Today I’m coming out as a cripple. I’m not talking about acknowledgement of physical impairment but about claiming identity as a crip.
In some ways this decision follows the same pattern as calling myself dyke (at age 19, many years after I understood I liked girls, several years after I started having sex) and naming myself a writer (years after I started selling fiction). There is a world of difference between being physically impaired and claiming crip. When I say I’m claiming crip it means it’s time for me to talk about disability as a political and relational issue. (Disabled is a relative term; its meaning is not fixed. Cultural ideals of normalcy vary from place to place, time to time, and culture to culture.) For me disability is not a medical problem. My impairment is not the problem. Cultural attitudes and built environments are the problem.
In 1993 I was diagnosed with MS; I’ve never hidden its physical effects.1 I’ve been publicly using a cane, then double crutches, for nearly 20 years; last time I was Guest of Honour at a convention I used a power chair; the bio on my latest novel is clear about the fact that I have MS. I have also regarded my MS and its consequences as a tedious, time-consuming thing Over There, separate from my real life. My illness, I reasoned, was a personal difficulty that took a lot of bandwidth to mitigate; why give it any more attention than necessary?
I came to think of this stance as the Small Dog Theory of illness: keep the irritating, yappy little hairball fed and watered and it won’t annoy you as much.
The Small Dog Theory is a load of rubbish.
As I become less physically able—as I start using a wheelchair sometimes, as I prepare to buy a car with the express purpose of converting it to hand controls—I find that my cripness is assuming greater heft. Being a cripple is taking up more and more space. It does not and cannot exist separately from my life. Every time I want to go out for coffee, or a beer, or dinner, every time I’m asked to speak somewhere I’m faced with attitudinal and environmental obstacles. I have to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy asking questions and explaining.
I begin, of course, with whether or not the venue provides step-free access. Oh, yes, I’m generally assured. So then I have to make sure that the hosts or organisers understand what that means. Most know enough to work out that if there’s a flight of steps up to the entrance, the venue is not accessible. (Though you’d be surprised at how many think two or three steps is the same as zero steps.) Many people don’t think beyond that. I’ve lost count, for example, of the number of bookshops that have no bathroom on the main floor—and no elevator. Yet the managers still call their store accessible. You want me to speak at your conference from a stage or raised platform? Great. How do I get up there? And when I get there will there be an adjustable-height microphone and a chair (because I can’t stand for an hour)? Will there also be a small table (because if I’m not standing I can’t use the podium)? How far away is parking? How far is it from the entrance to the table/stage/counter? Importantly, are there automatic doors?
Frankly, doors are the bane of my life. In most restaurants, bars, and hotels, for example, public bathrooms have massive, spring-loaded slabs for outer doors. (Why? To keep muscular germs away from the unsuspecting public?) These doors are physically impossible to open while using double crutches or a wheelchair. They are also hard for small children and those accompanied by small children; they’re difficult for the elderly, for those with painful joints, anyone in a cast… (The list is almost endless.)
Take a moment. Imagine how it feels to be an adult and have to ask help to get in and out of the fucking bathroom.
Inaccessible bathrooms are not a problem I should have to solve; they are a problem of the built environment, of urban planning, of economics, and of political awareness and will.2 I’m tired of that. So today I’m making a conscious choice to begin to talk about political issues relating to disability.
Would I rather not be a cripple? Yes. I’d love to run again. I’d love to go for a walk. I’d love to even be able to carry my own pint from the bar to the table or plate from the buffet. I’d love to just show up at a bookshop in the carefree knowledge that I can access everything I need. I’d love to be able to get in and out of any cab, car, train, plane, or boat without constantly checking on its specs or whether the driver knows to drop me/pick me up right outside the entrance. None of that will happen; there is no cure for MS. But there is a cure for ableism.
The world has to change. We all need to start helping the world to change—to learn to think about access issues and attitudes. Because it’s unjust for those with the least access to political power to always be the ones to think about it. And, as studies have shown, it’s allies who make diversity happen, not those who are discriminated against.
I’ll give you one example of what needs to change: the Washington State Democratic Caucus. This is my first presidential election as a US citizen. I wanted to find out how to make my voice heard despite the fact that I couldn’t attend in person. It was not easy. I had to email the local party three times before I got a response on how to do it. Most voters probably wouldn’t bother.
Caucuses attract those who are:
- Able-bodied (mobility, sight, hearing—how many ASL interpreters do you suppose they had standing/sitting by just in case?)
