Crystal Jackson

Crystal A. Jackson (they/she) is a Women, Gender, & Sexualities Studies (WGSS) professor in SST. They are a sociological feminist scholar whose research underscores feminist and queer understandings of sexual labors and gender politics in the United States. They have published scholarly studies on straight male porn fandom, queer porn performers’ articulation of their work as activism, and local strip club regulations. As a scholar-activist, Jackson’s earlier work focused on 21st century U.S. sex worker rights organizing as an example of successful labor resistance and survival in a carceral state. Jackson is also co-author of "The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex, and Sin in the New American Heartland" (Routledge, 2010), an ethnographic exploration of the only legal sale of sex in the country, Nevada’s rural brothels. Their current research explores how the racial justice concept of 'abolitionism' is deployed in mainstream, institutionalized U.S. anti-sex trafficking policies and advocacies to demand actions that are in direct opposition to racial justice abolitionist aims. 

Jackson began their higher ed journey at the Community College of Southern Nevada. She eventually earned her doctorate in sociology with an emphasis in women's studies from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2013. Jackson joined the faculty of ASU’s School of Social Transformation as an associate professor of women and gender studies in August 2023. They have been active with the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) and Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS).