 I'm really excited and a little nervous, I don't know why I'm nervous because you are so sexy, to talk about my work which is the body is not an apology but before we do that I'm gonna ask everyone to stand up again I want you to take your hands and rub them together make some heat some heat some heat some some heat and then I want you to put those warm hands on your heart and I want you to feel that beating heart inside your chest the thing that has you be able to be here right now with us right and then with consent from your partner from this person beside you I want you to ask can I touch you and in the most appropriate conference center kind of way and just put your I just want you to put I know you'll be tempted to do things like embrace which is beautiful but I just want you to put your hand on that person in some way just put that warm hand on that person and notice that they're here to guess what and guess what you all have in common that body that vessel that you have to do this journey in right that thing that we so often stop thinking about because we treat it like our head is not part of our body and then we treat it like we just live here in between these little speets is right here right but the reality is that these conversations that we're talking about are about whether or not we can live harmoniously compassionately sustainably in these beings these vessels because that's the only way to do this particular ride on this particular rock is in these vessels and so what we're really saying is can I be responsible for your body can I share in the responsibility of the care of your body on this planet and if we are not doing that then we're not really doing the work so thank each other for being allowed to touch each other's bodies so I run the body is not an apology and the body is not an apology is a digital media and education company committed to cultivating radical self-love as the foundational tool for social justice and global transformation quite simply we cannot change the world without a foundation of love and I want to complicate the conversation of love because I think we have it in very flat ways I love you that's so cute but if I can't feel that love if that love doesn't show up as action in the world then it means nothing it's empty I don't need you to tell me you love me if that doesn't come with some doing right and so I'm talking when I talk about radical self-love I'm talking about an action kind of love the body is not an apology our mission is that we believe the discrimination social inequality injustice I swear I got rid of all this weird highlights if you notice this is not my skill set PowerPoints so if one of you visual storytellers want to help a sister out do it I got you I need a new whole new deck we believe that discrimination social inequality and injustice are in many ways about our inability to make peace with the body our own bodies and other people's bodies and through information dissemination radical education and community building we foster radical unapologetic self-love which we believe translates into radical human love in action and service toward a more just equitable and compassionate world right in action the kind of love that does some shit right so the way that that looks in a very practical world is if you go to www.thebodyisnotanapology.com you will encounter our online magazine our online magazine takes these issues we use the vehicle of the body because it's the one thing we all have in common it's the one thing we all have is that we have to be in a body to do this journey right and so we talk about what does it look like to look at global issues through the lens of the body which actually gives us the opportunity to not leave any body behind so if I asked you right now to look around this room and say whose body isn't in the room but we don't think about other people's bodies and part of the reason we don't think about other people's bodies is because we don't think about our own is because we are in a fractured relationship with our own bodies which means that we have no choice but to be in fractured relationships with the bodies of others and so the work is about transforming our relationships with our own bodies because it gives us access to transformed relationships with the bodies of other human beings so when you go to our website you can read about the intersections of these ideas through the lens of weight through the lens of disability through the lens of sexuality and gender and age and race and parenting and men and global society and intersections all of those things and we talk about practical things like how not to say fucked up shit to your depress friend right really practical ways right to be in relationship with other people's bodies how to de indoctrinate ourselves from the messages that we have received and internalized about bodies six ways I was taught to be a good fatty and how I stopped right because we and part of it is that we view these issues as interpersonal not recognizing that the systems and structures of the world are built on our ideas about bodies I want you to just take a moment for folks who saw a note taste arc last night and imagine if climate change were sinking Martha's vineyard imagine people just shouting into the wind everyone and all of the wealthy white people of Martha's vineyard are dying and no one did anything you can't imagine it because it would never we would never allow it to happen and we would never allow it to happen because we value those bodies and we don't value