They also organized "whore conventions" in San Francisco (1974), Washington, DC (1976), and in Brussels and Amsterdam (1985 and 1986). Programs and services COYOTE offered a variety of services to sex workers. They offered a hotline for prostitutes called SLIP (Survival Line for Independent Prostitutes), immediate legal assistance for prostitutes who had been arrested, suitable clothing for court appearances, and classes on survival skills for prostitutes in jail. COYOTE won policy changes in the 1970s that gradually diminished prostitution laws. They abolished mandatory penicillin therapy and multi-day jail quarantines and pressured public defenders to provide better representation for people accused of soliciting and prostitution, misdemeanor offenses. They instigated and sponsored at least 26 lawsuits on behalf of prostitutes and lifted a mandatory three-day venereal disease quarantine imposed by the San Francisco Police Department on prostitutes. They won by claiming that the incidence of VD disease is at least as high among people 20 to 40 years old as among whores and "only women are arrested and forced to have regular checks for VD." COYOTE got a judge to dismiss prostitution charges against 37 women whose male customers were not arrested and they organized protests against police harassment, which they believed was one of the most critical issues affecting prostitutes. COYOTE threw annual Hookers' Balls from 1973 to 1979 in San Francisco, which served to destigmatize sex work, celebrate sex workers, and raise funds. From these events, COYOTE raised a bail fund to free women from exploitative pimps and created special welfare programs and assistance services. As public concern about the AIDS epidemic grew, sex workers were increasingly blamed for spreading the disease. COYOTE immediately sought to address this, stating that the organization was "working to prevent the scapegoating of prostitutes for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and to educate prostitutes, their clients, and the general public about prevention of these disease". The organization spoke out against mandatory testing for sex workers for AIDS, deeming it a violation of civil rights. Various members of COYOTE joined together in 1988 to form the California Prostitutes Education Project (CAL-PEP), aiming to provide education about sex work from sex workers themselves. CAL-PEP published Prostitutes Prevent AIDS: A Manual for Health Education in 1988 with federal and state funding. Affiliations Shortly after the founding of COYOTE, Association of Seattle Prostitutes (ASP) and Prostitutes of New York (PONY) were founded. There were roughly 20 other