Banning discrimination against sex workers is real, pervasive and incredibly dangerous. The fact is, there is no current legal barrier to a US bank saying “I won’t take your money” or “I won’t take money from @onlyfans” or suddenly closing your account.
https://twitter.com/tpekeke/status/1409684292519694338
And, thanks to the antis trafficking moral panic, it’s likely to get worse. The House is making trafficking a major priority in 2021, with several upcoming bills aimed at increasing restrictions or monitoring accounts.
Operation Choke Point, which required increased bank surveillance of “pornography” accounts under Obama, officially ended in 2017, but banks decided to keep doing it anyway.
Lack of banking isn’t just an inconvenience. When your account is frozen you can’t eat, or pay rent, and in an increasingly cashless society, it means you can’t access basic services like internet.
It means higher fees to exploitative financial payors to get your cash. It means you have to give an intermediary — a non-SWer — total control of your finances. And have no recourse if they exploit you.
Beyond immediate needs, it means you can’t get access to products that help you build equity — like business loans or insurance or a mortgage. Which keeps sex worker income unstable, and — thanks antis! — more vulnerable to exploitation.
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