Page 5 – Women Enabled International

First published on Medium.

By Brittany J. Evans

Pride months are about honoring the intentionally silenced stories from our past, reaching out to check in and celebrate with our communities, and digging deeper into our activism and organizing for a better future — one where we can all be proud.

As someone holding the legacies of many identities — Queerness and disability included — , Pride months can feel both like warranted, inspiring declarations of progress and like hollow gestures from our corporate overlords meant to quell our hunger for equality. (I mean, we got a whole month for each, right?).

“Both/and” is my hymn, and while I do recognize the existence of those empty gestures and marketing ploys, I think it’s important to explore Pride, what it takes for our communities to feel proud, and the role these months can play in helping us rebuild a world that is more diverse, more just, and more inclusive of us all. Here are five ways you can honor Queer and Disability Pride:

1. Diversify Your Feed

Three people sit on the ground smiling and looking at a cellphone. Photo by Priscilla Du Preez via Unsplash

Make it a practice to include a plurality of voices in the content you consume. Follow a diversity of creators, organizations, models, even meme accounts year-round — not just during their government-given month of pride. Our communities are growing and flourishing on social media. They’ll brighten up your feed!

Here are a few of my favorites: Disabled Hikers, Queering Disability, Dandy Doodlez, The Body is Not an Apology, Black Disability Collective, Dr. Ayesha Khan, and Seeding Sovereignty.

2. Uncover Once Hidden History

It’s during Pride when I listen the hardest for the echoes and lessons of our disabled and queer ancestors by intentionally seeking the parts of our past that were excluded from history books. Podcasts, documentaries, and, honestly, social media are all places where I’ve learned more about historical queer and disabled figures than in any classroom.

A small rainbow flag is raised above a crowd in the sunlight. Photo by Brian Kyed via Unsplash.

Learning about the history of the movements puts my life and work into context, connects me to a story spanning volumes beyond my pages, and makes me feel less alone.

Reach into the past with these resources:

On the Ancestral Plane: Crip Hand Me Downs and the Legacy of Our Movements by Stacey Park Milbern
Crip Camp documentary on Netflix.
Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc
Disclosure documentary on Netflix.
Tan France’s Queer Icons podcast on Audible. You’ll hear a familiar name. I was interviewed for the second episode covering the life and legacy of trans disabled activist, Bobbie Lea Bennett!

History remains present. From achieving true marriage equality and ending police violence to confronting employment discrimination and conservatorships (#FreeBritney), there is still a long way to go at the intersection of gender and disability.

3. Make Space for Uncomfortable, Ongoing Reflection and Unlearning

We are tender beings with fragile egos wrapped in layers of indoctrination. In many cultures, disability and queerness have been synonymous with shame for centuries. Even still, identifying as disabled or queer can be life-threatening. We can’t expect to renounce that inheritance and unwrap liberation overnight. Unlearning is messy, painful, and transformative. Yet, we must make space for discomfort in ourselves and in our communities.

Overhead view of three people studying at a table. Photo by Alexis Brown via Unsplash

Join a book club, talk to your friends, ask deep questions on first dates, share reflection questions, resources, and opportunities with your circle. You will make mistakes. We all do. Share your stories of learning. Leave the door open for others to share theirs. Bask in the discomfort together.

Ask yourself hard questions about gender, disability, and sexuality. What does it mean to be disabled? To be queer? Make reflection a practice. An examined life is a continual process of becoming.

Here are a few of my favorite resources for guided reflection to get started:

4. Check-in and Listen

This Pride, I want to intentionally celebrate and honor the act of living. Especially after the past year with COVID-19, I’m using these two months not to dance in the street with rainbow flags leaving glitter on everything I touch, but to check in with those in my community that I may not have had the capacity to talk to over the past year while we were all so focused on merely surviving.

Even through trending hashtags, mentionable news coverage, ticker-tape parades, educational campaigns, and corporate pandering, Pride provides an opportunity to check in with the broader community and hear from voices outside of our immediate echo chamber.

Three Black and disabled folx cracking up while strolling down a sidewalk on a windy day. On the left, a non-binary person walks with a cane in one hand and a tangle stim toy in the other. In the middle, a non-binary person rolls along in their power wheelchair. On the right, a woman is walking with fabulously windswept hair. A street parking meter is in the background on the right. — Three people laughing and going down a sidewalk. Photo by Chona Kasinger via Disabled and Here

What are the main issues that surfaced this Pride? Who are the current figures leading the movement? Are there local organizations working on these issues? What resources are available to you and your community? What are the ways in which you support each other?

There are already people and organizations out there doing the work. Search online for local mutual aid networks, collectives, and organizations. If you are in the United States, one way is to use Mutual Aid Hub to find community-supported efforts near you.

5. Meet at the Intersections

A group of people walking through a rainbow crosswalk. Photo by Greg Rosenke via Unsplash

Globally, people with disabilities represent the largest minority in the world. Disability spans all populations. When safe, embrace pride at your intersections. These interlocking identities are not absent in our daily lives and shouldn’t be absent in our attempts to advance human rights.

Pride is a reminder that you are not in this struggle alone. Meet and work alongside allies at shared intersections. Collaborate, share stories, unlearn together and build community across movements by acknowledging and honoring the both/and of existence.

By Luciana Sosa. First published on Medium.

Photo. Against a yellow background, there is a picture of a microphone, that at the same time, is placed against an aqua green and pink background. Credit: Canva

A primary focus of women in the disability rights movement is to understand the different forms of discrimination encountered at the intersection of two minority identities. Like in other regions around the world, women with disabilities in Latin America are talking more about our experiences and pushing back against the ableism and misogyny that doubly discriminates against us.

