Newsletter March 2026

Welcome to our first Touching Base newsletter for 2026. 

We are still all buzzing after the success of our 25th Anniversary last year. It was such a wonderful way to celebrate our endurance and fuel our passion for the next 25 years!

In this edition we announce our new NDIS campaign to change the way “sexual supports” are funded. We’re also seeking to recruit two new volunteer social media managers and some younger leaders to join our Committee of Management. If you’re planning on being in Sydney on the 15th April, check out the amazing “Whore Tales” fundraising comedy night. Registrations are open for our next Professional Disability Awareness Training (PDAT) workshop for sex workers and we have news about translations of resources for sex workers. This month we’re sharing surveys around healthcare discrimination experienced by former or current disabled or chronically ill sex workers and inviting feedback on sexual health factsheets that Family Planning NSW are updating to improve inclusive support for the community. Last but not least, Touching Base is supporting the move to bring in full decriminalisation of sex work in the ACT by sharing advocacy resources.

We’re Looking for Social Media Savvy Volunteers!

Are you a communications pro or a budding digital strategist with a passion for human rights? We’d love to have you on our team!

Touching Base is looking for a couple of volunteer Social Media Managers to help us manage our digital spaces and keep our community connected. If you’re great at creating engaging content and want to help us share our values with the world, this is for you.

What you’ll be doing:

• Keeping things fresh by managing and updating our socials with relevant, accurate info.
• Using creative storytelling to craft posts that align with our core mission and values.
• Building community by chatting with our followers and moderating discussions to keep things respectful and on-track.
• Staying organised by working with our Operations Manager to keep a solid content calendar.
• Making connections by finding and linking up with strategic partners and advocates across the globe.

Interested?

If you want to use your digital skills to make a real-world impact, we’d love to hear from you. View the Position Description and express your interest here: https://www.touchingbase.org/support-us/volunteer/social-media-managers/

Whore Tales – a comedy night raising funds for Touching Base 

One of our talented members, Ashley Stafford, has joined forces with Daddy Charles to present Whore Tales, a night of intimate storytelling by community for community. 

You can look forward to a night of laughter, connection and  maybe a confession or two. Whore Tales will be a safe inclusive space for community to share their stories, jokes and “icks” with the adult industry. Expect an open mic, storytelling, spoken poetry and everything in-between.

Ashley and Daddy Charles will kindly donate profits to Touching Base. What a wonderful gesture – we are most grateful for their generosity! 

When:  15th April, 7pm to 11:00pm. 

Location:   Sydney Innerwest, NSW. Venue to be announced on the day

Link to purchase your tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/wh0retales

NDIS campaign

To pursue one of our key strategic goals, Touching Base has started 2026 by planning a new campaign to change the way the NDIS interprets the term “sexual services”. We want the Government to honour the statement made by Senator Ayers during Senate committee debates, so that NDIS participants who have disability specific sexual support needs can still have them funded under their plans where reasonable and necessary.

We’ve been getting great support from Scarlet Alliance – Australian Sex Workers Association to guide and support our early campaign planning. We’ve also managed to secure pro bono assistance from our wonderful friends at VU Consulting, a Public Relations firm which has kindly assisted us in the past. Our allies at Justice Connect are also supporting our campaign by seeking lawyers to provide us with legal advice to help us gather more evidence from the NDIA via formal freedom of information requests. 

A key component of our campaign will be a case study exploring the experiences of a couple we are calling Francis and Sue. This couple have previously been funded to utilise the services of a sex worker to assist them to engage in conjugal relations.

The funding was rescinded in 2017 and ever since then Francis and Sue have sought to have it re-instated in their plans. The most recent offer to address their sexual support needs from the NDIS was to fund a psychosexual therapist. Sue saw this as an “insulting” substitute for the hand’s-on supports they require. What they need is physical support so they can engage in ordinary marital activities like other married couples, but this type of assistance can’t be provided by support staff as it goes against all usual codes of conduct.

We believe that the story of Sue and Francis provides a compelling argument to influence the public and government decision makers. We need them to recognise that for some NDIS participants, their disability specific support needs can only be provided by sex workers and rightfully should be funded under the NDIS where reasonable and necessary.

We look forward to sharing more news about our exciting new NDIS campaign in the near future.

Our allies at the Scarlet Alliance Disabled Sex Workers’ Advisory Group (DSWAG) are collecting stories from disabled and chronically ill sex workers who have experienced access barriers in healthcare. 

At the last Scarlet Alliance National Forum, Touching Base members heard very distressing testimonies from sex workers who shared their stories of medical professionals withholding treatment, even urgent pain medication, simply on the basis of the worker’s occupation. It is important to gather evidence of the despicable discrimination disabled sex workers still experience in health settings!  

