As a sex worker (for women) I tend to receive payment either in cash or by electronic transfer. For some of my clients, cash is ideal because they don’t want to leave an electronic trail of their activities – and given the stigma still attached to sex work, especially for women as clients, that’s no surprise to me.

It’s not necessarily true for other areas of sex work thought, like male for male and female for male services where clients may be more likely to appreciate the convenience of an EFTPOS payment with a card.

That however is a very difficult service to get and to keep for any sex worker. So it is with great pleasure that a Melbourne based sex worker has just won a major anti-discrimination case in Victoria under their anti-discrimination laws that protect sex workers.

You can read about it here:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/sex-worker-takes-on-financial-sector-debanking/103908678

In short Matthew’s EFTPOS terminal provider disabled his service because the company sees sex work as a “risk” for money laundering – well that’s their claim at least. Usually these things are more about the company just not wanting to provide services to sex workers on “moral” grounds or because of reputational risk (meaning discrimination).

Matthew engaged a law firm and won the right to receive services under Victoria’s relatively new anti-discrimination laws – which incidentally he was instrumental in the creation of!

It is fabulous to see this outcome. While I don’t intend to provide EFTPOS services in the foreseeable future (and New South Wales does not currently have anti-discrimination protection for sex workers, so I’d probably still be out of luck if I did want to) it is still a win for the industry, and a step forward for all sex workers.

Who knows, after this victory sex workers may even be able to get home loans like everyone else! Now that would be progress.

John