The situation is nonetheless complex. It’s not enough to add up the obstacles experienced by people with disabilities and women. It’s not enough to add up the demands of the disability rights and women’s movements. While this is all very valid, it goes beyond a single identity to their intersection; to the lived experiences of prejudice and discrimination that only women with disabilities encounter and deeply understand. They are many and ongoing, from situations as routine as doctor’s visits to more dire incidences of reporting gender-based violence.

How can doctors, police, educators and so on adequately and fully serve and care for women with disabilities if laws and policies are written without us in mind? And how can inclusive laws and policies be written if the people writing them don’t reach out to or represent us?

Institutions set up to serve us frequently fail to meet our needs on multiple fronts not least of all accessibility- be it lacking sign language interpretation, large print versions of documents, building access and so on- and therefore fail to protect and provide us with the services afforded to women without disabilities. It’s in these moments that our intersectionality and invisibility is most apparent and saliently felt.

Social institutions’ standard of service and care are based on an ableist model of personhood. Disability simply doesn’t factor into the equation let alone its intersectionality with other minority identities. Lack of disability representation among public officials- the politicians and policy-makers who make decisions on our behalf- is a part of the problem that plagues most societies, including in Latin America. How can doctors, police, educators and so on adequately and fully serve and care for women with disabilities if laws and policies are written without us in mind? And how can inclusive laws and policies be written if the people writing them don’t reach out to or represent us?

As women with disabilities, the responsibility falls on us time and again to do the work of systemic and structural change. While we need to be aware of and vocal about the intersectionality of disability and gender discrimination, it’s the State’s duty to build capacity in areas of need and serve the public even when it’s not quick, easy or convenient. Our inclusion isn’t other people’s discrimination. Nonetheless, a resistance to meeting our needs is overt and rooted in discourses of scarcity. Lacking the economic resources to make social-structural and institutional changes is a favorite argument of States around the world, and it’s one that often wins out. As a result, we’re sidelined and silenced [rendered invisible] by those who, again, are meant to care for and serve us.

Invisibility is challenged by speaking up; by representing ourselves [our intersectionality] and not being represented by people who don’t share or care about our experiences. When we speak up, we empower our community to do the same. An empowered community is one that fights for the full exercise and expansion of its rights. In Latin America, we see this happening as women and other marginalized groups with disabilities are becoming increasingly restless, reaching out to one another and organizing. Collectively empowered, we’re pushing back against State-led prejudice and discrimination through multiple means and with this comes the message that we won’t be silenced or sidelined anymore.

About the author:

Luciana Sosa was born in Uruguay. She is 26 and is a high school student. She is a passionate activist for human rights and is a member of Red META (movimiento estamos tod@s en acción) since June, 2017.

By Radhika Saxena. First published on Medium.

Picture of a COVID-19 vaccine bottle against a yellow background. Photo credit: Hakan Nural via Unsplash

India has been coping with an overwhelmingly alarming second wave of the COVID-19 virus. The situation remains very distressing for citizens and frontline workers alike. Overburdened with patients, the healthcare system has collapsed. Many hospitals ran out of oxygen and critical drugs, as well as available beds.

Cases peaked at around 400,000 new cases daily and are currently around 170,000 with over 320,000 total deaths. These figures likely understate the true state of affairs given the lack of widespread testing and poor documentation. Nevertheless, this data is very disturbing considering that India is the second most populous country in the world with 1.2 billion people. Persons with disabilities (“PWD”) account for 2.21% of the population (26.8 million among 1.2 billion persons) with women with disabilities (“WWD”) making up 1.9% of the female population.

PWD are disproportionately impacted by coronavirus and those with specific disabilities or chronic conditions are more vulnerable. WWD have been hit harder owing to the intersecting forms of discrimination they face. A global human rights survey conducted by Women Enabled International in March 2020 revealed that COVID-19 related lockdowns and measures led to gaps in access to health care facilities and support, access to food and hygiene items, increased risk of violence, loss of employment and exacerbated prevailing lack of social protection for WWD. Local reports noted similar issues with respect to WWD in India. Despite this, data collection in India on COVID-19 cases is not disaggregated by disability. One would’ve hoped that given the gendered and intersecting impact of COVID-19 on WWD, the government would reflect it in data collection and prioritized them in vaccination policies.

Persons with disabilities account for 2.21% of the population in India (26.8 million among 1.2 billion persons) with women with disabilities making up 1.9% of the female population.

COVID-19 Vaccination Program in India

India is only the second country in the world to have administered 200 million doses of COVID vaccines. The vaccination program began in January 2021 with healthcare workers and was soon expanded to include frontline workers the following month. In March, persons aged 60+ years and those 45+ years with 20 specific co-morbidities, became eligible. This was followed by opening eligibility to those aged 45+ years by April and, finally, those between 18–44 years became eligible as of May.

To avail any of the three vaccines now available in India, one must mandatorily register on either of the two online government portals/phone applications — COWIN and Aarogya Setu. Both require a mobile number to register and log in. Every log-in prompts a One Time Password (OTP) sent to the registered number to access the portal. An identification document (ID) is required for registration. Vaccination slots can be scheduled for up to four persons linked to one mobile number. Upon clicking on Schedule Appointment, the portal shows the available slots at both public and private vaccination centers, the vaccine type available and its price. Searches can be filtered by using PIN codes or district-names in each state.

Barriers to vaccine access

Photo of a red brick wall. Photo credit: Michael Dziedzic via Unsplash.

