Who are we?

Ania Onion Bula

Cartoon of Ania hugging a spoon.
Hugging my last spoon.

Ania is a disabled, queer, wibbly-wobbly gendery-wendery, social justice activist who is pro-choice, pro-sex work, and manages to say all that in one breath. She writes about a variety of issues including atheism, sex and sexology, psychology, social justice, and her own struggles with body and health issues.

She has a published book, Young, Sick, and Invisible: A Skeptic’s Journey With Chronic Illness, detailing her experiences with arthritis, Crohn’s and the medical establishment. She is using her disability to skeptically explore areas such as morality, religion, sex, accessibility culture, alternative medicine, and more. The book was crowd funded, and though the fundraiser is finished, she is still accepting donations through the blog.

She started her education in biomedical sciences with intentions of going into medicine. A well-intentioned but poorly informed doctor led her to believe that with her medications and disability, she wouldn’t be able to go to med school. Having taken English as a minor, and quite enjoying the classes, she changed her major after 3 years of studying science. She was now a literature student. In the last semester of her final year of university, she took a psychology of human sexual behaviour class and fell in love. Here finally was a subject she could sink her teeth into. She came back with a new psychology minor. After she finished her Honours Bachelor and minor, money ran out and she wasn’t able to pursue academics further. She continues to study on her own however, pursuing several different areas of interest.

Ania.
Ania.

Ania made her speaking debut giving a talk at Eschaton 2012, about how patriarchy is directly responsible for the subjugation of men as well as women by creating false dichotomies and binaries (Why men need feminism too). She gave another talk at Ottawa Skepticamp 2013, addressing sex myths.  She is currently listed in the Secular Women speaker’s bureau.

She has started several blogs in the past including a sex advice blog, a project meant as a support network for victims of sexual assault called the “It’s Not Your Fault Project”, and others. She also write for a rarely updated food blog called The Twisted Ladle.

Someday, she plans to take over the world.

Sunflower Punk

Sunflower Punk is Puerto Rican, disabled, non-binary, atheist, intersectional feminist, and mom to the best kid in the world, TJ and best furchild, Maxie.  She writes about her experiences with homelessness, feminism, being brown in America, raising a trans kid (with their permission), being fiercely proud of her heritage but also repudiating the nastier parts of it, mainly the machismo, hyper-religiousness and praising of corporal punishment. She is also the writer behind Mandesty where she hopes to save the souls of young men from the clutches of immodesty.

She was born in NYC but grew up in Puerto Rico with her mom, brothers and grandparents.  She is a victim and survivor of domestic violence. She writes a lot about her experiences with this and how it changed her world view on things like abortion and internalized misogyny.

Sunflower Punk now lives in Texas but still has close ties to Puerto Rico and NYC where she spent her teens years, PR is the place she considers her home though.

Sunflower Punk is also an artist and works mainly with digital tools, but also dabbles with acrylics, water colors, polymer clay and she’s learning how to crochet!

As a brown, non-binary, fat, poor person I don’t see others like me represented very often even within social justice circles.

She writes so that others may feel less alone. Her art, much like is writing, is borne out of a lack of representation. Her original art work are of things she wishes she saw more of. Her fanart is dedicated to the media that makes her happy. That is media that strives to be inclusive.

 

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