The Commission Edition of the Sterling Starlets Burlesque show was conceptualized by PJ Starr to hold space for our communities at a time when the government was in the first wave of push back of the second Trump Administration in 2025. If you want to take a deeper dive into what happened during the Commission on the Status of Women in 2025, please read PJ's commentary about it on Patreon. PJ used Procreate on an older iPad to explore what illustration could be created for the event that would speak to the fact that the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women was happening in March 2025. Drawing on a postage stamp that was released for the Beijing International Women's Conference in 1995, drawing in ribbons representing our communities and the various acts of burlesque that would be performed, PJ completed the illustration. The Procreate illustration was used for a poster, postcards and decoration at the event. The illustration has its roots in a graphic created by the EMPOWER Federation of sex workers in Thailand that remade the UN symbol into a symbol of sex worker rights. PJ has, with the permission of EMPOWER, created a similar graphic for events as well.
The United Sex Workers Nations design was used, with the permission of EMPOWER, at United Nations events organized by community based organizations. Under the first Trump administration PJ came to the idea that this design could be used to turn our gaze back on the United States and created the illustration below that was used for webinars to discuss the transition from Trump to Biden. What now? What now indeed!