India is a deeply patriarchal country. Patriarchal attitudes impact each aspect of the lives of women, including access to healthcare and vaccination. WWD are doubly impacted given their intersecting identities. Dalit WWD and those who are undocumented or located in rural areas may face further hurdles to vaccine access. The requirement to show a proof of ID to register on the COWIN platform may exclude WWD who might be undocumented or otherwise not have documentation for various reasons. Though the government has issued guidelines for vaccination without ID, they appear to be left to the discretion of local authorities. Dalit WWD may further be excluded due to caste-based discrimination and stigma, very much prevalent in India today. Other issues — such as the low literacy rates among WWD in India — further exacerbate the situation.

The government’s phased vaccination drive does not prioritize PWD in any manner, let alone WWD. The government’s Vaccines Operational Guidelines make no mention of PWD except for a checklist for the physical inspection of vaccination sites — a question on ramps for physically disabled persons. Further, though Phase II accounted for persons 60+ years and those 45+ years with specific co-morbidities, it did not include all the listed disabilities as per the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. Various Public Interest petitions have also been filed in courts to prioritize the vaccination of PWD. Indian disability rights activists have further sought removal of the age bar and demanded caregivers of PWD also be prioritized.

Women with disabilities are doubly impacted given their intersecting identities. Dalit women with disabilities and those who are undocumented or located in rural areas may face further hurdles to vaccine access.

Access to vaccines is further complicated by the fact that the government has abandoned its previous practice of centrally procuring all vaccines from manufacturers and securing their distribution to persons through the state free of charge. As a result, state governments are required to negotiate prices and procure vaccines from manufacturers individually. This has led to differential pricing across India and impacted vaccine access, particularly for WWD, who have experienced increased financial precarity during the pandemic, and who may not have independent access to sources of money or their finances.

WWD have among the lowest rates of mobile and smartphone ownership, with a gender and disability gap of 37% in India. They face exclusion from the very start of the process as COWIN and Arogya Setu require steady internet connections. Moreover, these platforms are not particularly screen-reader friendly, thus impacting access for women with sight-related disabilities. Vaccination slots for individuals aged 18–44 years get booked within seconds, which yet again excludes WWD who may not be able to respond to the platform instantaneously. The platforms are only available in Hindi and English, which further excludes linguistic and cultural minorities. Individuals aren’t required to fill out disability or co-morbidity related information, thus preventing collection of disaggregated data. The COWIN website doesn’t currently reflect data disaggregated by gender, let alone disability.

Photo of a person in a wheelchair. They have long brown hair and are wearing a teal midi dress. Photo credit: Canva

Additionally, there is a lack of accessible and reliable information to decide on vaccination. Rural areas are seeing a lot of vaccine hesitancy for this reason. For WWD, this means that if their family members are hesitant about getting the vaccine, they may be dissuaded from getting it as well — an issue further compounded by the lack of legal capacity rights and inability to decide on vaccination for themselves.

WWD in institutions may not have any choice in terms of vaccination due a lack of legal capacity rights. They may also be hesitant to get vaccinated due to negative experiences they may have had with the health care system, such forced sterilizations and medical treatments without their consent.

Many vaccination centers are also not physically accessible. WWD who do not own independent means of transport or require transport-related support, may be constrained to depend on family members, particularly male members of the family to take them to the centers. Disability rights activists have thus called for vaccination of PWD in their homes or at separate centers. Though certain states like Odisha are offering this to PWD, preliminary information received from the ground level in Bengal and Odisha reveals that there is a shortage of vaccines, particularly in rural areas.

In a telephonic conversation, Dr. Nandini Ghosh, associated with the Women With Disabilities India Network (WWDIN), informed me that high transport fees further alienate WWD from the vaccination program, as they are more likely to experience income and livelihood setbacks. She further added that there is a patriarchal discourse around vaccination, which prioritizes the vaccination of men with disabilities over WWD, who have low status in the family hierarchy.

Following advocacy from disability rights organizations and activists, the government is making efforts to provide for PWD, with directions recently issued for home vaccination or separate centers to be set up for PWD and walk-in registrations for vaccination. Whether these directions are implemented properly remains to be seen.

The Way Forward

There has been a lot of global attention to the issue of vaccination access for PWD. However, WWD have not specifically been accounted for. In India, there has not been an intersectional approach to the barriers that WWD face, or to how they may be addressed by the government and civil society. Addressing them will encourage a more equitable vaccination process and will go a long way in controlling the spread of the pandemic and preventing COVID-19- related deaths. To do this, WWD must be prioritized for vaccination and their informed consent be sought; accessible information regarding vaccination must be ensured; and care must be taken to ensure that WWD have transport support available free of cost or at subsidized rates to travel to and from the vaccination center, in case home vaccination is not possible. Lastly, WWD must be encouraged and provided with a support of their choosing to decide on the specific vaccine they would like to get.

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About the author:

Radhika Saxena is a women’s rights lawyer based in New Delhi, India. Her work focusses on gender-based violence, disability rights and labour law.

By Julieta Barbiero. First Published on Medium.

Photo by Sergey Katyshkin from Pexels showing a face mostly obscured by vibrant airbrushed colors of pinks, purples, oranges and blues.

At six year’s old my mom found me walking around my bedroom talking out loud to seemingly no one. I don’t remember what I was saying, but I remember my mom telling me it was like I was somewhere else entirely, talking to the air, like characters in a movie in which I was playing a part. She thought it was a weird phase, or a hallmark of an over-imaginative child, but it never went away. When I was sixteen, I was officially diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a surprisingly young age compared to most women who are diagnosed with ADHD well into adulthood. I knew that I always had trouble focusing and that my intense daydreams weren’t anything out of the ordinary. Yet, it wasn’t until I was on Tik Tok this year (of all places) that I realized my daydreaming had a name, Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD), and that this thing that allowed me to escape from reality was actually a mental disorder.