- Time-rich (those with the leisure to spend several hours of a precious Saturday afternoon in non life-maintenance tasks, like rich people, or students—how many minimum wage earners, how many single mothers, how many carers of the sick and elderly can get there?)
- Socially at ease (how many agoraphobics, or those on the autism spectrum, or with social anxieties?)
- Politically educated (I’ve talked to a few people who didn’t even know what a caucus was, or how to find out where to go)
- Etc. (This list, too, is almost endless…)
Is this the epitome of democracy? No. There are too many barriers to entry. Voting should be easy, as close to friction-free as humanly possible. For that reason caucuses, in my opinion, should be discontinued in favour of primaries using postal ballots.
As I say, that’s just one example of the kind of thing that’s now on my radar. I’ll be exploring further what it means to be disabled in this culture. I may explore in person, on this blog, in essays, or in my fiction. I’m not sure yet.
To mark the occasion of claiming crip, on Friday May 13th I’m doing an event with artist Riva Lehrer3 at the Pacific & Western Disability Studies Symposium, at the University of Washington, Seattle. This year’s Symposium is subtitled Making Disability Public: Art, Scholarship, and Activism. It seems apt.
I’ll talk more about that event in a week or two. For now, save the date.
1 I’ve talked on this blog about the etiology of MS; I have a page on this website dedicated to what I need if you want me to come to your convention/bookshop/school. I’ve found that no matter how superficially appealing hiding the truth can seem, it ends up a waste of everyone’s time and energy. And it’s damaging. I learnt that by the time I could decide anything for myself. Perhaps one day I’ll write another post—it will be long—about all the different coming outs of my life so far. But today is not that day.
2 Don’t even get me started on gendered bathrooms. Idiotic, discriminatory, and occasionally quite literally deadly.
3 Riva created MIRROR SHARDS: NICOLA/SNOW LEOPARD, a portrait of me. Here’s a post about the process—though that’s not the whole story. I’ll be talking about it at the symposium.
Nicola Griffith 
The comment that always gets to me is, “Oh no, we don’t have a lift/accessible toilet/ramp – we don’t get any customers in wheelchairs.” OK, now think about what you’ve just said…..and sometimes the penny drops. Not always! We went to The Deep in Hull last week, and I made a point of commenting on how excellent their accessibility guide is. They really did think of everything. I wish this wasn’t so unusual!
I miss the days when I could be spontaneous.
@heather oh god, me too!
My sister-in-law, who has trouble walking, was unable to vote at her Minnesota caucus site because there were no provisions to help her. She wasn’t the only one.
I watched my in-laws age in their home and saw how life there became more and more difficult for them because when it was built and when they remodeled it, no one considered the possibility people who had difficulty walking would visit them, or live with them, or be them.
Thank you for this .. I worked for years in estates design in the health service and had endless arguments about automatic doors. They cost too much I kept being told and they’d be cut from project budgets… but if the door isn’t automatic it has to have a huge power load on the closer to comply with fire regs. It felt sometimes like the very people who most used our services were literally being shut out!!
First, hugs and hoorays to you!
Second, this reminds me of a friend who also has had MS for a long time. She wanted to be a dancer, so a local dance company choreographed a piece with a (central) role for her. Her crutches and her movement limitations were an essential part of the piece, something that bound the movement of the other dancers together instead of being a separate, let’s-ignore-it element.
For those of us who are able-bodied, we need to constantly be wrenched out of our own mindset and more conscious about those who do not share our own blithe reality. Thank you, Nicola (and Heather, and everyone else who “miss the days when I could be spontaneous” – oh, that made my heart ache). Please, keep us aware, make us think, help us see and feel.
Thank you for writing and posting this. I am active on the accessibility committee of my city’s Pride Festival. Last year was the first year the festival was really big, and we realized in hindsight how poor our accessibility was. It’s difficult in an older city, but we have to do better, so we’re working on it. We think our audit checklist is complete, but there might always be something else that has escaped our notice. We have to keep in mind all sorts of access needs. I am going to send a link to this blog to our chairperson. I’m sure she will be interested!
@Will Universal design is the way to go. Everytime someone I know moves into a house/flat with stairs I shake my head and think, You will not be able to age in place…
@Anne If I could change one single thing, it would to automate doors.
@Deborah That’s brilliant.
@Sharon Oh, I will!
@Véronique Accessibility isn’t easy, no. But the more we make it part of our initial thinking on anything, the easier it gets.
