Yolanda Soryl is president of the Christchurch Vegan Society/ Te Rōpū Whēkana o Ōtautahi in Aotearoa/New Zealand and has organized vegan festivals for over 20 years. A vegan since 1989 with several decades of professional experience in teaching children and teachers, she has also contributed to the Aotearoa/ New Zealand Infant Feeding Guidelines. Soryl is herself a mother of four children vegan from birth to adulthood. Soryl reflects, “In my early 20s, I made a life commitment to help children and animals. I have helped children through my professional work and animals through my unpaid work.”

Soryl understands that both speciesism and sexism are “both very gendered forms of oppression” and “not good for anyone” (including men). She came to both veganism and feminism about the same time, having been influenced by a local women’s group. Although Soryl identified as a “reluctant vegan,” having come from a working class family that worked in slaughterhouses, she eventually went vegan in the 1980s with the help of a personal acquaintance. Soryl identifies primarily as an animal activist, but incorporates lessons from intersections with gender and class. Prior to animal activism, she was involved in gay liberation, anti-nuclear activism and racial justice in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Today, Soryl is also involved in some Maori rights efforts.

Having been active in animal rights for so many years, Soryl has a number of reflections on longterm strategies. “I’m quite patient in the same way people were patient with me when I started” they explain. Yet, Soryl has also found that their personal identity as someone who is gay, working class, and female may have actually eased their acceptance in the animal rights movement (an experience not always shared by other activists of similar backgrounds!). By comparison, Soryl clarifies that the treatment of her veganism in neighboring social justice movements “is very dismissive a lot of the time.”

Soryl has also learned quite a bit on the need to manage the toll that the treadmill of animal campaigning exacts on long-term campaigners: “One thing, I felt, that I really struggled with at that time, was the constant pain and hurt of having to talk about and see images of animal suffering. […] I mean, this is like, relentless and constant. Pictures of cats being vivisected, oh, it just went on and on […] it’s actually really hard to look at that and be involved in that for a very long period of time without being put through some kind of PTSD.” To cope with regular exposure to animal suffering and sustain her lifelong commitment to animal liberation, Soryl explains: “I would need to think about ways to be an activist that didn’t involve traumatizing myself repeatedly.”

To this point, Soryl argues that the animal rights movement’s focus on single-issue campaigning can detract from necessary big changes against speciesism more broadly. This treadmill of campaigning can also overlook the more mundane, feminized labor of vegan community-building. Without the support of community, Soryl observes, activists easily burn out and exit the movement. Having learned from the success of the gay rights movement and its emphasis on pride and community, Soryl reflects: “Really what I would see myself being is more like a community activist, a community worker, to build vegan communities.”

Finally, Soryl emphasizes the need for commitment which should then allow activists to adopt strategies for grace and sustainability. “We should be encouraging activists to make a lifelong commitment,” she concludes. “When you’ve made that life commitment, it gives yourself permission to take a step back. It gives me permission to say, no, I am not going to do things that will stop me fulfilling my life commitment. […] If you  make that life commitment, you can be easier on yourself.”

Soryl has published a number of educational books to support children’s learning and she has been featured heavily in Catherine Amey’s (2014) The Compassionate Contrarians: A History of Vegetarians in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2024 Soryl was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literacy education.