Healthline.com describes MD as a psychiatric disorder, where intense daydreaming distracts from personal life. MD can be triggered at any time by conversations, sensory stimuli, and physical experiences and it has its own setting, plotlines, and characters. A person with MD can be talking to themselves out loud and making facial expressions for minutes to hours at a time. According to the British Psychological Society, people with MD spend about an average of four hours a day dreaming.

MD is an immersive experience where one can feel transported to a different world without ever physically leaving reality. When I am in a maladaptive daydream I am completely shut off from the world. While MDing, I experience loss of focus and sleep, heightened anxiety and an inability to distinguish where I am or what I was doing prior. I can also lose track of time and work tasks can suffer; I might unexpectedly talk to myself in public, forget who I’m talking to, and sometimes forget who I am. At times, I have become deeply depressed and anxious from daydreams that were extremely intense and even traumatic. On more than one occasion, I was so deep into a daydream that I developed a panic attack.

Photo by Sergey Katyshkin from Pexels showing a face against a black background mostly obscured by airbrushed colors of red, orange, green and yellow.

I never realized that my daydreams were a hindrance and a symptom of a disability like ADHD. However, as much as MD has caused me to disassociate from the world, I can’t imagine my life without it. I recognize that it disrupts my life, but I don’t know who I would be without it. So much of what I’ve been through and who I am is reflected in my daydreams.

Research from the University of Haifa in Israel and La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia found that females with MD often experience psychosocial problems from experiences of child sexual abuse. The study, conducted with 194 participants -half of whom were survivors of child sexual abuse and the other were control recipients with no history of abuse- found that survivors scored higher on MD compared to the control group. Survivors with higher MD scores compared to other survivors experienced higher psychological distress and social phobia.

MD is a way to shut of the outside world and intensify your own inner world. It has exacerbated my anxieties and even caused me to relive some of my traumas. But as much as MD is painful, in my experience it has also been a relief. As a woman with MD, I know I’ve unintentionally used it as a protective barrier from a patriarchal and sexist society. For instance, when I’m in MD while walking down the street, I don’t hear the catcalls and gross comments about my body, because the men making the comments aren’t players in the world that I’m creating. My daydreams can be violent and painful, but they can also be a delightful distraction from the outside world.

When we think of ADHD we think of hyperactive boys, that can’t sit still, disrupting classrooms. I want to broaden this picture to include girls, when we think of ADHD and MD, creating adventures and reliving pain. I want us to see them using MD to bring inner comfort to themselves.

MD has its consequences, especially as a woman. In general, MD and ADHD make it difficult to organize, focus on, or pay attention to details in life. Culturally speaking, women are supposed to be the household organizers; the ones that know everything in everyone’s lives and have the family schedule memorized; the type-a glue that keeps it all together. Women with ADHD sit in direct contrast to this and what the patriarchy expects of women, broadly. The difference between men and women with ADHD is that men have the luxury and social permission to be disorganized. Men aren’t pressured to manage family life. Young girls are taught and conditioned to be family planners and household organizers by enforced gender norms and culture; think, for instance, of dolls and toy kitchen sets. Studies have shown that both men and women with ADHD experience societal consequences, but differently. For men, these consequences tend to play out in the workplace, while women may experience conflicts in the home, not being able to meet socialized gender expectations. Boys and men can be the daydreamers, visionaries, and a chaotic mess of ideas, while girls and women are expected to be on the sidelines- staid, organized and focused.

MD is a common symptom of ADHD, even though not everyone who has ADHD experiences it. MD is a haven and a hindrance, just like ADHD is both a burst of energy and a distraction in life. Every mental illness has its costs and benefits and most mental illnesses are culturally associated with a certain person or type of person. When we think of ADHD we think of hyperactive boys, that can’t sit still, disrupting classrooms. I want to broaden this picture to include girls, when we think of ADHD and Maladaptive Daydreaming, creating adventures and reliving pain. I want us to see them using MD to bring inner comfort to themselves. Women and girls with ADHD and MD are not ditzy or have our ‘heads in the clouds,’ but rather reflect on our own world and dreams within ourselves.

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About the author

Julieta Barbiero is an Argentina-born-Texas-raised writer and upcoming graduate student for public health. Along with researching mental health and intersectional feminism, she is obsessed with plants and reading fantasy novels.

By Rachel Cooper. First published on Medium.

Black and white photo by Kevin Escate on Unsplash of two arms, each with small tattoos and finger nails painted, reaching for one another.

The traditional post-partum body narrative is something we are well versed in; your body changes and neither you nor your partner or anyone else will like it as much as your pre-pregnancy body. This narrative applies to all body transitions: growing from younger to older; transitioning from one gender presentation to another, and becoming disabled.

As I stood in the bathroom of the maternity ward having given birth a few days earlier, in a rare and frightening moment of privacy, I dared to look down and take in my post-partum body. I’ve never heard of a pregnant person’s body returning to “normal” post-birth. Yet there I was in the mirror, my socially acceptable size 10, stretch mark free self. But the veneer, the externality of supposed health and acceptability wasn’t representative of what was going on inside my body. I suffered a (missed) third degree tear and was now completely faecally incontinent, meaning I had a split-second warning and zero control.

Two weeks after giving birth, my body was the same as it was pre-pregnancy, and yet completely different. I now had a section of my large intestine sitting flush on my belly over which was stuck a bag to collect my shit.

The first reaction I encountered to my colostomy bag was from continence nurses in the National Health Service (NHS). I was initially pleasantly surprised when they wanted to talk to me about my sex life, but soon realized they only wanted to know if I could have penis in vagina sex and if I would even want sex at all. It was a shock (and weirdly amusing) to be advised by the NHS to wear sexy underwear and learn that the hernia belt I now required was available as lace covered. The interaction was both ableist and heteronormative.