This survey is for (past and current) disabled and chronically ill sex workers who live and work in Australia.  

You can find the Disability, Sex Work, and Healthcare Discrimination survey here 

Our talented Training Coordinator Emma has opened up registrations for our next online PDAT workshop for sex workers.

Session 1: Thursday 19th March 2026
1pm – 4pm AEDT (NSW/VIC/ACT/TAS) 
(12pm – 3pm QLD)  (12.30pm – 3.30pm SA) 
(11.30am – 2.30pm NT) ( 10am – 1pm WA)

Session 2: Thursday 26th March 2026
1pm – 4pm AEDT (NSW/VIC/ACT/TAS) 
(12pm – 3pm QLD)  (12.30pm – 3.30pm SA) 
(11.30am – 2.30pm NT) ( 10am – 1pm WA)

Please note: PDAT workshops are only open to sex workers who have worked in the sex industry for at least 3 months.                                                                 

There is a *10% discount for sex workers who are paid-up members of Touching Base.  To register, go to:  https://www.touchingbase.org/civicrm/event/register/?reset=1&id=47

We are also seeking to expand the number of younger people who sit on the Touching Base Committee of Management.  This is so Touching Base can reflect the needs and interests of younger people more clearly, provide an opportunity for our youth to develop leadership skills and create an avenue for people to progress to office bearer roles such as President, Secretary and Treasurer if they wish into the future. We have created a recruitment poster specifically targeting university and TAFE students.  

View the poster here and please share with your networks.

Last year some sex workers asked us to produce translations of our info resource for sex workers in four community languages, to better promote our work amongst people who don’t speak English as their first language. 

The first two translated resources have now been completed in Simplified Chinese and Thai. They were kindly translated and peer-reviewed by sex workers and allies. 

Vixen and Scarlet Alliance are actively seeking Vietnamese and Korean sex workers to provide peer translation services. We look forward to liaising with their new peer translators as they become available. 

If you are a sex worker and/or person with disability able to provide us with translation services in Vietnamese or Korean, please contact Saul via operations@touchingbase.org   

We look forward to launching our newly translated resources as soon they are all ready to be published.

Our friends at Family Planning NSW first developed the All About Sex factsheets in 1982 to support people with disability by providing accessible information on a range of sexual and reproductive health topics. Family Planning NSW are updating the factsheets to ensure they remain accurate, inclusive, easy to understand, and useful for the people who use them.

Short survey for professionals who use the All About Sex factsheets 

Family Planning NSW is seeking input from professionals, educators, support workers, family members, and others who use the resource. The survey has 6 questions and takes about 5 minutes to complete.

If you currently use, or have used, the All About Sex factsheets with people with intellectual disability, we encourage you to provide your feedback. 

Please feel free to forward this survey to others in your team who use the resource.

You can access the survey here: https://forms.office.com/r/Wja6xhxDEq  

If you have any questions or would like more information about the consultation sessions or the survey, please contact:
disability@fpnsw.org.au or aliciame@fpnsw.org.au

Scarlet Alliance, Decrim ACT and SWOP ACT are advocating for the full decriminalisation of sex work in the ACT, ensuring sex workers are treated like other workers under standard workplace, health, and legal protections. Touching Base is pleased to share their new advocacy flyer, which highlights the benefits of decriminalisation, including improved safety, access to healthcare, reduced stigma, and better workers’ rights, while debunking myths about exploitation and health risks. Supported by major international organisations, the reform calls for repealing outdated laws, introducing anti-discrimination protections, and funding peer-led organisations to empower sex workers. 

A submission writing process will open soon. 

We encourage our members to write submissions to support the protection of sex workers human rights, health and safety in the ACT. Here is a detailed briefing paper put out by Scarlet Alliance, Decrim ACT and SWOP ACT as a resource for supporters, allied organisations and anyone interested to learn more about why ACT sex workers are campaigning for decriminalisation, and how decrim might work in the ACT. 

If you would like to attend an upcoming online submission writing workshop for sex workers and allies on Thursday 19th March, keep an eye out on the Decrim ACT socials or send an email to the Scarlet Alliance Policy and Advocacy Manager. Some of our Touching Base Lobbying Team members do intend to be there as we will be putting in our own submission.

If you’re in the ACT in early April you can also attend a fun intimate evening of storytelling about the laws on 7 April, 6-8pm hosted by Decrim ACT.

Hope you’ve enjoyed our news, updates and opportunities to contribute to a better future and keep an eye out on our social media channels for more news as we roll out our NDIS campaign in the near future! 

Until then, wishing you all the best.

From the team at Touching Base

PS: As a small unfunded organisation we are truly grateful for any donations in support of our ongoing work.