Margo St. James, Advocate for Sex Workers, Dies at 83
She founded a group called COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) and devoted her life to the cause of decriminalizing prostitution.
Margo St. James in 1975 at the World Conference on Women in Mexico City, where she sought support for decriminalizing prostitution in the United States.Credit.UPI
Published Jan. 20, 2021Updated Jan. 21, 2021
Margo St. James was an artist working as a waitress and living the Beat life in San Francisco in the 1960s when her home became a counterculture hangout. As she told The Windy City Times of Chicago in 2011, “there was a lot of pot-smoking and sex and, you know, whatever.”
January 18, 2021 5:25 PMLegal
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SAN FRANCISCO Margo St. James, founder of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) and the St. James Infirmary health clinic, died at a memory care facility on January 11, due to St. James continuing problem with dementia. Born in Bellingham, Washington on September 12, 1937, St. James moved to San Francisco on St. Patrick’s Day in 1958, securing a room above the El Matador on Broadway. She would later join the beatnik scene, hanging out in jazz clubs in North Beach. St. James once said, “This was all before desegregation so finding hip places like Jimbo’s Bop City in the Fillmore and 181 Eddy in the Tenderloin were a reprieve.”
Margo St. James, the sex workers Joan of Arc, dies at 83
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Margo St. James ran for Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. Here she is in 2001 on radio station “KALW” promoting her candidacy.John O’Hara / The Chronicle 1996Show MoreShow Less
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Margo St. James created COYOTE, a group focused on fighting for the rights of sex workers.John O’Hara / The Chronicle 1996Show MoreShow Less
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Margo St. James was a proud advocate for the rights of sex workers. A one-time prostitute herself, St. James died on Jan. 13. She’s shown here on Sept. 10, 1980.John O’Hara / The Chronicle 1980Show MoreShow Less