Beyond the confines of the NHS, reactions to colostomy bags can be much less controlled and much more visceral. I think those who are convinced that ostomates (those of us who use colostomy bags) can’t possibly have sex lives imagine a soap opera scene of a would-be lover who takes one look at the bag-ladened body and instantly rejects it in disgust.

Black and white photo by Ricardo Gómez Angel via Unsplash. Two hands touching each other with the tips of the fingers.

The reality is nothing like that; it’s far more mundane. After the stress of planning my supplies, I head to work knowing I’ll have to continuously check myself throughout the day. This means accessing different disabled toilets, possibly dealing with leaks, definitely audibly farting in at least one person’s presence at the bus stop and maybe even in front of all my colleagues at a board meeting. At some point, I’ll glance at the socials and see some ableist vitriolic crap and return home. It’s a drain on my mental energy, and the shame and anger that come with it do nothing for my sexual mood.

What’s lost cannot be replaced, but what has emerged is a different mode of being.

For such a long time, the loss of mine and my partner’s previous relationship was hardest for me to deal with. I grieved for it. The loss of our intimate rituals that were for us and us alone. The loss of how we would jokingly hotwire our connection and chemistry at the end of a work day by running toward one another, whipping up our shirts, and shouting in unison “belly love” before falling into a more serious embrace. The loss of feeling my partner’s tongue run from bony hip to bony hip across my pot belly, unimpeded by the bag. The loss of feeling my tummy brush over my partner’s bare ass as my tongue makes its way down her body.

What’s lost cannot be replaced, but what has emerged is a different mode of being. Two women, one who is now disabled, with a new body, rediscovering sex together. It’s a big fuck you to people who think sex without a cock isn’t real sex and sex with an ostomate can’t be desirable. It’s subversive and subversive is sexy.

I once read that the hottest sex happens when one is at their most vulnerable. When I lay there fully naked, looking down to see my partner kissing my tummy, her head millimeters from my bag, I am definitely at my most vulnerable.

What about my partner? Well she’s always been unsentimental and blunt. True to character, she simply feels that it doesn’t change anything for her and that’s that.

Still, my body has changed and we have changed with it and it’s not a poor imitation of my pre-pregnancy self.

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About the author:

Rachel Cooper is a queer woman, punk, and disability activist. She works for a nonprofit operating within the social model of disability, and has stepped up her raging against the machine following permanent birth injuries.

By Shivangi Agrawal. First published on Medium.

Picture of a girl in a school inform. Her hair is braided and she is looking intensely into the camera. In the background, there are five other children. Credit: Raj Rana via Unspalsh.

Last week I signed up for a new Disability Studies course in Delhi because I’m so passionate about learning new things, going to classes, thinking about everything critically and getting an education. But also, I would get to know so many disabled teachers and students from across India, something that I’ve craved since childhood. But alas, in academia and research, even Disability and Gender Studies, cis-het white/Savarna abled people’s feelings and views continue to hold the most value.

I always had a difficult time in schools, not just socially but also academically. It’s always been a struggle to score well; most of the time I end up failing or dropping out. As a disabled kid, this was more difficult because everyone expected that my mind would compensate for my disabled body. There’s a media trope where disabled bodies serve as inspiration porn, so that we can be more palatable for abled audiences. It applies to all kinds of socio-politically marginalized groups and is tied to respectability and iconicism.

Every time crips enter an educational institution, we are asking for a new way of teaching, learning and accessing knowledge. We are challenging the entire institutionalized system of education.

I’ve internalized these failures so much that I often felt it was the reason why no one wanted to be my friend. Every time I enter a new institution, I have so much hope of encountering new people, new experiences and new pedagogy. Maybe I don’t try hard enough or I become too critical, and therefore, it turns out to be the same old set up: competition, acquiring degrees, calculating success, and most of all…segregation. Where can I find the sad, lonely, angry, rejected queers and crips?

Every time crips enter an educational institution, we are asking for a new way of teaching, learning and accessing knowledge. We are challenging the entire institutionalized system of education. We’re fighting against a century old tradition of obtaining degrees. However, mainstream society has always been so afraid of change that they choose to segregate “normal” education from “special education” [for the crips] or they’ll separate our schools entirely. This extends to all other areas of our lives: building entrances, classrooms, bathrooms, transportation, the way people choose to have relationships with us; it’s all separated. So many abled people who call me a friend only hangout with me away from the rest of their abled friend groups.

A picture of Shivangi. She is sitting on the floor, leaning back on her left hand.

In the current political climate of India, age old Hindu traditions and systems that are casteist, transphobic, sexist and ableist are suddenly what the nation state is all about. If anyone questions them or seeks to change them, or simply exists outside of them, then they’re imprisoned or killed. I guess that’s where all the sad, lonely, angry, rejected queers and crips wind up- locked up in institutions, hidden away, closeted, shut down, disguised and concealed from sharing their authenticity.

Although, bear in mind, that’s not where we remain. No matter how much we are denied opportunities and violently separated from mainstream societies, we have retained and preserved the knowledge from all our queer elders fighting for their rights from institutional prisons. Our crip ancestors who’ve left us so much information about the inevitability of revolution, how we can have a wild imagination about Disability Justice that university theories can’t even begin to make sense of. We don’t need Disability Studies from the perspective of old white academics and ancient degrees. We’re fashioning small communities in our bedrooms and taking our sweet time to process and appreciate the slow nature in which we move to challenge a fast-paced capitalist society. We are surviving and thriving!