those bodies and so this is about transforming whose bodies we value and divesting from systems of body value or body hierarchy we are not an organization about self-esteem and self-confidence and body image and body positivity those are great I love those it's important I want you feel good about yourself great however those things don't change the world because they're about your own individual experience right and I want you to have a good individual experience but your individual experience will not transform the collective unless you're intentional about the collective right and so I'm not interested in self-esteem because self-esteem is wavering it's fluctuating and it's usually just about you and I'm talking about an interdependence and our relationships with our bodies that gives us access to adjust an equitable and compassionate world I need you to change because right now you're in the way of my radical self-love journey your ununinterrogated racism your uninterrogated ableism your uninterrogated homophobia is in the way of my ability to live radical self-love so I need you to get it together right the impact on bodies where I fixed all this shit damn it really really quickly and I can read it so I'll just read it from here the UNICEF report found New Zealand's youth suicide rate of teenagers between 15 and 19 to be the highest of a long list of 41 OECD in EU countries the rate of 15.6 suicides per hundred thousand people is twice as high as the US rate and almost five times as high as Britain there's a reason kids in New Zealand are killing themselves right and part of it is because of the stigma that we have about mental illness which is about the body right it's about the stigma that we built in it's about the lack of resources about growing up in a culture where it's inappropriate to be fully expressive right these are things we can see the real-life impacts of in our societies in the US young men age 15 to 19 a study between young men age 15 to 19 found that black people in this age group are 21 times more likely to be killed by the police that's about a story that we've told about black boys bodies right of the 102 transgender murders in the US between 2013 and 2017 86% of the victims were black Hispanic or Native American that's about the stories that we tell about trans people of colors bodies so that's what I do right that's the work I'm up to in the world is transforming how we relate to our own bodies and how we relate to the bodies of others so that we can transform the systems and structures of society that allocate resource that provide shelter that provide money that provide opportunities that provide safety-ness and well-being right and that starts with you transforming you right and so here's what I've been doing this year and I'm gonna try to say shit fast all right I slept a lot I like really got my rest on because rest is rest is revolutionary but for real and I slept on this island that's where I live I live on my heck a island isn't awesome you should come visit me I have two extra bedrooms and a deck overlooking the water and I make great coffee and macaroni and cheese but also I did some cool shit this year one of the first things I did was I partnered with Camarie Dunn of my cohort get out kawa kawa to have a conversation with young malty leadership around governance and I talked about entrepreneurship and the combination of entrepreneurship and social justice that was amazing I did a workshop talking about the relationship of language and bullying at the Eranui Marai with young boys between the ages of 12 and 15 it was adorable those are the babies they're so cute I built a really powerful relationship with two tomahine otaranake where I've had the opportunity Naropee is on the right and she is brilliant this organization is run she founded it and her daughters all keep it afloat dealing with interpersonal violence and family wellness amongst malty in Taranaki in the Taranaki region I've had opportunities to do awesome workshops with them to work with both offenders and survivors of domestic violence community corridors it's been dope anyhow seven sharp came and covered my 10 tools the radical self love workshop which is really cool it's probably the first time anybody on seven sharp said did you hear the one about the fat black bald woman it's how Sonya would be the one to tell it which is the appropriate response so anyway if you go to my website you can see that video I released two books this year that's a lot of books in one year in February I released the body is not an apology the power radical self-love which is the how do I take these ideas home and learn how do I practice this in my everyday life and how does this everyday action serve to dismantle systems of oppression in the world that's what the book does is and Marie in here and Marie came up to me and she was like I read the book oh my gosh and I was like I'm glad you like it and at some point we're gonna have a session together talking about how do you take these ideas and apply them very directly to your large global scale projects how do we how do we take these ideas and move them from concept to practice right I went on a 79 day book tour don't ever do that it's a terrible idea it was terrible it was amazing it was great for book sales it was brutal on my body people send me pictures of their the second book is celebrate your body and its changes to a body positive guide the ultimate guide to puberty and so it's for your 8 to 12 year-old cisgendered girls for the most part unfortunately I