Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Disability Pride 2026!
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and SMITHA and welcome to stuff
- 0:07Speaker 1: when never told you productive. iHeart IDEO. And it is
- 0:19Speaker 1: July twenty twenty six, which means it is Disability Pride
- 0:24Speaker 1: Month here in the US and a few other places,
- 0:27Speaker 1: So happy Disability Pride. It is set in July because
- 0:31Speaker 1: of the ADA. The ADA was signed into law on
- 0:35Speaker 1: July twenty sixth, nineteen ninety and it was modeled as
- 0:41Speaker 1: part of the civil rights movement. If you go back
- 0:43Speaker 1: and listen to our episode on Women and the ADA,
- 0:46Speaker 1: which we're planning to bring back as a classics soon,
- 0:50Speaker 1: the Black Panthers were right there during the protest to
- 0:54Speaker 1: get to what would eventually become the ADA. In that episode,
- 0:59Speaker 1: we discussed basics of how this month came to be.
- 1:03Speaker 1: The theme this year is the world works Better with
- 1:06Speaker 1: Us and this was chosen by ARC's National Council of
- 1:10Speaker 1: Self Advocates, which is a group of disabled leaders located
- 1:13Speaker 1: across the country. And it's a time to acknowledge the
- 1:17Speaker 1: experiences of so many and to combat stigma and negative
- 1:21Speaker 1: societal messaging around people with disabilities and to celebrate. Here's
- 1:26Speaker 1: a quote from the ARC dot org. Disability Pride means
- 1:29Speaker 1: different things to different people. For some, pride is celebration
- 1:32Speaker 1: and joy. For others, it means not caring shame and
- 1:36Speaker 1: expecting basic dignity like equal access, needed accommodations, and fair treatment.
- 1:41Speaker 1: Pride can be public or private. At its core, it's
- 1:43Speaker 1: about belonging. Some people feel proud and connected to disability
- 1:47Speaker 1: identity and culture. Others live with daily symptoms that are painful, exhausting,
- 1:52Speaker 1: or unpredictable, and may seek treatment technology, personal supports, or
- 1:56Speaker 1: medical care that brings relief. Both realities can be true.
- 2:00Speaker 1: Respecting disability identity and pushing for access doesn't require pretending
- 2:04Speaker 1: disability never comes with physical or mental challenges. So I
- 2:07Speaker 1: liked this quote. It reminded me of something you said
- 2:10Speaker 1: in a recent episode, Samantha, about yeah, if your good
- 2:13Speaker 1: days and bad days, like things don't always feel great,
- 2:16Speaker 1: look great, and as long as you're cognizant of that,
- 2:23Speaker 1: and hopefully you're having more good days than bad or
- 2:27Speaker 1: you have a really good support system at least, and
- 2:30Speaker 1: that that's a goal, that's a good goal to strive for.
- 2:34Speaker 1: But just knowing that disability pride can look different, and
- 2:41Speaker 1: disability can look so different for so many people, and
- 2:45Speaker 1: as a reminder people with disabilities represent the largest marginalized group.
- 2:50Speaker 1: Everyone can have a temporary disability, like having a broken ankle.
- 2:53Speaker 1: In fact, a mere hour before this podcast recording, my
- 2:59Speaker 1: mom sends me a random text and then tags on,
- 3:02Speaker 1: oh and I broke my ankle. What Yes, Now my
- 3:08Speaker 1: friends know where I get it from because I do
- 3:10Speaker 1: that too. What is she? Okay? What happened? Is she fine?
- 3:14Speaker 1: Are we good? Is she good? She is the hospital? Like,
- 3:17Speaker 1: what's up? I know she's done this to me multiple times.
- 3:21Speaker 1: She's fine. It sounds like she's Fine's she said? It's
- 3:26Speaker 1: the break is not dislocated. She's gonna wear a boot
- 3:30Speaker 1: for a month and then a brace, and she's supposed
- 3:33Speaker 1: to stay off of it. Okay, Yeah, but I was
- 3:37Speaker 1: just going about my day on researching this. By the way,
- 3:41Speaker 1: oh lord, and then she just throws that in there.