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About the author:

Shivangi (@DisabledSpice) is a disabled and queer activist and graffiti artist from Delhi. She works as a consultant, researcher, policy advisor, and facilitator with an emphasis on advocacy for disability, gender, sexuality and accessibility.

Por Estefanía Cubillos Nova. First published on Medium.
Al imaginarnos un mundo liderado por mujeres es probable que pensemos en Michelle Obama o Malala Yousafzai, por ser destacadas lideresas que han alcanzado grandes hitos y cuyo trabajo es motivo de inspiración para otras niñas o mujeres a nivel mundial. No obstante, yo siempre busqué una afinidad directa en esas figuras públicas, y nunca la encontré.
No creí que se tratara de una barrera idiomática, ideológica o geográfica. Mi inquietud crecía, y fue así que empecé a investigar, buscando encontrar las respuestas adecuadas a todas las dudas que tenía sobre los liderazgos de las mujeres, que no se asemejaban a mi realidad.

Transcurría el año 2013, cuando conocí a Marissa Martínez, procedente de Panamá, una mujer líder y con discapacidad visual, que constantemente comparte poderosos mensajes de lucha a otras compañeras en su misma condición. Conocerla y escucharla fue algo que me marcó para siempre.

Cuando la conocí me cautivaron sus enérgicas palabras, que me infundieron un sentido de seguridad en mi propia identidad. Al escucharla, comprendí que aquella afinidad que buscaba estaba en mi capacidad no solo de sentir orgullo de mi identidad, si no de infundirlo también a otras compañeras, sin olvidar lo que implican las situaciones particulares y diversas de cada una de nosotras.

Una foto de Estefanía Cubillos Nova Junto a Marissa Martinez — Una foto de Estefanía Cubillos Nova Junto a Marissa Martínez.

Hoy, años más tarde, me permito reconocer que, sin la voz fuerte y bien encaminada de Marissa, jamás hubiese dado un paso adelante para luchar desde los movimientos asociativos y exigir los derechos que a todas las mujeres con discapacidad nos corresponden.

Es indispensable que las niñas con discapacidad,aprendan a aceptarse y estar orgullosas de su condición desde temprano. Este es un factor de vital importancia que aún no se discute en el hogar, la escuela, ni en la comunidad.

En este contexto, encontramos muchos obstáculos para generar una verdadera incidencia en pro de las mujeres con discapacidad. Desde los comentarios que se hacen en nuestros hogares hasta el contenido que se genera en los medios de comunicación, las personas con discapacidad crecemos, desde la infancia, rodeadas de estigmas asociados a la lástima, la imperfección y el rechazo.
En mi caso, recuerdo el tiempo en que no utilizaba el bastón blanco para desplazarme por temor a ser ignorada en el colegio, o cuando evitaba comer en lugares públicos para que las miradas de la gente no se concentraran en mí. Con gran asombro pude constatar años más tarde que otras amigas ciegas vivieron lo mismo. Entonces, tuve la certeza de que era el momento de actuar y modificar todo de raíz.
Una foto de Estefanía Cubillos Nova con los brazos abiertos. Con la mano derecha, sostiene un bastón blanco. Fotografía proporcionada por Gabriel Elliot.Volviendo al relato de Marissa Martínez, rescato cuán fundamental es asumir y apropiarnos de la discapacidad como una condición que forma parte de nuestra existencia, desde una perspectiva orgullosa y optimista.
Tal como ella lo afirma, “no importa cuál sea nuestra condición. Nosotras tenemos el deber de sentirnos orgullosas por ser mujeres con discapacidad, es un derecho que nadie puede limitar. Nuestras virtudes y potencialidades no tienen por qué reducirse al liderar y disfrutar del mundo. También nos corresponde dejar de avergonzarnos o esconder que tenemos dificultad para ver u oír”.
La fórmula para avanzar y crear nuevos liderazgos está en nuestras manos. Tenemos que empezar a inculcar la importancia de sentirnos a gusto con nosotras mismas y con lo que representamos.
Ya no queremos que se nos proyecte bajo la nefasta perspectiva de caridad e infantilización eterna. Nunca estuvimos dispuestas a ello. Es hora de que alcemos nuestras voces y ocupemos lugares de liderazgo, porque cuando las mujeres con discapacidad lideramos, las comunidades prosperan.

Sobre la autora:

Estefanía Cubillos es periodista, disfruta viajar y es egresada del Instituto Sobre Liderazgo y Discapacidad 2019 (WILD) impartido por MIUSA.

By: Brittany J. Evans. First published on Medium.

International Women’s Day, celebrated every year on March 8th, not only highlights the current iterations of generations long struggles against the patriarchy, but is also a day of global acknowledgment of the power and potential of women.

As Women Enabled International’s founder, Stephanie Ortoleva, famously declared during the 2012 UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), “Women with disabilities are women, too.”

Women with disabilities make up almost one fifth of the global population of women. Generations of women with disabilities have built on the legacies of their foremothers to fight for a more equitable world. Many of their names and stories are erased, lost, or intentionally forgotten, but their voices still echo through the ages.

Today, we take this opportunity to memorialize modern day women with disabilities transforming the world and sing their praises while they are here. We write our own narratives and refuse to let their names be lost to time.

Neema Namadamu

Women’s rights and disability rights activist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

“I’ve become an integral part of my community, my family, and my school. I’m unforgettable now, I am a rock, I am a lioness. I am known, and I have become a model for other women and for fathers to envision the possibilities for their daughters.”

