Disability Pride Month: Community members highlight the need for awareness and celebrating identities

As we celebrate Disability Pride Month in July, four individuals from the community highlight the need for awareness and celebrating identities

The month’s aim is to visibilise the experiences of persons with disabilities. Celebrated annually in the USA, Disability Pride Month commemorates the Americans with Disabilities Act passed on July 26, 1990, that prohibited discrimination against people with disabilities across fields and spaces.

Artist and illustrator Ritika Gupta speaks about the importance of the month from an Indian context, as a means to bring awareness about the experiences of people at the intersection of two marginalised identities — queerness and disability. The month is not an extension of June’s pride month, but one that includes and voices the experiences of those left out of heteronormative models, queer aesthetics, and identity constructs that are inaccessible to all. 

Trishala D, writer and founder of Bedridden Revolutions explains, “Disabled people have for the most part been erased within queer movements, as it is inaccessible for wheelchair users, long pride walks might be hard for those with chronic fatigue, and it might be difficult for crips to keep up with queer aesthetics and desirability.” This increases the need for visibility of experiences and acknowledgement of identities. “And these identities are also not monolithic in any way. There is no one way of being queer just like there is no one way of crip; I use ‘crip’ because this vocabulary of reclamation resonates with that of ‘queer’,” Trishala points out. The writer began Bedridden Revolutions last month as a repository to honour revolutionaries who lead from their beds, changing the space from one of limitation to one of power.

Accessibility and visibility

Abhishek Anicca, poet, writer and founder of Dislang Mag shares that we are still far from representation. He maintains that the month isn’t widely celebrated as the experiences of those who do not have access to social media, vocabulary, agency or are restricted due to caste and class, fall through the cracks. “The spectrum of the month needs to be broadened to include all, and offer space to listen to varied experiences and what pride means to them,” he adds.

Illustrated by Ritika Gupta

Trishala upholds the need for visibility, recognition, and acknowledgement. “Because there are so many ways of being crip, ill, disabled, and neurodivergent, and not everyone has the privilege to tell their stories. But by recognising such identities we leave space for them to breathe.” They stress on the need to visibilise this identity that will further urge us to do better, and reassess our politics and activism by locating ableism in social movements to initiate impactful change.

Pride, not in isolation

Anicca speaks about the movement as assertive pride, as the marginalisation of the community goes unnoticed and persons with disabilities are forced to become activists.  “In this manner, pride isn’t celebrated because society makes us feel proud, it is asserted because we have to rely on ourselves to generate pride and reclaim this identity.”

Nu Mishra

Pride does not come without shame, grief and vulnerability, Nu Mishra, writer and founder of Revival Disability Community, says, adding, “Pride emerges from fighting for our agency and identities, removing the stigma that disabled bodies are lazy or unattractive or shameful.” Recognising this identity would mean that people would have to alter discourses around queerness and disability keeping experiences across the spectrum in mind, Gupta maintains.

Abhishek Anicca

The way forward

Trishala says, “Every time I am met with questions on how society can do better, some bitterness is inevitable. I want to say, ‘You people made this world the way it is, now you fix it, but obviously I must elide such crudeness for solidarity’s sake.’ It is unlikely that I am going to say anything that non-disabled people don’t already know. So I will say, ‘Strive to create a better world!’” Read and listen to begin the journey of change facilitated by unlearning ideas formed by ableist perspectives; how we look at disability, rest and productivity, independence and agency, sexuality, love and its expression. Gupta adds, “Every day I fight with my internalised ableism, seek community care to understand that my autistic needs are justified and worthy of being met.”

Bedridden Revolutions illustrated by Trishala D

“We don’t have to overcome our disabilities to fit into an able-bodied world; we want to build a world that honours our being the way it is. We don’t just want integration; we want a world where we don’t have to fight to survive. There is no one month that is enough to celebrate the brilliant ways in which we exist,” 
Trishala concludes.

Log on to @artistic._license; @bedriddenrevolutions; @dislangmag and @revivaldisabilitymag

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