Congratulations and thanks. It’s great good fortune for other crips who now have such a skilled writer in our number. Your “small dog theory” perfectly encapsulates that state of awareness which often precedes this coming out crip.
@Jesse Thank you.. I have to say, it’s weird coming out AGAIN! Tuh.
In 1996 my wife showed her first symptom of relapsing-remitting MS. From that point until 2014 I was her primary caregiver. From the first symptom we made a conscious choice to pack as much travel and life in as this illness would allow.
To this day I am appalled at the lack of inclusion and courtesy given to people who are disabled. It’s a constant message that they’re in the way. Really? Tell that to Stephen Hawking.
My wife died in 2014 and in her last five years of life she chronicled the obstacles her disease created. I haven’t found the strength to take the blog down. If anyone is interested, here is the address:
grace2wheelmydayswithms.blogspot.com
I hope the days of kindness you have outnumber the harder days in life’s ledger.
I love that you used the word cripple and crip! That’s what I am, I don’t need to hear physically disabled or whatever, I’m reminded of the wonderful George Carlin sketch. This disease sucks.
Eagerly awaiting sequel to Hilde!
@John it’s so sorry about your wife. Thanks for the link. I’ll take a look.
@Lori It’s a word that makes some people uncomfortable, I think. But it works for me so :: shrug ::
So true. We went to Spokane last August and specifically asked for a special needs room. The door to get into our room was so heavy that it was difficult to move (the bathroom door was a slide into the wall variety. I couldn’t imagine if we had to open that door with crutches or a wheel chair…i don’t think we could have.
It’s always really heartening to me when people I admire also turn out to be people who face similar health/societal issues as me. I got sick when I was 19 and training as a physicist, and it’s a constant process of learning and relearning about worth and the right to take up space in a world which determines both to be dependent on your economic activity.
Thank you for speaking so well on the nature of inaccessibility and the crip identity. I’m a disability activist in Scotland, and we’re facing a kind of apocalypse at the moment because of the actions of the UK government. It has been called, not hyperbolically, a cull. I’ve had to write about the similarities in rhetoric between the years leading up to Action T4 in Nazi Germany and our current government and media, and it’s really hard to explain to people that a significant portion of disabled people’s lack of economic activity is down to lack of access, not lack of ability or will.
So thank you for highlighting some of the ways able-bodied people just do.not.get what access actually means, and how it could be changed for the better.
Alas, I understand – I am not afflicted by anything as specific and diagnostic as MS nor am I yet at the stage of cruthces or a chair – but over hte last couple of years something has DEGENERATED in my hips and it’s hard to remember a day without pain. My doctor thinks it might be bone (arthritic in nature maybe) and my physio thinks it is something soft-tissue related (but without being specific about it) and those two kind of cancel each other out – but the pain remains. I am not classifed as disabled and I don’t think I am ready to go there yet but anyone who might have seen me at theWOrldcon in Spokane might have got an inkling of the problem – I was crawling around that convention center like a particularly fragile ninety-year-old and in the end I wound up having to borrow my post-stroke-mobility-imapired husband’s cane to keep moving (leaving him parked somewhere while I got with the help of his cane to where I needed to be…) So I hear all this and I understand… and you have all my sympathy. And yes, sometimes it is hard to comprehend how some people just don’t see stairs…
This mirrors so much of what I’ve been thinking lately. And yes, like @heather, I miss being spontaneous! A local activist has been suing restaurants to make them actually meet ADA requirements, and while the newspaper has been complaining about how the lawsuits are hard on small businesses I’ve had to applaud him. I can easily get into and use all the bathrooms in those restaurants now.
I use a walker, and I have a big complaint. So many of the access ramps into and within buildings are designed for wheelchairs, so it doesn’t matter that the ramps are way around to the back. Wheelchair users don’t need to walk, so the distance shouldn’t (yeah) be a problem. For those of us in walkers, and those who hand-propel their wheelchairs, that’s a very big problem. If I’m exhausted by walking around the building to just get in the door, what’s the point?
Thanks for doing this.
Many years ago we wanted to invite a disabled author to a convention. I was told than the hotel was accessible and we got a special room that was closest to everything. But then I borrowed a wheel chair and tried to navigated everywhere. I was in my 20’s and still healthy and discovered what a slight rise and 6 inch ramp/bump really means. And yet there was no viable alternative. I had to tell the Author we couldn’t do it. Never really enjoyed working on cons after that because I noticed the lack of disabled fans and authors. Not the only reason, but one I still remember. What I loved most about fandom was the inclusiveness of all people. Once I lost that illusion it wasn’t the same.