- 3:44Speaker 1: But yeah, once I it's a good reminder for able
- 3:50Speaker 1: bodied people is that is the privilege that you have
- 3:57Speaker 1: and just the things that you might not have appreciated
- 4:01Speaker 1: before that Now you're very happy that ramp is there
- 4:04Speaker 1: or you know, whatever it is. And another reminder, just
- 4:09Speaker 1: like so many things, the current US administration has been
- 4:13Speaker 1: making things a lot harder for the disabled community, whether
- 4:18Speaker 1: that's through insurance and healthcare, or even removing accessibility when
- 4:21Speaker 1: it comes to things like asl interpreters. So I also
- 4:27Speaker 1: want to include this since we're coming out of Pride Month.
- 4:31Speaker 1: The human rights campaign of Disabled to Use reported in
- 4:33Speaker 1: twenty twenty four that thirty six percent of surveyed LGBTQ
- 4:37Speaker 1: plus respondents self reported having a disability, a little over
- 4:41Speaker 1: ten percent higher than non LGBTQ plus folks. Other surveys
- 4:45Speaker 1: have found similar, if not higher numbers. On top of that,
- 4:50Speaker 1: we know that identifying as queer often impacts mental health.
- 4:54Speaker 1: In twenty twenty five, the Center for American Progress found
- 4:56Speaker 1: that fifty one percent of LGBTQ plus respondents reported discrimination
- 5:01Speaker 1: based on how they identify negatively impacted their mental health,
- 5:04Speaker 1: and the number jumped up to ten percentage points with
- 5:07Speaker 1: the disabled queer folks that they surveyed. So this is
- 5:12Speaker 1: a big episode about intersectionality. You can see all of
- 5:18Speaker 1: these intersections, and we're going to talk a little bit
- 5:20Speaker 1: more about it at the end, and we have discussed
- 5:23Speaker 1: it before, but you just see all of these intersections
- 5:27Speaker 1: when it comes to disability activism, because it is a
- 5:30Speaker 1: space where it doesn't matter your gender, your erase, how
- 5:34Speaker 1: you your orientation, you can be infacted by disability, right, yes,
- 5:43Speaker 1: And so for this we're just going to run down
- 5:48Speaker 1: a handful of issues that I saw when I was
- 5:52Speaker 1: looking into Disability Pride month, Like what were a lot
- 5:54Speaker 1: of people talking about. Obviously there's so much going on.
- 5:59Speaker 1: We're just check on some of these And silly me,
- 6:05Speaker 1: I was reading like legal papers very late last night
- 6:08Speaker 1: and thought this, I cannot this has to be a
- 6:10Speaker 1: whole episode. I cannot just summarize it. I just we
- 6:17Speaker 1: need to give it more time. But that being said,
- 6:20Speaker 1: we are going to just run down some of these things,
- 6:25Speaker 1: some of the big conversations that I saw happening. So
- 6:29Speaker 1: one is access to reproductive care. The reported rate of
- 6:33Speaker 1: sexual assoughts for women with disabilities is around forty percent,
- 6:37Speaker 1: and we know that these numbers are often underreported. The
- 6:40Speaker 1: percentage of sexual harassment is also very very high. Here's
- 6:44Speaker 1: a quote from Alice Mander on disability and feminism from
- 6:48Speaker 1: All for All, being a disabled woman and a feminist
- 6:52Speaker 1: doesn't just cause ideological strain. The key to intersectionality is
- 6:56Speaker 1: acknowledging that everyday experiences of women who experience a press
- 7:00Speaker 1: from different social forces, whether through the politicization of reproductive
- 7:04Speaker 1: rights or unwanted sexual contact. We are taught that the
- 7:08Speaker 1: female body is a point of violence and public interest.
