Bay Area Sexuality and Disability Network
The Bay Area Sexuality and Disability Network (BASDN) is committed to setting a new standard for access to sexuality education, information, and services for the disability community.
THe Sexuality and Disability Survey
presented in partnership with Stanford WELL for Life
The needs of people with disabilities around sexuality, reproductive health, and sexual expression are consistently neglected. Young people with disabilities are left out of sex education classes. People with disabilities are often stereotyped as not having sexual feelings or desires, or as being unable to "have sex.” All of this causes people with disabilities to be overlooked as potential partners or to be perceived as not needing access to sexual and reproductive health care.
And in those instances when the sexual needs of people with disabilities are acknowledged, the broader culture’s general discomfort with sex complicates the possibility of getting support for self-pleasure or partner sex from caregivers and attendants.
What are the actual experiences of people with disabilities related to sexuality? What do people with disabilities need and want to have access to for full sexual expression?
We currently have an incredible opportunity to document answers to those questions and more. We have partnered with Stanford University School of Medicine's WELL For Life program to create a survey assessing the experiences of people with disabilities related to sexuality. We spent months fine tuning our survey with Stanford to make sure we capture enough data to truly understand the experiences and needs of people with disabilities. Once analyzed by Stanford, we intend to use the data to secure funding with which we can begin to address the needs of the community as identified through the survey. This is the first time any organization has collected and evaluated this type of information.
The thing about collecting data is that the more we can get, the better the results of our research will be. We need you! Would you be willing to donate 20-30 minutes of your time to anonymously share your experiences and needs related to sexuality? We have set a goal to collect 100 responses by September 15, 2019.
Please join us in attaining the information we need to make positive changes towards sexual freedom, sexual expression, reproductive health, and reproductive justice for our community. Thank you!
Meet the team
Ligia andrade zuniga, M.a.
Ligia holds a Bachelors Degree in Human Services with an emphasis in Administration and Counseling, and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, California. She became interested in sexuality and disability after acquiring a spinal cord injury in 2009 following an automobile accident and discovered there was very limited information, accessibility, and support available regarding sexuality for women living with spinal cord injury, specifically for young women of color, and women in the Latino Spanish-speaking community.
Ligia is a Director and Sexuality and Disability Educator for Sexability, an organization providing sexuality education to individuals with disabilities. She has been a peer supporter for nine years through the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Spinal Cord Injury Peer Support Program. Ligia serves on several boards and commissions, such as the San Mateo County Commission on Disabilities, Center for Independence of Individuals with Disabilities Board of Directors, California State Independent Living Council, and others.
Shauna Farabaugh, certified somatic sex educator
Shauna is a certified Somatic Sex Educator based in San Francisco, CA who fiercely believes in the right to sexual expression for every body and is committed to making sex education more “sexcessible.”
Shauna has been a professional sex educator for over a decade, with certifications from San Francisco Sex Information, The Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, and the Somatic Sex Educators Association. She serves as adjunct faculty at the Institute for the Study of Somatic Sexology and co-authored a book on pelvic pain (and pleasure!) for people of all genders with Caffyn Jesse. Reverently irreverent, she brings a profound sense of play to both her group classes and one on one work with students of all genders, sexualities, and sexual lifestyles…because sex really is supposed to be fun!
Learn more about Shauna and her work HERE.
contact us
Email us at basdn6@gmail.com or follow us on facebook.
Please note that this BASDN webpage is hosted on Shauna’s website so the social links and download below are for Shauna’s private practice, not the BASDN.