Decriminalisation in Victoria!

The first stage of decriminalisation in Victoria came into effect earlier this month! 🎉 We're so excited to see these changes and have made a few changes to the site as well.

We've removed license numbers from our users profiles and have removed the field from the Edit Profile page. The data will be deleted from the database as well, heading straight for the bin where it belongs, along with the entire registry. 🔥 Providers in Victoria, Australia  can also now show incall rates on their profiles. 💵

We're so excited to see the decriminalisation movement in Australia continue to gain progress, with Queensland, South Australia, and Western Australia pushing forward. If you want to get involved, reach out to your local org and check out the work by Scarlet Alliance.

• QLD: DecrimQLD on Twitter @DecrimQld
• QLD: Respect Inc QLD on Twitter @respectqld
• SA: SIN on Twitter @sin_southaus
• WA: Magenta WA on Twitter @magentawa
• VIC: Vixen Collective on Twitter @vixencollective
• NSW & National: Scarlet Alliance on Twitter @scarletalliance
• Scarlet Alliance website
• Scarlet Alliance briefing paper on decriminalisation in Australia

Donation matching program

After the devastating announcement that the US supreme court had privately voted to overturn Roe vs Wade, we decided to extend our TLC donation matching program to abortion funds. We are thrilled to announce that since launching this extension in March, ya'll have donated over $7661USD to abortion funds and sex worker rights organisations and we've matched that in TLC! A massive thank you for everyone who has taken part.

We will be running this program until the 30th of June. To find out more, please check out: https://tryst.link/blog/donation-matching-program/

New this month

• Removed the license number field and the requirement for Victorian providers to provide it.
• Removed the limitation for Victoria, Australia based providers not being able to  show all rate types on their public profile.

Other changes

• Fixed a rare bug with tours that would claim there was overlap when there wasn't any. If you're still seeing unexpected errors take a screenshot of your manage tour page and send it to our helpful support team!
• Fixed some typos here and there.

In the community

There's loads going on in the community and we want to highlight some things each month in our release notes to help bring more awareness to them. Are you involved in an event or organisation, or know of one, we should highlight? Reach out and let us know!

Recurring events

• St James Infirmary are running a SW writers circle every Thursday from 2:00pm - 4pm PST. Invite via the "Sex Workers we love you button" found here.
• Sober Sex Workers is running a monthly Zoom meeting every second Sunday at 7pm CST. Request a meeting link via the @sobersexworkers instagram account
• Sex Worker breakfasts Wednesdays 11am -2pm Least London E1. Contact swblondon@protonmail.com for more details.

In the media

• Colombia’s ‘camgirls’ slowly start to break taboos - Lucia Franco
• ‘I’ll Have to Leave Edinburgh’: Sex Workers’ Fears After the City Bans Strip Clubs - Polly Smythe
• Striking NoHo Strippers Vote to Unionize - Nessa Moreno
• Sex worker's story held until now by WA state library details life in red light districts like Roe Street - Emma Wynne and Dustin Skipworth
• Queensland sex worker advocates back abolition of licensing to end police pressure and improve safety - Matt Eaton
• Sex is a Good Thing: Ninja Thyberg on Pleasure - Marya E. Gates
• Sex workers in Victoria celebrate industry reform, but say more needs to be done in regional areas - Laura Myers, Lexie Jeuniewic, and Jonathon Kendall
• Who’s your daddy: The rise of sugar dating - Fiona Fraser
• A BDSM Dungeon Transformed into Berlin’s Newest Art Space by Focusing on Art by Sex Workers - James Jackson
• How I Do It: ‘I make X-rated content online – here’s a week in my sex life’ - Aidan Milan
• Sainsbury's worker who quit cheese counter for porn career shares realities of sex work - Neil Shaw and Annie Owen
• The NSN opposes "End Demand"
• OnlyFans Star Says She Slept With Meta Employees to Get Instagram Unbanned - Nick Mordowanec
• ‘Appalling’: Australian sex worker Samantha X reveals huge banking blow - Alexis Carey
• Where Do Sex Workers’ Rights Belong In The Labor Movement? - Hailey
• Sex workers and the best interests of their children: Identifying issues faced by sex workers involved in custody and access legal proceedings - Julie DeWolf
• Porn could be in danger if Roe is overturned - Anna Iovine
• Combatting Sex Work Stigma Using Arts Advocacy - Sruthi Srinivas
• Putting the ‘Job’ in Blowjob: Post-Pandemic Sex Work in Dunedin - Elliot Weir
• ‘No justice, no booty’: the strippers striking for racial equality - Brit Dawson
• I Was A Cam Girl In The Pandemic & Now I Have Higher Standards With Men - Kate O'Kelley
• These Queer Asian Men Are Breaking Stereotypes By Embracing Sex Work - Xintian Wang
• Canadian Blood Service seeks to scrap lifetime ban on sex workers donating blood - Marie Woolf
• I Auditioned At A Strip Club. Then I Found Out What I'd Have To Do To Get The Job. - Penda Smith
• 'We shouldn't be treated as second class citizens' - Mia Vines Booth
• Rising to the sex industry's insurance challenges - Daniel Wood
• Opinion: 'Sweetheart deal'  documents the experiences of sex workers with empathy - Megan Burbank
• Prior Sex Work Haunts Employees Returning to Traditional Jobs - Emily Kask
• Police hope $1m reward will crack 1991 murder of St Kilda sex worker - David Estcourt
• To sex workers, navigating the world without medical access to abortions or reproductive care is nothing new. But the overturning of Roe V. Wade puts their livelihoods further at risk. - Taiyler Simone Mitchell