wanted to be a little bit more expansive but publishers blah anyway but I do think it is an important and amazing book that prepares you for your body in a way that can make you excited about the changes of your body right what would happen if we did not have the stories of shame that we inherited when we were seven eight nine ten eleven years old what would be possible if we could erase that in the world right that's the goal of that book this I had to include it because it's it it was like somebody wrote the review that I've meant I was like this book merits the invention of a new category intersectional systemic self-help it would be easy to assume that Taylor's book is about learning it to love your body her goal is much bigger than that though she is trying to get us to love and appreciate all bodies in a body terroristic society when reading this I couldn't help but comparing its a ton of he see codes I was like all right then meditations on the black male body and in between the world and me Taylor's work is far deeper it is an intersectional treaty on all bodies in the ways that society teaches us to judge critique shame subjugate and control various bodies Taylor's take on fact-shaming racism heterosexism ableism and more she makes connections between the personal and the systemic her writing is insightful well-informed and highly accessible I was like she got it she got it cool I've also been busy and I'll tell you as well I did work at the Auckland writers festival I did a whole bunch of stuff at the word word festival in Christ Church I had a chance to do book events with Black Lives Matter Vancouver I was the commencement speaker for Smith schools College of Social Work Masters and Doctorial program I'm on the woe mad lineup this year for the festival so come see me and I also got to do the launch with Parliament in Jacinda two weeks ago I went to Bosnia to talk about the intersection of arts and activism in post-war societies they put me on some covers of some shit whatever but what's next this is the thing I'm most excited to talk about and then I'm getting out of here I'm sorry so anyway I'm co-editing a book right now called the International Handbook on fat studies it's an academic in partnership with Kat Pase who is out of Massey University here I'm working on a workbook to accompany the body's non-apologies radical self-love so you can start practicing it I'm working on a memoir right now I'm trying to figure out how to make this website monetized I need somebody help me figure out how to make money I know y'all can do that you all got some of y'all got that so come holler at your girl if you want to figure out how to make me make money workshops performances a lot of diversity and equity initiatives with companies who are interested in using radical self-love you want to transform your company's culture if you look around your board room and it looks like you you're not doing it right if your boards are a bunch of old able-bodied white men you aren't changing the world if you're if the leadership in your organizations all look the same you're not changing the world and so let's talk about how we redistribute power in a way that's equitable and actually creates the conditions we say we want this is my biggest thing right now this is the thing I'm most excited about I thought of it at the other day in bed when I was in deep depression the willing to risk challenge part of the reason the world won't change is because we won't risk shit because we're afraid to be uncomfortable because we have we have premiumed comfort over justice and there are small everyday ways that we get the opportunity to interrupt comfort in service of justice and one of the conversation one of the things that happened to me that made me think of this the other day I was at a porch on why Hickey Island with the folks who sometimes keep my dog we have a very regular conversation and they were talking about a friend they were sort of easing into somebody shaming conversation about a friend who had lots of plastic surgery and then one of the women's through in this very sort of transphobic conversation comment and it was a moment that I've seen a thousand times over where someone says something that absolutely is oppressive to someone to some group somewhere but we don't want to interrupt we don't want to mess up the vibe we don't want to disrupt comfort and so consequently we allow oppression to stand and I had a moment I had an opportunity in that moment I said Sonia you can either be about what you say you're about or you can be about comfort in this nice little batch on the beach this afternoon and I realized that I didn't have to destroy the whole day to say something I just simply said I have some really amazing trans friends they're really powerful and important in the world and that's who I know trans people to be and that person in that moment had enough to know that there was something that wasn't appropriate right that was it I didn't have to do more we went right on and carried on with our conversation and I helped them dismantle why body shaming their other friend was whatever but in that moment I got to be an advocate because I was willing to risk the comfort of that moment for the purpose of equity and justice I'm interested in launching this campaign all over the world I'm interested in making willing to risk challenges that go viral everywhere where people interrupt everyday acts of oppression with the choice to get us uncomfortable and get us free let me know if you want to work with me