SHORT BIO

Bianca I Laureano is an award-wining educator, curriculum writer, facilitator, and sexologist. She is a Foundress of the Women of Color Sexual Health Network (WOCSHN), The LatiNegrxs Project, and ANTE UP! Virtual Freedom Professional Development School for Justice Workers. She has written several curricula that focus on communities of color: What’s the REAL DEAL about Love and Solidarity? (2015) and Communication MixTape: Speak On It Vol 1. (2017) the sexual and reproductive justice discussion guide for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene published in 2018, the curriculum for the Oscar-nominated Netflix film Crip Camp (2020), PBS / POV film I Didn’t See You There (2023), and Sex is A Funny Word (2023). Bianca has been on the board of CLAGS, the LGBTQ Center at CUNY, The Black Girl Project, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, and is currently an advisory board member for the San Francisco Disability Cultural Center. She received an honorary PhD for her work of justice, equity, and inclusion in the US sexuality field May 2020, won the inaugural Vi Johnson Liberation Award offered by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom in 2023, and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion award from AASECT in 2024.

LONG BIO

Bianca I Laureano is a first generation Puerto Rican who was born and raised in the Washington, DC metro area. The oldest daughter of an artist and educator, Bianca was raised in an activist environment that valued art in all its various and dynamic forms. At the beginning of high school Bianca’s parents encouraged her to become active in a youth led program called Raising Hispanic Academic Achievement, Inc. (RHAA), where she tutored and mentored Latinx youth in the Washington, DC metro area. Bianca has been mentoring a young woman, Candy, for 24 years. Through RHAA Bianca developed critical skills and training as positive youth development was central to the program.  Beginning as a tutor with RHAA, Bianca quickly became a part of the youth leadership and began assisting with program planning. She not only tutored and mentored on Saturday mornings, she arranged guest speakers, field trips, and eventually co-led the all-girl Saturday School in Silver Spring, MD, where the focus was on providing Latinas a space of their own to excel and find affirmation.

Bianca attended the University of Maryland, College Park (UM) and graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Individual Studies: Women’s Health and Latino Communities. While at UM Bianca was active in peer education and mentoring programs through the University Health Center and became the Assistant Coordinator for Sexual Health Programs. The summer of 2000 she spent in Xhualtez, Espita in the Yucatan working with one of the first government funded health centers that provides western trained physicians and indigenous Mayan healers as a part of holistic health care. Upon her return she attended New York University and received her Master of Arts degree in Human Sexuality Education in 2002.

After spending one year with the Child Welfare League of America as the Program Manager of Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy Prevention, and Parenting, Bianca began working on her second Master of Arts degree at the University of Maryland, College Park in the Department of Women’s Studies. Bianca’s research areas include Latina feminisms, Puerto Rican studies, sexuality, youth, and media culture. Her training in feminist theory and Intersectionality were developed at the Consortium on Race, Gender & Ethnicity where she was a CrISP Fellow. In 2006 Bianca received her second Master of Arts degree in Women’s Studies where her focus included race and racialization, bodies, gender, and sexualities.

While at UM, Bianca continued to be involved in direct action and activism with a grassroots not-for-profit organization called Visions in Feminism (ViF). ViF is a collective of activists who work to create a low-cost, accessible national conference devoted to creating a space to discuss complex topics facing modern feminism. During her last year in the Washington, DC metro area, Bianca became involved with a group of young professional women who were all devoted to eliminating cervical cancer through HPV education. Bianca became the Director of Sexual Health for Tamika and Friends, Inc.,(T&F) in 2005 and worked to create peer education handbooks and training’s for people interested in having HPV (House Parties of fiVe) parties. T&F is one of the first organizations to focus on educating men and youth regarding HPV and cervical cancer, provides technical assistance, and survivor support. T&F has been renamed and rebranded as Cervivor.

Bianca is foundress of the Women of Color Sexual Health Network (WOCSHN), co-founder of The LatiNegrxs Project, and co-director of the film BLACK PERVERT.

While residing in New York City, Bianca lived in the Bronx and provided consultation, capacity building, training, and facilitation to organizations dedicated to helping youth reach their full potential. She joined a group of Alchemists with the Center for Solutions to Online Violence and co-created educational tools for facilitating engaging conversations and accountability processes rooted in community restitution. She was a Master Trainer, a select group of individuals chosen to train foster families and providers on the needs of LGBTQ youth in out-of-home care, a program in collaboration with the National Association of Social Workers and Lambda Legal LGBTQ Out-of-Home Youth Project.

Bianca has published one book and several articles. She has presented both locally and internationally on various topics concerning activism, Latinx sexual health, feminisms, youth and Hip-Hop culture, Latinxs and race, curriculum development, and teaching. An award-winning sexologist, Bianca was awarded the 2010 Mujeres Destacadas Award by El Diario/La Prensa for her work in sexuality and Latinx communities. WOCSHN has been awarded social justice and humanitarian awards by local and national organizations. Bianca was an instructor at a private college, a freelance writer, abortion doula, curriculum developer, and radical educator. As the Director of Education and Regional Programs at Scenarios USA, Bianca wrote the curriculum What’s the REAL DEAL about Love and Solidarity? (2015), trained educators, and has had her curricula lesson plans reprinted. She wrote the discussion guide on sexual and reproductive justice for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene available in 2018, and was trained to facilitate and train others in Emotional Emancipation Circles in 2017.

Currently, Bianca creates and writes, implements, and evaluates workshops and training for ANTE UP! Virtual Freedom Professional Development School for Justice Workers which she began in 2018. As an independent scholar, Bianca focuses on ethics when working with communities of color, Sexual Attitudes Reassessment (SAR) centering on communities of color and justice frameworks, embracing failure, and ways to stay connected to erotic power while grieving / in mourning. Bianca  edited and published the inaugural WOCSHN curriculum Communication MixTape: Speak On It Vol 1. (2017) which is available for sale on this website here. Bianca’s additional publication include Writing Ourselves Into Existence: Healing Through Collaborative Curriculum Development published in the Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis, 7 (2) in 2018; forward to Celebrate Your Body by Sonya Renee Taylor, 2018; forward to The Edge of Sex, 2019; and a chapter on SARs in The Handbook for Sexuality Leadership, 2019. She was the Lead Educator for the Netflix film Crip Camp (2020) and created a curriculum that is rooted in disability justice practice, self-determination, and social-emotional learning competences that are aligned to the Common Core State Standard! Bianca wrote the discussion guide for the PBS / POV film I Didn’t See You There (2023) and co-authored the open access article in JAMA Network Open “Access to Reproductive Health Services Among People With Disabilities” (2023). Her most recent curricula was a collaboration with The Porn Conversation on porn literacy for parents and educators, and a collaboration in 2023 to create curricula for parents and educators with Cory Silverberg for their book Sex Is A Funny Word.

She received an honorary PhD for her work of justice, equity, and inclusion in the US sexuality field May 2020. Bianca was also part of the October 2020 performance We Love Like Barnacles: Crip Lives in Climate Chaos produced by Sins Invalid where she performed her work on grief, hurricane season, flooding, and displacement from Puerto Rico. Her book, an anthology in collaboration with sexuality professionals in North America, The People’s Book of Human Sexuality: Expanding the Sexology Archive was released July 2023.

Bianca is an AASECT Certified Sexuality Educator,Supervisor and Certified Sexuality Educator. Contact Bianca for supervision rates and availability.