- 7:11Speaker 1: We are taught to protect ourselves, never to walk alone,
- 7:14Speaker 1: to wear appropriate clothes, not to drink too much, how
- 7:16Speaker 1: to use self defense, and to carry keys between our fingers.
- 7:20Speaker 1: We are taught to fear body hair, fear menstruation, fear
- 7:23Speaker 1: having two big boobs, fear having two small boobs, fear
- 7:27Speaker 1: being too soft spoken, fear being bossy, fear being girly,
- 7:30Speaker 1: fear being too much of a woman, fear not being
- 7:32Speaker 1: enough of a woman. Disabled people are also used to
- 7:35Speaker 1: being treated as public property. The medicalization of disability has
- 7:39Speaker 1: meant that it is deemed acceptable, even appropriate, to ask
- 7:43Speaker 1: disabled strangers intimate details about their lives. But if we're
- 7:48Speaker 1: so conditioned to be ashamed of our disabled bodies, being
- 7:51Speaker 1: a kick ass feminist is pretty difficult. Traditional notions of
- 7:54Speaker 1: how to present as a feminist lack nuance and intersectionality.
- 7:59Speaker 1: Why white, straight, non disabled, and CIS women have an
- 8:03Speaker 1: inherent advantage in performing feminist notions of empowered womanhood. For instance,
- 8:08Speaker 1: during the second wave of feminism and still to this day,
- 8:11Speaker 1: self grooming and cosmetics were seen as anti feminist and
- 8:14Speaker 1: an oppressive daily ritual. However, not all women have the
- 8:18Speaker 1: privilege of presenting in radical ways that challenge gender norms.
- 8:22Speaker 1: For instance, as a non binary writer, Jacob Tobia says,
- 8:26Speaker 1: passing as cis gender comes with a lot of privilege.
- 8:29Speaker 1: Trans women are more likely to be subjected to violence
- 8:32Speaker 1: of not presenting in a typically feminist way. The gender
- 8:35Speaker 1: binary is so deeply entrenched within our society that when
- 8:38Speaker 1: someone does not perform their gender properly, they can be
- 8:42Speaker 1: subject to harm. So this is really good essay. I
- 8:44Speaker 1: recommend going to look it up because it touches on
- 8:49Speaker 1: a lot of the complexities of the conversation, the complexities
- 8:54Speaker 1: of the history of feminism and disability activism, and one
- 9:01Speaker 1: of the things that comes up in that too was
- 9:06Speaker 1: the history of desexualizing disabled bodies while hyper sexualizing able
- 9:14Speaker 1: bodied women. And I will note, as always with these things,
- 9:20Speaker 1: just be careful the language you use, because some people
- 9:23Speaker 1: I was ready to get and it's like we're not
- 9:25Speaker 1: all asexual, which is true, but it was used in
- 9:29Speaker 1: a way that I'm like, maybe be a little bit
- 9:31Speaker 1: more careful you say it, but you know that's extremely frustrating,
- 9:38Speaker 1: and it's historically it has been an issue. And then
- 9:43Speaker 1: there's things like societal limitations to some of the traditional keystones,
- 9:49Speaker 1: like fundamental differences and concerns in some cases. We're going
- 9:53Speaker 1: to get more into this in just a second, but
- 9:57Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't always line up what white cis gendered,
- 10:01Speaker 1: able bodied feminists have wanted and what disability activists need.
