Sex worker communities are campaigning, engaging with government, conducting research and showing up to challenge stigma and end discrimination. We experience discrimination and vilification in almost every part of our lives: our safety, our housing, our finances, our healthcare and our mental health. Criminalisation and lack of accessible anti-discrimination protections mean that we have little protection and even less justice when it happens.
Deeply embedded stereotypes are reinforced by media, film and anti-sex work organisations, and shape how sex workers are perceived and treated. When left unchallenged, they normalise discrimination against us, both by individuals and institutions. Sex workers experience discrimination in healthcare, including mental healthcare. It happens in housing, where landlords, real estate agents and hotels evict us, charge us more, or ban us outright once our sex work is disclosed, regardless of whether we even work from the property. It happens in family law, where our work is used against us in custody disputes on the unfounded assumption that we’re unfit to be around children.
It also shows up in the systems meant to protect our financial security. Banks close our accounts and decline loans and merchant facilities, even with stable income and good credit. Insurers refuse coverage or increase premiums on the assumption that sex work is inherently dangerous. Newspapers and advertising platforms charge us more, or reject our advertising outright. We are shadowbanned and deplatformed in online spaces. These experiences are not isolated incidents. Together, they create barriers to essential services, financial security, housing and opportunities that others take for granted.
PUBLISHED APRIL 2026
ADVOCACY RESOURCE
This resource explores how anti-rights movements use narratives about pornography, consent and gender-based violence to justify discrimination, criminalisation and censorship of sex workers, and calls for sex worker-led approaches that protect our rights, safety and autonomy.
Research conducted through a partnership between Scarlet Alliance and the Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW Sydney, supported by the Australian Government Department of Health, reveals the extent of stigma and discrimination experienced by sex workers, particularly when accessing healthcare.
These attitudes have serious consequences for our health and wellbeing. Many sex workers who participated in the study reported concealing their sex work from healthcare providers, seeking alternative services, delaying healthcare or missing follow-up appointments because of stigma and discrimination.
These findings highlight the urgent need to address stigma within healthcare and across society more broadly. Wide-ranging interventions are necessary to address stigma and discrimination towards sex workers across all aspects of life.
Decades of sex worker-led advocacy have secured anti-discrimination protections for sex workers in Tasmania, the Northern Territory, Queensland and Victoria. In the Australian Capital Territory, there are protections for some, not all, types of discrimination. However, these laws vary between jurisdictions, and many sex workers across Australia remain without adequate legal protection against discrimination.
Even where protections exist, accessing them can be difficult and there are many reasons they fail to protect sex workers. Some laws require us to demonstrate that we were treated less favourably than someone in similar circumstances who isn’t a sex worker. Courts have interpreted these requirements narrowly enough to make winning nearly impossible.
Taking legal action can also put our privacy and safety at risk. Making a complaint may require us to disclose our legal names and identities to the person or organisation responsible for the discrimination. If a complaint progresses to a tribunal or court, name suppression has to be applied for again at every stage, with no certainty it will be granted.
Many sex workers who have made complaints are pushed towards conciliation and non-disclosure agreements that prevent us from speaking publicly about our experiences. The result is that discrimination against sex workers is both common and almost entirely undocumented. The rare cases that make it as complaints are important, but not the entire solution.
Are you a sex worker who has experienced discrimination? You don't have to navigate it alone.
If you’ve experienced stigma or discrimination, support is available. Sex worker peer organisations across Australia can provide confidential support, help you understand your rights, explore your options and navigate complaints processes. Whether you want to take action or simply talk through what happened, they will be there to support you.
Real protection means naming sex work and sex workers directly in anti-discrimination and vilification law, not relying on vague categories like ‘lawful sexual activity’ or “occupation, trade and calling” that courts have repeatedly found don’t cover us. It means closing the loopholes that let landlords, employers and service providers discriminate against us legally. And it means complaints processes we can actually use: ones that protect our privacy, don’t force us into secrecy, and let peer organisations advocate on our behalf.
While problems remain, sex workers have made significant progress in our fight to be protected under anti-discrimination law:
Stigma and discrimination are reinforced through harmful stereotypes, misinformation and the language used to talk about sex workers. Explore our posts challenging common myths, unpacking discriminatory attitudes and advocating for greater respect, recognition and rights for sex workers.
Stigma and discrimination are reinforced through harmful stereotypes, misinformation and the language used to talk about sex workers. Explore our posts challenging common myths, unpacking discriminatory attitudes and advocating for greater respect, recognition and rights for sex workers.
Explore more of our submissions and advocacy on stigma and discrimination, anti-discrimination protections, equality and the human rights of sex workers and our communities.
