She was born as Kevin Sunshine. Kevin lost her other siblings and family at age 9 when the Children's Aid apprehended and separated them, and was only able by enormous will-power and stubborn determination to maintain contact with his sister Sheila. As a child, Kevin was of not identifying with the male gender and by early adolescence, again with extraordinary determination, renamed and re-identified herself as Dione.

Her adolescence, and indeed her whole life, was characterized by playing by her own rules and paying the price for it... Although society had dealt her many injustices, she had the resourcefulness to find people who cared about her in many health and outreach programs. In turn, she contributed to these agencies by sharing her knowledge of the streets, of addictions, of her hardships and her survival strategies.

Co-author of Taking Care of Business (a peer training and resource manual for HIV+ and injection drug users), and a participant in outreach programs such as Street Connections and the Manitoba Aboriginal AIDS Task Force, in January 2000 a new drop-in centre and safe-house for people with HIV/AIDS was named Sunshine House in her honour (she was able to visit Sunshine House the evening before she died).