I can't even tell you how/when I started following Isabella. I think it was just one of those casual things where she either showed up in my feed, or commented on a post I had also commented on, but regardless, I'm SO glad we connected!
I saw her post about July being Disability Pride Month, and you should all know by now how much we love boosting people and good causes, so I reached out to see if she'd be interested in writing an article for us! (Obviously ... she said yes! 😂💍)
I see a lot of posts from creators in our community who list that they're disabled in their bios, and I want us to be celebrating them and their unique perspectives as well. We all bring something special to this place, and I love an opportunity to learn something new! So, a huge thank you to Isabella, and cheers to another wonderful friendship I've made here.🥂
~Tasha 💜
(I'm so glad Isabella linked this article with the history of the Diability Pride Flag and what it means, because when I tried searching Wix for an image ... I got nothing. Not a single option for it.)
Every year, during the first week of July, Pride flags are lowered, rainbow confetti is swept up from the last of the events and parades. Corporate logos are quietly replaced, rainbows stripped down to basic red, white, and blue. As June's Pride has ended, most people will carry on with their summer vacation plans, their everyday lives....and people with disabilities will continue to feel invisible and overlooked. July is Disability Pride Month. If there are events or parades at all, they are minimal at best. You will not see the Disability Pride flag on a logo, a banner, a storefront, a tee-shirt. You may be thinking, "I didn't even know there was a disability pride flag." You may be wondering why anyone would celebrate having a disability. You would not be alone in that thought.
Disability Pride has been celebrated since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990. The first celebration was a single day in Boston that year. The first Disability Pride parade took place fourteen years later (!!!) in Chicago. Though the ADA was the legislation that sparked change in a society that has largely excluded those with disabilities, barriers—and not just physical ones, still exist, so we celebrate Disability Pride month to normalize disability and change the idea that there is something "wrong" with being disabled.
Currently, 27% (that's roughly one in four) of the US population has some form of disability [1], with most of those in the form of physical or cognitive disabilities. Disability is the only minority group that anyone can join, at any time. We are in the community and in the workforce. We are creators and consumers. We are your neighbors, your friends, and your family. I have been a wheelchair user since 1992, the end result of a viral infection that cause my immune system to attack my spinal cord. Just barely twelve years old, I adapted to my changed body relatively quickly (too quickly, according to the hospital staff, who proclaimed that I was obviously in denial, and declared me to be "inappropriately cheerful." Really. In my medical records.) Returning to middle school, my main priority to was be myself; that is, to return to the sixth grade pretending that I was still just a regular tween, not one who used a seat in the shower, a watch to remind me to go pee (in the locked staff bathroom, the only accessible option), and the bus with the wheelchair lift that took me, and me alone, to and from school. I truly didn't feel that "denial" was the right word; all I wanted was to be a "normal" teenager, just like all of my friends. With a few decades of experience behind me, I can admit now that twelve year old Isabella wasn't in denial, per se, but by treating my disability as "look I'm just like everyone else, just sitting down!," I developed a sense of internalized ableism [2], which I'm working to unravel, even as my body continues to change due to aging and additional diagnoses.
Though I've been disabled for most of my life, I only heard about Disability Pride Month in the last few years. Because of the word "Pride", the beautiful stripes on the flag, and it taking place in July, immediately following Pride Month, I assumed it was meant to be an extension of Pride Month, one for the LGBTQIA+ community who also happened to be disabled. My discovery of Disability Pride Month was through the instagram of a creator who is both disabled and part of the LGBTQIA+ community, so it made sense to me. With that thought in mind, I quietly sat back (oh is that ever the statement for those with disabilities), thinking that this was not the space for me and my story. As I learned more about it, saw the connection with the passage of the ADA, I felt more comfortable connecting my own experiences with disability. Sometimes, inclusion comes from within. Learning more about what Disability Pride Month was about made me rethink my own disability, and the ways I used to talk about it: "I was paralyzed at 12, but it doesn't really bother/affect me", "I don't really think of myself as 'disabled'", and "I don't let my disability stop me from doing anything."
You know what? Sometimes it does bother me. It affects me, and my family, every day. Sometimes my disability does stop me from doing things. But most importantly, there is nothing wrong with being disabled. As soon as I learned to stop treating disability like something to be ashamed of, I understood Disabled Pride. Sure, my body is different, but everybody's body is different, and as I wrote in a poem in my most recent collection, "Disability is not a skeleton to fear in your closet."
We celebrate the 34th year of the ADA during Disability Pride Month, but barriers—both physical and societal—still exist, so what can we do? What can YOU do? We're all familiar with that focused support during the awareness/pride month for other marginalized groups. Maybe you shopped at more women-owned businesses. Maybe you read more books by BIPOC writers, went to Pride events with your children, watched movies and ate at restaurants and and and...
AND THAT IS WONDERFUL. DO NOT STOP those things! But I'm here to challenge you, to implore you even, to do the same for creators, artists, writers, business owners who have disabilities. As of August 2023, there are still 37 states where it is legal to pay disabled employees LESS than minimum wage [3]. Add to that the social security income limitations, physical limitations, plus the added expenses of caregivers, medical supplies, mobility aids, adapting homes and vehicles to be accessible; I can speak from experience here, having a disability is expensive.
Recognize and celebrate Disability Pride Month. Learn about it, and learn from the people who live it every day. Learn why it’s so important, and offer support in whatever way that may be for you. --
Isabella J Mansfield (she/her) writes about anxiety, intimacy, and body image both generally and as a woman with a disability. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, two-time Best of the Net Nominee and a Write Bloody McCarthy Prize Honorable Mention, Isabella is always looking for ways to bring a little humor into her deeply personal poems, and is almost never sorry to make you cry. She lives in Howell, Michigan with her husband and son.
Instagram and Facebook are @isabellajmansfield.
Request her books, The Hollows of Bone and Lemon at your favorite bookshop to support your new favorite PWD, Poet With a Disability.
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