July is here and that can only mean one thing. Nope, not BBQs and cocktails.
It is in fact Disability Pride Month.
Disability Pride Month takes place every July – and is all about sharing lived experiences and raising awareness of the challenges our community faces.
It was initially conceived to commemorate the passing of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 but has since been adopted as a worldwide celebration.
I suspect most of you reading this have no idea about this annual celebration – unlike the LGBTQ+ Pride month in June there aren’t as many events or corporate tie-ins.
Pride is all about learning from other people and embracing your identity even when it is synonymous with oppression and discrimination.
It’s about being more aware of our culture, community and history, while fighting for our rights and embracing self-love.
Even as someone who has been a lifelong wheelchair user, I only became aware of the concept of Disability Pride around 2010. To be honest I didn’t, at that time, feel like my disability was something to be proud of.
I know the struggles that come from internalised ableism. Society at large is still often guilty of viewing disability as a bad thing.
During Pride month, we try to move past the binary thinking of disability as a good or bad thing.
Instead, it’s about simply celebrating disabled people, and an opportunity to honour our individual identities, culture, and achievements.
That’s expressed in the Disability Pride Flag, which has different stripes and colours to recognise those with physical disabilities, those with cognitive, intellectual or psychiatric disabilities, those with sensory disabilities, and even those with invisible or undiagnosed disabilities.
The flag represents all the facets of our community, and the importance of solidarity.
This solidarity was exactly the catalyst for my own disability pride journey, which started around 2010.
As far back as I can remember I always had this innate strength and zest for life – it was never that I actively disliked having a disability, but growing up I never celebrated it, or associated much with other disabled people.
Frankly, I never thought that having a disability could mean you feel proud.
I internalised the adjectives I heard growing up like ‘sad,’ ‘hopeless,’ ‘burden,’ ‘drain,’ ‘pitiful,’ and ‘undesirable.’
That meant that I began to feel embarrassed and ashamed of my disability.
This all changed after a chance encounter at a railway station. Cancellations meant that there was a backlog of wheelchair users trying to travel.
With typically only two spaces allocated per train, disabled people sometimes have to wait.
A fellow wheelchair user and I argued with the conductor until we wore him down, and we were positioned together on the train – and that’s where my perspective changed.
I immediately recognised she had the same brittle bones condition as me and I was blown away by how simply cool she was.
After talking during the journey, this woman convinced me to join her in becoming a trustee of the Brittle Bone Society. I was so blown away by her tenacity I accepted and the following year I came on board.
I went from being the only disabled person I knew to my first AGM in 2010 where I met hundreds of people who looked like me and who shared similar stories and ambitions.
Individuals who taught me to be unapologetically myself and to feel pride in who I was.
The conference was a beautiful safe and all-inclusive bubble with people who loved me for who I was without judgement.
At that moment, I had an epiphany. I realised that I can absolutely be a game changer and fight for my rights and the rights of my community, but I also knew I had to learn to fight to love myself above all.
We can sometimes be guilty of thinking that any Pride events are just tokenistic or commercial, but to me it is simply a safe space to sit back and reflect.
It’s always useful to take stock of what is important to you and learn more about your identity – hopefully growing in the process.
We need to help ourselves, and others, understand that disability isn’t anything more than a natural part of human diversity.
Saying I feel pride in my disability doesn’t mean I don’t recognise the struggles of living in a world built for non-disabled people. I cried the other morning because I dropped my phone on the floor and it took me 20 minutes to pick it back up.
Of course I struggle with my body and when I break a bone it sucks. Yet, despite this I feel proud of simply living each day, true to myself, as best as I can and experiencing plenty of joy.
This month, and every month, I’m proud of my community and our culture, our rich history and the battles we have won and are still hoping to win, in the fight for inclusion and an equitable world.
But as my journey to acceptance continues, this month, above all, I’m proud of myself.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
Share your views in the comments below.
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