* anti-violence – consent culture – embodied spirituality – words and story *

I am a genderqueer movement organizer, researcher, writer, storyteller, and teacher who lives with my family on the French-German border. My work brings together my research interests of communication, gender, sexuality, consent, relationships, trauma, healing, spirituality, theology, ritual, storytelling, and social justice. I appreciate working within each of these foci (though I currently make my living in the nonprofit wonk focus); the areas of overlap are where my heart opens most and loving brilliance pours out. I am a survivor of multiple forms of violence and trauma.

In my free time, I spin fire.

anti-violence work

I am an anti-violence advocate and educator whose movement-organizing work began in 1994 as a suicide hotline counselor and LGBTQ activist/organizer. I am co-founder of Collective Threads Initiative — directly investing in the leadership and agency of grassroots activists who are driving transformative change across critical areas, including climate justice, racial equity, education access, human trafficking, and democratic futures. In that role, I support, train, and mentor activists; create communities of support; and research the experiences of people with lived experiences working in movement spaces.

Before co-founding CTI, I was the Survivor Leadership Program Manager at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (Cast) and have a presidential commission to serve on the United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking (where I currently serve as Chair), providing recommendations and guidance to federal agencies addressing human trafficking. At Cast, I managed the National Survivor Network and stewarded its’ transition from a network of consultants to a collective-power-building group of community organizers and changemakers. While at Cast, I partnered on the development of the Meaningful Engagement of People with Lived Experience framework and assessment, spearheaded a project to foster repair for survivor leaders harmed by their anti-trafficking engagements drawing on a community accountability lens, co-authored a workbook to support empowered storytelling for social change, and developed educational materials to teach systems-based prevention of human trafficking.

In addition to my community-based work I have served as a federal policy leader, coordinating the first-ever entirely survivor-developed, all-survivor Capitol Hill briefing for members of Congress. I have been a research consultant for the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre’s research into global promising practices for meaningful engagement of people with lived experience and am currently conducting research in partnership with Cast and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill about the storytelling experiences of survivors.

Before coming to Cast, I was the Anti-Human Trafficking Specialist, and later the Prevention Education Program Manager, for the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault (NCCASA). As coalition staff, I provided training and technical assistance (TTA) to rape crisis centers, dual domestic violence agencies, and human trafficking programs across the state, and was the primary Centers for Disease Control-funded Rape Prevention and Education TTA provider for the state of North Carolina’s Sexual Violence Primary Prevention Program. Before coming to NCCASA, I worked in sexual violence prevention and crisis response for a decade, answering hotlines, leading support groups, and providing hospital and legal accompaniment for survivors. 

My current work brings together lived experience and years of direct service and community-based consent and prevention education work, as well as graduate study in social justice, human rights, and gender theory. I am a member the Board of Directors for Freedom Network USA and am known as a dynamic speaker, trainer, and writer. My clients and collaborative partners include the UNODC, the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre, the University of Liverpool Centre for the Study of International Slavery, the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery, FreeFrom, Futures Without Violence, VALOR US, Survivors Agenda, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, and the DHS Blue Campaign. I am passionate about violence prevention, harm reduction, and Full Frame Initiative’s Wellbeing Framework.

You can find me on Bluesky and LinkedIn.

curriculum I am trained to implement

Sexuality Education for People with Developmental Disabilities curriculum by Katherine McLaughlin of Elevatus Training.
The Truth About Pornography porn literacy curriculum by Emily Rothman.

consent culture and sexuality

For over a decade, I worked in rape crisis – answering hotlines, providing in-person hospital and police accompaniment, and facilitating support groups to help survivors reconnect with their bodies and explore safe, consensual, healthy sexuality after sexual assault or childhood sexual abuse. Before that, I worked as a childbirth educator and doula, and afterward I worked for a few years in sexual violence policy, prevention, and response at the statewide level as a training and technical assistance provider.

While I don’t have as much time for my small group embodiment education at this time, I have traditionally enjoyed working with people to tease out and build upon the areas they can find safety in their bodies in ways that allow newly discovered and developed communication strengths, boundary-setting, and experiences of sensual pleasure to radiate outward to other areas of life and sexuality. In this vein, I independently taught workshops on sexuality, consent and boundaries, and community accountability, and consulted with organizations, festivals, and communities on building practices and policies that foster safety and accountability. I have also coached parents on how to talk about sexuality in open, candid, and healthy ways with their children; facilitated discussions about gender identity and sexual orientation with children; and worked with parents to foster trust and security for their gender non-conforming children.