Not only is Neema Namadamu a powerful life-long disability and women’s right’s advocate, but she is also an impassioned warrior for peace, adeptly empowering others to use the Internet and media to drive change in eastern Congo. Ever the barrier breaker, she became the first woman with a disability to graduate college in Congo. Neema founded the Congolese Association for the Liberation and Development of the Disabled Woman, a national communications network for empowering women called Go Network, and the Maman Shujaa Media Center, a training center for women to gain digital literacy skills in order to share their stories.

Yetnebersh Nigussie

Ethiopian Lawyer and activist

“As a person with a disability and especially as a woman with a disability, I really feel that the world has lost quite significantly from the possible contribution that persons with disabilities would have made had they been provided equality and equal opportunity earlier.”

Yetnebersh Nigussie founded the Female Students Association at University, chaired the women’s wing of the Ethiopian Association of the Blind, and started an inclusive school serving around 190 students called, “Yetnebersh Academy.” Maybe mostly notably, she cofounded the Ethiopian Centre for Disability and Development, which plays a vital role in driving the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Ethiopia. So far, they have successfully changed Ethiopia’s building code and are continuing to advocate for an overall strategy to mainstream services for the country’s disability community.

Ángela Covadonga Bachiller

First person with Down Syndrome to hold public office in Spain.

“I want to be an honest politician.”

As the first person with Down Syndrome to hold public office in Spain, Ángela Covadonga Bachiller proves beyond doubt that women with disabilities have a vital role to play in governance. Bachiller assumed her role as councillor after her predecessor, implicated in a corruption scandal, stepped down. She hopes to use her position to encourage others with disabilities to be involved with politics.

Read more about Ángela here.

Neema, Yetnebersh and Ángela are but a few examples of the power women with disabilities hold within ourselves.

We encourage you to pay close attention to women with disabilities in your circles and communities, and think about this: how are they changing the world? How can you help them in their mission?

By J. Brooks. First published on Medium.

Photo of neon lit hearts in different colors against a black background by Nothing Ahead on Pexels.

I’ve always dreaded Valentine’s Day, but not for the reason you might think. While my Facebook status has been stuck on the “single” button for the better part of 28 years, the stories that I used to tell myself provided evidence to the contrary. Like many disabled people, I have an elaborate fantasy world. These fantasies kept me company when my 5th-grade “friends” decided that they were too cool to be friends with the disabled kid who just wanted someone to swing with. During these years of social isolation, I would often use my fantasies as a security blanket, wrapping myself inside whenever I felt unwanted, unsafe, or unloved.

My fantasies, however, took on a different tone when my peers began to see boys as more than just the rival team during our games of capture the flag. For I, too, wanted someone to look at me how the boy-girl pairs in Middle school looked at each other. However, no one ever did. Not for years. To fulfill this need for human connection, I again turned to my fantasies. Yet, rather than just making up characters, I decided to base them on real people in my life. From the cute 7th-grade history teacher who always talked to me at recess to the guy in the local band who talked his bandmates into having a concert at an accessible venue for me, I used to fantasize all day about these men. I lived in my head so much that I started to believe that my daydreams would, one day, become reality. These “one-way-relationships” would go on for months or even years until I would eventually find out my fantasy boyfriends were “seeing” someone else, and then I would go through all the symptoms of a high school break up with someone I barely knew. But now, having gone through two real-life breakups, I can tell you that the pain I felt back then was no less real.

While my fantasies took a backseat during my first relationship, I would be lying if I didn’t admit they sometimes kept me warm during those long, lonely nights that those of us in long-distance relationships know all too well. These fantasies kept the relationship alive for me, as I daydreamed about life with my beloved once we lived together, and strengthened my commitment to him and what we were building, or so I thought. In reality, my fantasies were a blanket that I wrapped around myself tighter and tighter until my boyfriend could only see a figure outlined in fuzzy material.

But now, having gone through two real-life breakups, I can tell you that the pain I felt back then was no less real.

After my first real-life breakup, this blanket allowed me to see only bits and pieces of the real world, as I, once again, found men that I could construct a dream world around. But these were different than those one-way-relationships that I had in high school. Now that I had a reference point, I had expectations of what an actual relationship was supposed to be like. However, I set the bar substantially lower for these new fantasy boyfriends than I did for my real-life ex. When they would meet my expectations, liking my social media post, for example, I would wrap the blanket around me even tighter until I could only see the world through the soft fuzzy blue fabric. Somehow I’d convinced myself that the slight sign of their interest gave every indication that they returned my feelings. While those moments of connection were pure bliss, there were many other moments, moments when they didn’t meet my expectations, where the fabric of my blanket would unravel, leaving me depressed for days. Valentine’s Day was always one of those moments, serving as a not so gentle reminder that the fantasies I loved so much, the world in my head, was just that, in my head. You can’t take your daydream out for a Valentine’s Day dinner, believe me, I tried.

This past year I tried desperately to hold on to a relationship that ended just as quickly as it began. For months I found myself searching for hidden meaning in texts and emails, clinging to the fact that their desire to still be friends hinted at their deeper feelings for me, and believing that if I just waited long enough they would return to the days where we would ramble on until 2am about baboons, bear cubs, and rainbows. This waiting, however, felt like torture. While I could enjoy fantasizing under my blanket, every time I peeked out, all I could see is that they had moved on and had no intention of coming back. During these moments, this blanket, which kept me so warm when I was a kid, became a straight jacket.

I write this not out of spite or anger against any of my past romantic interests, for they were mere bystanders in my quest to find someone to love. This is more of a promise to myself to start putting myself first and ONLY choose people who choose me as well.

