On May 24, Genevieve LeJeune attempted to withdraw money from her HSBC business account. Her card was rejected. She immediately logged into her account online to figure out what was going on and was greeted with a message letting her know the account had been closed. “I had over £20,000 that I couldn’t access and no information about how I was going to get it back. As a small business, that’s crushing,” LeJeune said.

It was the second time in 2019 that the bank had frozen LeJeune’s business account without warning. After she had called to complain in January, HSBC reinstated the account, but this time, there was no way around the situation. On June 3, after filing three complaints, LeJeune received a check for the full balance, along with a notice stating that the termination of her account was final. Although the HSBC’s explanations were vague, they referenced what had appeared to be a routine inquiry into the nature of LeJeune’s business the previous September. (When reached for a response, an HSBC representative said, “Any decisions to close an account are taken on a case by case basis.”)

The nature of Skirt Club has put LeJeune at odds with financial institutions ever since she founded the members-only social club for queerbisexual women in 2014. Skirt Club’s primary draw is its signature parties, in which participants gather in a secret location to watch burlesque, listen to presentations on topics such as Japanese rope bondage, and, if they so choose, have sex with one another. It currently has 12,000 members worldwide in cities including Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, and Sydney. Members often use the network to meet up outside of Skirt Club events, which also include more casual mixers and weekend getaways to Ibiza and Miami.