- 10:10Speaker 1: And it reminded me of the book club we did
- 10:12Speaker 1: on care Work, Dreaming Disability Justice, where it was about like,
- 10:17Speaker 1: what if we had a world where you had this
- 10:21Speaker 1: support group and we weren't, so we weren't taught that
- 10:24Speaker 1: it was so wrong to have that support group, Like
- 10:29Speaker 1: if you needed help, that's fine, there shouldn't be anything
- 10:33Speaker 1: wrong with that. But we live in a capitalistic society
- 10:37Speaker 1: that doesn't value that at all. So, going back to
- 10:52Speaker 1: the reproductive rights bit of this, pregnancy and abortions can
- 10:55Speaker 1: be a matter of life and death, especially in the
- 10:58Speaker 1: disabled community. But at the same time, abortions sought solely
- 11:02Speaker 1: because of a disability like down syndrome, and then also
- 11:07Speaker 1: the history of being forced to have an abortion or
- 11:10Speaker 1: for sterilization because of disability is something to keep in
- 11:15Speaker 1: mind too. We've discussed this before. The right to have
- 11:20Speaker 1: an abortion and the right to not have an abortion
- 11:24Speaker 1: both are very important. Something else. This was big in
- 11:28Speaker 1: the news in the US recently because the administration is
- 11:33Speaker 1: continuing their effort to make it impossible to vote, or
- 11:37Speaker 1: to make it really difficult, or to call everything that
- 11:41Speaker 1: doesn't go their way fraud. It was this big bush
- 11:45Speaker 1: by the Trump administration to get rid of mail in votes,
- 11:51Speaker 1: and those are important for a lot of people with disabilities.
- 11:59Speaker 1: It would have been a huge blow. In June, late
- 12:03Speaker 1: June of this year, twenty twenty six, the US Supreme
- 12:06Speaker 1: Court did uphold Mississippis law allowing mail ballots postmarked by
- 12:12Speaker 1: election day and received up to five days later to
- 12:15Speaker 1: be counted. So that's the thing is like, as long
- 12:17Speaker 1: as they're postmarked before, they can still be counted. And
- 12:20Speaker 1: I also think because the administration has been messing with
- 12:24Speaker 1: our the ups two usps. Yeah, it's just a mess.
- 12:32Speaker 1: But that was there was some celebration about that within
- 12:36Speaker 1: the disability community. But it's an ongoing with all of
- 12:42Speaker 1: these things ongoing, battle. But a US Election Assistant Commission
- 12:50Speaker 1: study found that three fists of voters with disabilities voted
- 12:54Speaker 1: with the mail ballot or early in person in twenty
- 12:56Speaker 1: twenty two. And that is just that's twice the number
- 13:01Speaker 1: of voters without disabilities. So yeah, it's a big deal.
- 13:06Speaker 1: It's a big deal this one. Oh my gosh. So
- 13:11Speaker 1: a friend was asking me that, she said, we should
- 13:13Speaker 1: talk about this. Parents with disabilities in child custody has
- 13:16Speaker 1: been a big conversation as of late, and like throughout history,
- 13:21Speaker 1: but as of late has really been a heating app
- 13:24Speaker 1: It's going to have to be a future episode. I
- 13:26Speaker 1: was reading all these legal documents and I just needed
- 13:29Speaker 1: to let it soak in. But yes, there is a
- 13:33Speaker 1: long history in the US and around the world of
- 13:35Speaker 1: ableism influencing child custody cases, and particularly against a mother
- 13:39Speaker 1: with disabilities. So here's a quote from the American Bar Association.
- 13:44Speaker 1: Parents with disabilities face increased scrutiny and are disproportionately involved
- 13:48Speaker 1: in childwarefore cases, often due to stereotypes and assumptions about
- 13:51Speaker 1: their abilities rather than evidence of neglect or abuse. And
- 13:55Speaker 1: so the ADA does provide protections for parents with disabilities
- 13:59Speaker 1: that are meant to prevent discrimination, but as we know,
- 14:03Speaker 1: these are not always adhered to, especially state by state.
- 14:06Speaker 1: It's further complicated by the fact that some people don't
- 14:09Speaker 1: realize they have a disability covered by the eighty eight.
- 14:12Speaker 1: And I didn't realize that until Eaves came on the
- 14:14Speaker 1: show years ago with an episode about invisible disabilities, and
- 14:18Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I did not know that. There
- 14:22Speaker 1: has been legislation introduced in recent years to strengthen these protections.
