 | One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. The collection of insightful essays in Disability Visibility articulate the struggles and aspirations of almost forty of them. The book contains writings of people with dwarfism, blindness, deafness, and the blind-deaf. There are writers with neurological disorders and others with congenital physical deficits. For the most part, rather than presenting these conditions as insurmountable, they are often a source of spiritual strength. As Neil Marcus states: “Disability is an art. It’s an ingenious way to live.” |
A.H. Reaume says we:
“need to change the narratives around disability—to insist on disabled people’s humanity and complexity, to resist inspiration porn, to challenge the binary that says disabled bodies and lives are less important or tragic or that they have value only if they can be fixed or cured or be made productive. There is so much that able-bodied people could learn from the wisdom that often comes with disability.”
“need to change the narratives around disability—to insist on disabled people’s humanity and complexity, to resist inspiration porn, to challenge the binary that says disabled bodies and lives are less important or tragic or that they have value only if they can be fixed or cured or be made productive. There is so much that able-bodied people could learn from the wisdom that often comes with disability.”
 | This perspective is expanded by Ellen Samuels in her exploration of “crip time”: “rather than bend disabled bodies and minds to meet the clock, crip time bends the clock to meet disabled bodies and minds. [Crip time] forces us to take breaks, even when we don’t want to, even when we want to keep going, to move ahead. It insists that we listen to our bodyminds so closely, so attentively, in a culture that tells us to divide the two and push the body away from us while also pushing it beyond its limits.” |
The most impactful essay for me came from Patty Berne. She says, “The history of disabled queer and trans people has continually been one of creative problem-solving within a society that refuses to center our needs.
Whether we’re looking at ecology, society, or our human culture, diversity is our best defense against the threats of climate change.
We must move beyond our cultural beliefs that tell us we are worth only as much as we can produce. Just as each component in Earth’s ecosystem plays a vital role in supporting everything around it, so do each of us have an essential role to play in sustaining our communities, our environment, our planet.
Even in the moments when we’re in pain, when we’re uncomfortable, when the task ahead feels overwhelming and we feel defeated by the sheer scope of everything that’s wrong in the world, we don’t have to give up on life or on humanity. Queer and trans disabled people know that, because that’s how we live. At this moment of climate chaos, we’re saying: Welcome to our world. We have some things to teach you if you’ll listen so that we can all survive."
Whether we’re looking at ecology, society, or our human culture, diversity is our best defense against the threats of climate change.
We must move beyond our cultural beliefs that tell us we are worth only as much as we can produce. Just as each component in Earth’s ecosystem plays a vital role in supporting everything around it, so do each of us have an essential role to play in sustaining our communities, our environment, our planet.
Even in the moments when we’re in pain, when we’re uncomfortable, when the task ahead feels overwhelming and we feel defeated by the sheer scope of everything that’s wrong in the world, we don’t have to give up on life or on humanity. Queer and trans disabled people know that, because that’s how we live. At this moment of climate chaos, we’re saying: Welcome to our world. We have some things to teach you if you’ll listen so that we can all survive."
 | Liz Moore explores the tension between disability and able-bodiedness: There is a persistent belief amongst abled people that a cure is what disabled people should want. To abandon our disabled selves and bodies and assimilate into a perhaps unachievable abled skin. I am so tired of trying to bargain with the universe for some kind of cure. The price is simply too high to live chasing cures, because in doing so, I’m missing living my life. I know only that in chasing to achieve the person I once was, I will miss the person I have become. |
The collection closes with two impactful stories: in one, Jamison Hill, a disabled man who has lost the ability to vocalize longs to tell his lover how much he loves her. When he manages to painfully squeak out the words “I love you,” she can’t understand what he’s saying.
In the second, Stacey Milburn describes the joy of witnessing a performance of disabled dancers in wheelchairs. After the performance the audience disperses, and the narrator wheels to the subway, still ecstatic from the performance. But, “the elevators are, as usual, out of order.”
Disability Visibility precedes the equally transformative work I reviewed previously, Disability Intimacy. I borrowed both from my local library. Highly recommended.
In the second, Stacey Milburn describes the joy of witnessing a performance of disabled dancers in wheelchairs. After the performance the audience disperses, and the narrator wheels to the subway, still ecstatic from the performance. But, “the elevators are, as usual, out of order.”
Disability Visibility precedes the equally transformative work I reviewed previously, Disability Intimacy. I borrowed both from my local library. Highly recommended.
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