Nicola in a prior post you stated, “Lori It’s a word that makes some people uncomfortable, I think.”
I believe it’s time for some people to ‘feel uncomfortable’. Thank you for taking the time and the risk to ‘let’ people feel uncomfortable.
P. S. I miss the hell out of the two of you!!!
Great article. I have arthritis, and, currently , mobility issues. I am an artist but find that most of the things i used to do for inspiration, community or for my own work – are closed to me, Art openings, art museums, even, often, presenting my own work (“No, sorry, there’s not a single accessible cinema in that city that we know of”) are impossible. Crip theory is so empowering, but also disorienting. Who am I if I am not hiding my disablity? Too often, I find, (since I do have a hide-able disability), the focus is on wheelchairs at the expense of other modes of accessibility. When I complained at Pride about the lack of chairs at an evening event I was offered a wheelchair. Is it wrong that I refused and insisted that, next time, seating be provided? Shouldn’t I, and not the able-bodied organizers, decide on how I need to be accomodated?
As an aging caregiver, this post hit home for me. When my husband and I bought our home together, we actually had learned lessons from watching his father age and accessibility. With my special-needs son, accessibility is on a different level, as his is a neuro-disability. But access issues abound, all the same. And it’s a shame. Thank you for this and you’ve given me my own food for thought.
@graniteandsunlight: I’ve been following some of that. It amazes and appalls me.
@alma: It sounds like a tendon issue to me. Consider an MRI. And a cane! I feel for your abandoned-in-place husband :) But conventions–all that walking–seriously need to take these issues on board. I think they’re beginning to do so. But a loooong way to go (pun intended).
@stephen: Hello! (Where are you now? Email me!) I’m with you completely–sometimes others’ discomfort is what it takes for change.
@Em Yes. We get to say what we need.
@caszbrewster: I’m sorry these are lessons you had to learn. But it’s good to be able to learn. So many people can’t or won’t.
I was diagnosed with MS several years ago. I was shocked of course. I knew something was wrong but I had no idea what. I was dropping things and I couldn’t rock climb properly anymore. I was getting progressively weaker.
Then I remembered an email a friend had sent me about Lyme disease. I went on a three month treatment for Lyme. My MS went away. Yes, it was Lyme disease.
A also had a friend who lost his wife to MS. It was terrible. It was only after the autopsy that they realized she had Lyme disease. She never had MS.
Recently one of the participants in the tv show Naked and Afraid was diagnosed with MS. I pushed and pushed for her to get tested. She came back positive for Lyme. She is just starting treatment.
Please get tested for Lyme. It’s worth your time.
Awesome. I agree that we must “come out” as crips, gimps, queers, etc. I really appreciate your outstanding writing, and the comment about zero step is so right on. I thought folks removed no step to zero step would (supposedly) be easier to comprehend…NOT. if u ever in ATL come on by!
I live with inequality as well and since I was trained as a Landscape Architect it makes me even madder that the builders and lawmakers only encourage the ‘minimum’ requirements. For the bottom line of expense builders and lawmakes overlook the value of doing more than less and short change the ever growing population of disabled AND the added benefits to greater public by doing less than optimal designs.
The ADA law is a long fought after blessing but is still an equal opportunity discriminator in that the wording of the law changed in 2011 to exclude all animals that can be trained to ‘service’ the disabled except two types – dogs and mini-horses. For decades there have been service monkeys, who are better able to provide tasks that other animals (dogs, horses etc..) can not. People with ‘other support’ dogs are getting access and services that are not granted to them as vendors are too afraid to ask or verify due to stiff fines. Trying to restrict the illegal on-line sale of false service animal documentation has only limited the disabled persons selection of animals for service. My disability is not served well with dogs and a mini-horse is not a good fit either, so I am disqualified for many government services and accommodations. I have trained and work well with my two my Savannah cats that provide multiple services and are incredibly more suited to my needs. The ADA laws will not grant monkeys or cats the same rights as dogs and mini-horses, only HUD recognizes the ability of other animals to provide services to the disabled community that have a wide variety of needs.
@Harvey: Conventions these days are getting much, much better. Readercon26 was very good in access terms. There’s always room for improvement, of course, but it takes time. But I encourage you to check out conventions and ask about access policies–more and more cons have them.
@Robert: I hear you. And I’m so glad you knocked your Lyme on the head!
