If you can’t make the launch, but would like to get your hands on a copy of the book, please visit the UTP website to make an order. Alternatively, please ask your local bookshop to order the book for you. Several book stores based in Vancouver will be carrying it, including Cross and Crows, Iron Dog Books, Massy Books, and Upstart and Crow.
Thank you!