- 14:28Speaker 1: But I was looking at the timeline of it and
- 14:30Speaker 1: it's really slow going. I think it's already been It's
- 14:35Speaker 1: over a decade. One of the ones I was looking
- 14:38Speaker 1: at sober decades. So that is a big conversation that's
- 14:43Speaker 1: happening right now. I wanted to bring in this piece
- 14:48Speaker 1: about internalized ableism. We actually did a short episode about
- 14:51Speaker 1: this many years ago, Samantha, I forgot, but yeah, we
- 14:56Speaker 1: did one that was sort of more personal. But since
- 14:59Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot about internalized homophobia lately, I
- 15:03Speaker 1: want to include a note about internalized ablism because that
- 15:06Speaker 1: also exists, and research suggests that it has impacts on
- 15:10Speaker 1: the health and well being of those who experience it.
- 15:13Speaker 1: So as it sounds like. Internalized ableism is when someone
- 15:16Speaker 1: with a disability has internalized harmful, ablest messaging from people
- 15:21Speaker 1: in their life the society we live in that something
- 15:24Speaker 1: is wrong with them, the disability is something to fix
- 15:27Speaker 1: or overcome. As discussed with internalized homophobia, this can lead
- 15:32Speaker 1: to all kinds of negative physical and emotional outcomes, things
- 15:36Speaker 1: like anxiety, depression, shame, and negative body image. It typically
- 15:41Speaker 1: sets in really, really early too. You can read accounts
- 15:45Speaker 1: of especially young children because they see how it impacts
- 15:48Speaker 1: their parents. But anyway, internalized ableism also causes distance within
- 15:54Speaker 1: the disabled community, which we know is the goal of
- 15:57Speaker 1: oppressors and a desire to fit the able this mold
- 16:00Speaker 1: of how bodies should be so yeah, not good, and
- 16:06Speaker 1: it's been reinforced by representation. Another thing we've talked about
- 16:10Speaker 1: the importance of and how disability has widely not been
- 16:16Speaker 1: represented well in our media. And you know it's starting
- 16:20Speaker 1: to change once again slow going. But to combat internalized ableism,
- 16:27Speaker 1: researchers point to education, support, solidarity, and access to safer spaces,
- 16:33Speaker 1: with the understanding nowhere can be completely safe or can
- 16:36Speaker 1: become unsafe. And I was thinking about the importance of
- 16:41Speaker 1: these spaces, and it reminded me of Cript Camp, which
- 16:45Speaker 1: was a feminist movie Friday, we did Yes Yes about
- 16:50Speaker 1: people with disabilities coming together for this camp and just
- 16:53Speaker 1: really enjoy like having it be such an inclusive space
- 16:57Speaker 1: where they can be themselves and all of that. So
- 17:00Speaker 1: go check out that episode if you haven't. And then
- 17:05Speaker 1: I just want to touch on this because I did
- 17:06Speaker 1: see a lot of this when I was looking over
- 17:08Speaker 1: the conversation too, and we've talked about this is just
- 17:13Speaker 1: I wouldn't say argument, maybe just kind of a healthy
- 17:17Speaker 1: conversation about like language, what language should we use, and
- 17:23Speaker 1: people sort of having to confront I don't know if
- 17:28Speaker 1: I would say it's their own internalized ableism, but like
- 17:31Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of changed. At one point, people
- 17:34Speaker 1: with mental illnesses might not have been as welcome or
- 17:38Speaker 1: ours like thought what you would think of when you're
- 17:42Speaker 1: thinking of disability. So one of the advocates I was
- 17:46Speaker 1: reading about, she was like, I always struggled to include
- 17:49Speaker 1: my anxiety because I didn't used to be a thing
- 17:52Speaker 1: that I thought of, even though it does impact my
- 17:59Speaker 1: life and it does fit the definition of a disability.