@Zan: I used to live in Atlanta. It was much more accessible than Seattle. But it’s been a while…
@Katrina: ADA was just one small step in the journey our culture (all cultures I’ve ever been in) need to take. But it was a good step. Our job is to keep pushing. I hope more people become aware of service animal issues.
Thank you for your post. I am struggling. I am mid-way through the “we’re running out of shit to test you for” cycle of a chronic pain condition, and although I keep a brave face on for everyone, quite frankly I’m at breaking point and not sure how to keep on keeping on. I’ve referred to myself as a cripple many times (jars are the bane of my life, I can’t operate a can opener and I’m starting to worry that holding the cardboard cups from the coffee bars will shortly be beyond me) but it really makes other people uncomfortable. Same if I say disabled, actually, because to look at me I seem fine other than being overweight.
Sometimes I worry that I’m doing myself more damage trying to hold it all together and continue on like normal. I am scared for the future, because I’m becoming increasingly aware of how the world isn’t geared for someone like me. I’m also vastly ashamed of myself for not realising sooner that there was a world beyond my happy-privileged bubble.
So in a way, becoming a cripple has made me a better person, not because I’m overcoming obstacles or any of that feel-good crap, but because it has made me aware that I was a bit of an arse who didn’t ever consider the battles others were facing.
It’s still shit, though.
@Emma: I so hear you. I hope you get things figured out and that you have lots of support along the way. We all know it sucks particularly hard when we have to start being grateful to the disease, whatever it is, for teaching us something. Hang in there.
Thank you for this post! My mother was diagnosed with MS in the early 90s, and her disability has progressed the way it usually does. I’m helping her, right now, to relocate to the east coast so I can help her on a daily basis. And it has been eye-opening. Two-story houses are the norm in NH, so we’re having to look at mobile homes. But even being told of her mobility limitations, realtors don’t SEE the four steps up to the front door as ‘real stairs’, nor do they understand that balancing on one leg while stepping into a bathtub is really hard for her – a walk in shower is NOT the same as a bathtub shower, and it’s infuriating to be told otherwise (over and over again)! No low cupboards in kitchens, no way to securely attach handholds in the flimsy bathrooms that mobile homes tend to have. No way to access the street/driveway with a walker (walking over a gravel path is NOT going to happen!) So frustrating, and I don’t even have the exhaustion/frustration of personal experience going on. As irritated as I get, it’s got to be nothing compared to dealing with feeling crummy on top of dealing with this shit. Definitely time for a cultural shift!
When we enlarged our tiny church (congregation of less than 100) we had an accessible toilet and a lift to the cellar coffee-room put in. At a town-wide, nationally advertised church tour we were the ONLY accessible place. All the big churches just hadn’t bothered. Don’t they have disabled worshippers, too?
@sprogblogger: I loathe and detest gravel! It is evil, dangerous stuff. I hated it as a child (I probably collected enough to cover the playgrounds of ten schools—embedded in my knees) and I hate it as a crutch user and a wheelchair user. And don’t even get me started on showers…
@Irina: Well, no they don’t, because worshippers can’t get to the church or get into it or stay in it. Mutter mutter. Thank you for paying attention to those vital-to-everyone, eventually, details.
I feel exactly the same about bathroom doors! Many are almost impossible with a walker. I think that any business being built or renovated should have to go through the facilities simulating various handicaps so they are truly accessible. Around here in Columbus OH, post offices are the worst offenders. Some have no ramp nor power doors.
Temporary displays in store aisles are annoying and frustrating. Especially when you must use the motorized carts. They are difficult to navigate around and block access to shelves for folks with ambulatory issues. I have delighted in relocating them when they have impeded my progress!
Another thank you from a fellow crip. I was lucky. The accident that left me crippled happened in 1992, the year the American with Disabilities Act took effect. I also have been amazed at what people consider accessible. I have been in more than one bathroom that claimed to be accessible and wasn’t. Having a wide stall with bars on the wall does no good if a wheelchair can’t get by the sink to go into the stall.