I can’t exactly tell you what changed, but the straight jacket became so tight that I wanted to be done; not just with this particular situation but with all the waiting, believing, and fantasizing that only brought me an endless cycle of pain for the better part of 15 years. From my 7th-grade history teacher to the person who briefly dreamed of a life full of cripjoy with me, I wanted to be free from all of them and the pain of knowing that I will never spend a Valentine’s Day — or any other day — with them as their beloved. So, after a month of social isolation where I taught myself how to find joy within myself (instead of from my one-way-relationships), I made myself the following promise:

A Declaration:

I’m done with unrequited love.

I’m done reading into emails, text messages, and likes on social media.

I’m done thinking that if a guy keeps liking my posts, it means they like me.

I’m done coming up with funny/intellectual things to post, hoping they will like it.

I’m done waiting by my computer for that reply to an email that I sent days, weeks, or even months ago.

I’m done waking up every morning thinking about a guy who probably never saw me as more than a friend or a colleague.

I’m done searching conference rooms, hoping that he might be there for the one time of year that I get to share my work with the world.

I’m done thinking that professional coffees or casual meetups are maybe dates.

I’m done with guys living in my mind and heart rent-free for years.

I’m done making a guy the center of my universe when he’s made someone else the center of his.

I write this not out of spite or anger against any of my past romantic interests, for they were mere bystanders in my quest to find someone to love. This is more of a promise to myself to start putting myself first and ONLY choose people who choose me as well. I’m done living with a continuous broken heart — it’s just been too many years.

It’s been a month since I made this declaration, and I’m feeling healthier than ever. While I do still fantasize about finding my soulmate (I am a hopeless romantic and always will be), these fantasies no longer absorb my every available thought. Instead, I find myself discovering parts of me that I hid away because they didn’t fit in with the narrative of my fantasy. But I have to say, despite what my so-called friends in the 5th grade thought, I’m actually pretty cool, although I might be a little bit too obsessed with TikTok (I’m still a work in progress). I know it sounds a bit cliche, but getting to know the real me has been the best Valentine’s gift I could ever receive.

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J. Brooks is a doctoral candidate in the sociology department at Syracuse University, studying the labor market inequalities of people with disabilities. You can follow J on Twitter @jdbrooks15, linktree, Facebook, Linkedin and on J’s website.

Por Mujeres con Capacidad de Soñar a Colores*. Publicado por primera vez en Medium.
Ilustración de tres mujeres con trajes de superheroínas. La primera lleva un bastón blanco y un teléfono móvil, la segunda, una tablet, y la tercera, un reloj digital. Por Mapa Herrera (https://medium.com/mapa-herrera)Guardianas de la Diversidad es una serie creada por Mujeres con Capacidad de Soñar a Colores, que se basa en las historias vividas por mujeres con discapacidad y amigas. Cada capítulo tiene un cómic y un podcast que se complementan y nos invitan a seguir las aventuras de diferentes superheroínas y a cuestionarnos la realidad.
Esta propuesta surgió durante la pandemia de COVID-19 por la necesidad de seguir formándonos sobre nuestros derechos, crear material para cumplir nuestra misión de visibilizar -ahora en el espacio virtual- las violencias que vivimos y tener una fuente de ingresos en tiempos muy precarios en lo económico para las mujeres con discapacidad.
El objetivo de Guardianas de la Diversidad es explorar nuestras realidades y darlas a conocer de una manera que llame la atención, para que más personas puedan estar al tanto de ellas y trabajar con nosotras para cambiar las injusticias a las que nos enfrentamos.
La serie también tiene un eje importante de formación, no solo sobre estos derechos sino sobre el trabajo en el mundo virtual. Por ejemplo, recibimos una serie de talleres sobre cómo hacer podcasts con el apoyo del Fondo de Respuesta Rápida de Derechos Digitales, lo que nos dio nuevas herramientas de trabajo a largo plazo.
Ilustración de tres mujeres. Arriba se lee: “¡Queremos que nuestros derechos se respeten sin necesitar superpoderes para lograrlo!”. Por Mapa Herrera (https://medium.com/mapa-herrera)La serie se divide en capítulos:
En el primero, Arcoíris digital: Rompiendo barreras, acompañamos a las Guardianas de la Diversidad en sus aventuras por defender sus derechos en el mundo digital.
En el segundo capítulo, ¡Queremos muchas voces, no una sola!, las acompañamos en sus aventuras por defender sus derechos a la participación social y política.
Actualmente estamos desarrollando el tercer capítulo, sobre los derechos sexuales y reproductivos, que compartiremos en nuestras redes sociales en el 8 de marzo, Día Internacional de las Mujeres.
Este material nos ha enseñado mucho y esperamos que también sirva para formar a otras mujeres con discapacidad y que cuando termine la pandemia nosotras mismas podamos usar este material para dar talleres a otras mujeres.
Les invitamos a ver los comics y escuchar los podcasts, porque se basan en las historias de nuestra vida real y demuestran que tenemos derechos, y ¡que se cumplan es responsabilidad de todas y todos!
Pueden encontrarnos en redes sociales:
Facebook: @MujeresConCapacidad
Instagram: @MujeresConCapacidadSolola
Spotify: Guardianas de la Diversidad
www.mujeresconcapacidad.wordpress.com

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*Sobre Mujeres con Capacidad de Soñar a Colores:

Mujeres con Capacidad de Soñar a Colores es una colectiva de mujeres con discapacidad y aliadas de Sololá, Guatemala, que trabaja a través del arte y el fortalecimiento individual y colectivo para promover los derechos de las mujeres con discapacidad en diferentes ámbitos. Por su parte, la equipa de Guardianas de la Diversidad está compuesta por cinco mujeres con discapacidad y tres aliadas, además de un equipo específico que hace la edición de los podcasts. En nuestro trabajo nos acompaña el proyecto METOCA de Teatro de las Oprimidas.