- 18:04Speaker 1: And then another thing is adaptive technology. This a lot
- 18:11Speaker 1: of our adaptive technologies do have fruits and disability activism
- 18:15Speaker 1: because I need the scene and somebody steps in and
- 18:21Speaker 1: it's like, you know, we need closed captioning, you know,
- 18:24Speaker 1: we need a typewriter, all of this. But with how
- 18:29Speaker 1: far technology has come, there's just so much being talked
- 18:35Speaker 1: about right now about AI and how it could impact
- 18:42Speaker 1: disability technology and just all of this stuff and a
- 18:46Speaker 1: lot of argument and back and forth about that. So
- 18:50Speaker 1: also something to keep an eye on and perhaps a
- 18:53Speaker 1: future EP so maybe Bridget will do it. Yes, yes,
- 18:59Speaker 1: So that's just a handful of things that I ran
- 19:06Speaker 1: into when I was looking up, like what's going on
- 19:09Speaker 1: this Disability Pride? What are we talking about? To get involved,
- 19:14Speaker 1: ARC suggests connecting with folks who have disabilities, educating yourself
- 19:18Speaker 1: about disability history and culture, and advocating for disability inclusion
- 19:23Speaker 1: and rights. And here's a quote from a Psychology Today
- 19:27Speaker 1: article called Disability Pride Expanding the Meaning of Independence Day
- 19:31Speaker 1: by doctor Eva Ritfo. As Americans celebrate Independence Day, Disability
- 19:36Speaker 1: Pride Month invites us to broaden our understanding of freedom itself,
- 19:39Speaker 1: the ability to move through the world with dignity, exercise, choice,
- 19:43Speaker 1: pursue meaningful goals and participate fully in community life. For
- 19:47Speaker 1: many people with disabilities, barriers of building without a ramp,
- 19:50Speaker 1: a website that cannot be navigated, exclusionary attitudes quietly limit
- 19:55Speaker 1: these freedoms. So this was from this year. This was
- 19:58Speaker 1: a twenty twenty six article, and I liked her take
- 20:03Speaker 1: on you know, it's independence, stay, let's think about pride.
- 20:08Speaker 1: Yeah like it, yes, yes, And as I said at
- 20:13Speaker 1: the top, I just really want to reinforce here like
- 20:17Speaker 1: this is when you look at the history of disability activism,
- 20:23Speaker 1: you can see the intersectionality of all of it and
- 20:26Speaker 1: why it is so important and so whether it is
- 20:28Speaker 1: that history of civil rights and the Black Panthers being
- 20:33Speaker 1: a part of these protests for disability rights, or it's
- 20:37Speaker 1: feminist theory and how disability advocates used it but also
- 20:43Speaker 1: realized it where it was exclusionary and failing and leaving
- 20:46Speaker 1: people out and pushing for more inclusivity and just the
- 20:50Speaker 1: diversity of disabilities because it does we need all of
- 20:57Speaker 1: these experiences and voices and being inclusive of that is
- 21:04Speaker 1: it's just gonna uplift this all and make it better.
- 21:08Speaker 1: So yeah, sure, yeah, happy dissability pride, Happy disability pride y'all. Yeah,
- 21:16Speaker 1: and of course as always, let us know if you
- 21:19Speaker 1: have any activities events going on you want to shout out,
- 21:24Speaker 1: organizations you want to shout out. If there's anything in
- 21:27Speaker 1: here you want us definitely to expound upon and you
- 21:31Speaker 1: have resources about it, please send them our away. You
- 21:36Speaker 1: can email us at Hello, at Stuffhenever Told You dot com.
- 21:39Speaker 1: You can find us on Blue Skype, Mom Stuff podcast,
- 21:42Speaker 1: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told
- 21:44Speaker 1: You for us on YouTube. We have some merchandise at
- 21:46Speaker 1: coom Bureau and we have a book you can get
- 21:47Speaker 1: where we get your books things. It's always to our
- 21:49Speaker 1: super producers Casey and Rima and our executive producer Maya.
- 21:53Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
- 21:56Speaker 1: Never Told You to protect you. I Heart Radio. For
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