Kudos for trying to raise awareness about a huge issue in society that can largely go unnoticed by the population that is not restricted in their movements. However, as effective a tool as language can be, there are other enforcement mechanisms in place that can also help bring about meaningful changes where there are accessibility issues. The ADA and most States have laws requiring most public buildings be accessible. There are of course exemptions and limitations, but there are also significant protections in the law and the DOJ and the state’s do have enforcement mechanisms in place to assist in enforcing compliance. The DOJ has a nice online complaint form which allows you to file a complaint regarding accessibility issues. This link will take you to a good FAQ on the process and allow you to fill out the form.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2016/04/27/supreme-court-wary-of-justice-department-power-in-mcdonnell-corruption-case/
and the one for the State of Washington can be found here: http://www.hum.wa.gov/public-accommodation-pa/disability-in-pa-
They cannot help in every case, but they do look at every complaint and enforce compliance when they can.
Another effective tool for trying to bring about awareness and change is social media. Posting a comment about a specific instance or issue or concern with accessibility or levels of service on a particular business or organizations’ social media site will often bring about a much faster response than a private complaint or comment. Companies do not like to be shown in a negative spotlight. The more avenues used to increase awareness the greater the chance of success. Here is to hoping that everyone has an easier time getting around and can get the tools and facilities they need to accomplish the daily tasks that many people take for granted.
@Terri I too occasionally delight in forcibly rearranging the world to suit me better :)
@Lindalee I so hear you!
@Sarah Thank you. I’m aware of the power of social media. But it doesn’t stop me longing for this shit to fix itself. I got so tired of self-advocating. I have better things to do with my time.
Thank you. I need your honesty (and my own.) it’s so discouraging to have to explain over and over. And the subtle ways some seem to think it’s all my fault, that I’m obviously not trying hard enough to get over it…
Thank you; these are issues that must be raised again and again until enough people get it. I’m not completely disabled, but for the last 15 years my spine has been deteriorating, making it increasingly difficult to stand or walk more than a few steps without support or assistance. Surgery has stabilized it for now, but I’m almost 70; age will eventually undo the fixes. In the meantime, many public ventures and social circumstances are mine fields of potential inaccessibility. Just moving through a crowded restaurant can be an adventure.
The minimal accessibility available is enough for some things, though I doubt I would be able to vote anymore if Oregon had not switched to all mail ballots. I can, for the moment, do most of the shopping I need without a chair or modified car, but it’s not clear how long that will last. And there are some organizations that think about these issues; the last formal presentation I gave before I retired I was able to sit in a chair at a table rather than standing because the organizers had thought of it beforehand.
But we need more than that; lack of accessibility should be the exception, not the rule.
@Nancy I don’t know why some people become attached to blame. Sometimes shit just happens.
@Bruce Ageing sucks. Many of my family have back problems. I suspect it might be in my future, too.
Great piece! I really loved “None of that will happen; there is no cure for MS. But there is a cure for ableism.”
As a lifelong gimp, I do not wish to not be disabled, but I do wish to live in a world not antagonistic to my existence.
I’ve never had to come out as disabled(coming out once was difficult enough, maybe it gets easier?) , but I’ve had to extricate my identity from the social role of disability. Something of a reverse process, and I think we’ve likely landed at similar conclusions; my disability is an integral part of my experience of life.
So now all that’s left to do is change the world ;)
@altairah I think you’re right: we are in roughly the same place. As for changing the world: I’m working on it!
The discrimination that we face isn’t seen as discrimination by able bodied people. Unless they are forced to see that discrimination for what it is i doubt anything will change. We have had a few token disabled politicians in Canada, but I haven’t seen them fight for their own in any significant way.
Excellent post Nicola, throughout I was thinking this, this…exponentially this!
@ADisabledArtist: The fighting for your own thing has its pitfalls. Did you see my piece on how it’s allies who can get things done, not the discriminated-against themselves?
@Heather: Thank you. I get to Boston every two or three years. Maybe we could meet?
Absolutely Nicola, that would be great… and great active disability community here!
@Heather: Fab!
I have only been a crip for a short year. An injury has left me with my constant companions,Lucy and Ethel,my forearm crutches. The word “crip” or “cripple” does make people uncomfortable but who cares.This country has become a nation of hide it under pretty words. Disabled instead of cripple,my favorite,challenged instead of retarded,it’s time to get back to calling things what they are and accepting them for that.
@christine: I use my preferred terms for myself. If someone else tells me they don’t want to be referred to as a crip, I’ll do my best to respect their choice. There are many arguments against ‘retarded’. It’s not a term I would use unless someone asked me to refer to them that way (even then I’d have difficulty, I suspect).
I came across your article and I just wanna say I love your writing style. Oh and yes I call myself a cripple 😊 FabCripple 👌🏽
@Leehle: Thanks. I’m a fan of fabulousness :)