Sonya Renee Taylor

Sonya Renee Taylor is a New York Times best-selling author, world-renowned activist and thought leader on racial justice, body liberation and transformational change, international award winning artist, and founder of The Body Is Not an Apology (TBINAA), a global digital media and education company exploring the intersections of identity, healing, and social justice through the framework of radical self-love. In her book of the same name, The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love, Sonya lays out her radical self-love vision, arguing that all people arrive on this planet in a state of self-love before internalizing messages of shame and injustice from systems of oppression. Healing, Sonya suggests, takes place through reconnecting with our inherent divine enoughness, transforming how we live in and relate to both our bodies and the bodies of others. Sonya writes, “Using the term ‘radical’ elevates the reality that our society requires a drastic political, economic, and social reformation in the ways in which we deal with bodies and body difference.”​

Considering herself one of many midwives for the new world, Sonya’s work is engaged in and responsive to the historical moment we find ourselves in and the world we have the ability to bring into being. This is evidenced by her ongoing public video series “What’s Up, Y’all?”, which tackles topics including but not limited to white supremacist delusion, “cancel culture”, abolition and accountability, attacks on reproductive freedom, and the existential twin crises of COVID-19 and climate chaos. The 2020 uprisings against anti-Black terrorism also inspired her to co-found Buy Back Black Debt, a reparations inspired initiative of financial and spiritual right relationship that in October of 2020 facilitated the buyback of over half a million dollars of debt held by Black people.​

Sonya is a resident of the globe while maintaining her engagement in issues of racial justice, mental health, reproductive rights and justice, spiritual healing and much more. She continues to share her insights globally as a highly sought-after international speaker, artist and educator on issues of radical self-love, social justice, and personal and global transformation. ​

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