Late last week, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) announced the publication of its 2023 Annual Report, highlighting the group’s efforts on behalf of the adult entertainment industry, from lobbying politicians and filing lawsuits to building new alliances with other activists and sounding the alarm on banking discrimination.
A letter from FSC Executive Director Alison Boden served as a preface to the report, in which Boden acknowledged the many challenges and threats the industry faces, many of which only grew over the course of 2023.
“In 2023, half of all US states introduced age verification bills, banks and financial service companies closed the accounts of hundreds of adult industry members, and our industry was attacked relentlessly in the media,” Boden wrote. “As the sole organization devoted to protecting the rights and freedoms of the adult industry, FSC had our work cut out for us.”
Having noted the rough terrain FSC and the industry navigated last year, Boden takes pride in the fact the FSC’s “small-but-mighty staff rose to the challenge and even chalked up some big wins,” with the support of both new and long-time members of the FSC.
“We mobilized thousands of voters to contact over 1,000 legislators in opposition to age verification bills,” Boden observed, ticking off a short list of the organization’s highest profile activities. “We filed three federal lawsuits to strike down unconstitutional laws. We lodged an official complaint against a banking fintech that discriminated against our industry with a federal agency.”
In a section titled “2023 Impact Snapshot,” the report breaks down FSC’s efforts ‘by the numbers,’ so to speak.
- 31 briefs filed by FSC challenging age verification laws
- 3 new bank partnerships to provide members with accounts
- 600 respondents surveyed for the FSC’s banking discrimination report
- 788 legislators lobbied against age verification bills
- 600 Congressional meetings addressing banking discrimination
- 4000+ news articles published on FSC and its fight for the industry’s rights
- 91 bills affecting the industry tracked by the FSC’s Action Center
- 1,684 grassroots advocates contacted legislators to oppose age verification
- 96 new members joined FSC to help fight for the industry
The FSC report delves into additional detail on the organization’s efforts, separated into sections on the “battle over age verification,” the “pursuit of banking fairness,” and “building connections” – the last of which spotlights some of the FSC’s important, but possibly less often-noted work, like advocating on the behalf of sex workers, advancing online child safety and the establishment of the Sexual Wellness Professional Alliance, a new division of FSC.
As Boden noted in the letter which opens the report, much of what the FSC does is “to educate people in power about who our industry is and what we do.”
“We published a groundbreaking report on the financial discrimination affecting our industry,” Boden added. “We brought FSC members to Washington D.C. to put a human face on the issue and enlist Congress in our cause. We met with federal regulators and banking industry insiders to educate them on the reality of our industry and its risk profile. We spoke to scores of journalists, at publications ranging from the New York Times and Washington Post to Fox News and Breitbart, about our industry and our fight. We helped child safety experts, anti-trafficking organizations, anti-sexual violence practitioners, tech platforms and academic researchers understand how our industry has led the way on these and other issues. We even testified at the UN about how discrimination against sex workers leads directly to evils like human trafficking.”
Whether or not you’re a member of the FSC, the 2023 report is worth reading in full, if only to remind yourself of everything the organization does on the industry’s behalf. While FSC’s ambit is wide, its size is small – meaning, inevitably, the need for support from the industry that small staff serves is great.
