Emma Caterine

Emma Caterine was born in Gainsville, FL and while her family traveled extensively throughout her life she came of age in the Tidewater area of Virginia. Here she began at the age of 15 to involve herself with local efforts to organize workers. Graduating from Hampton Roads Academy in 2008, she was accepted into the College of William & Mary. Here she worked with the Tidewater Labor Support Committee, the Living Wage Coalition, and the Lemon Project. Emma also, on the year she came out as a transgender woman, helped to organize the College's first ever LGBTQI Pride Festival. She graduated in 2012 with two Bachelor's in English and Africana Studies, winning the Middleton Award for Academic Excellence in the latter. Moving to NYC as a young trans woman, she found little employment and began to do sex work first as a model and later as an escort.
During this time she was hired by Red Umbrella Project, a peer-led group that works to amplify the voices of those in the sex trades, as a Legislative and Media Advocacy Director. She later was promoted to her current position of Community Organizer. Emma has been published in RH Reality Check, Autostraddle, Tits and Sass, Youngist, and Posture Magazine. She spoke at the 96th annual ASALH Conference and the 2013 Desiree Alliance Conference. Emma has also talked at Haverford College, Swarthmore College, University of Michigan, Hunter College, Soapbox Inc.'s Feminist Camp, the 2013 Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, Brooklyn Community Pride Center, and University of New Hampshire. She has facilitated and taught workshops on being a media spokesperson and creating and running legislative campaigns for labor groups, LGBTQI groups, and sex workers. Emma has been involved with 2 major federal and 1 NY state legislative campaigns.
Emma is also the co-founder of Black and Pink's NYC Chapter and the host of weekly talk show Sassy Syndicalist.