Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century

The 37 authors featured in Disability Visibility each have unique perspectives on disability as an experience and an identity. A broad variety of disabilities are discussed, including physical disabilities, chronic illnesses, neurodiversity, and mental illnesses. Likewise, the authors are a diverse group in other ways: they hail from multiple racial, sexual, religious, economic, and gender identities and backgrounds. The presence of such a group in and of itself implies a commitment to intersectional solidarity which, in turn, supports the overarching theme of variation in the disabled experience.

Many essays in Disability Visibility draw explicitly from the authors’ experiences of multiple intersecting oppressions. Entire essays in this collection— such as “To Survive Climate Change, Look to Queer and Disabled Folks” and “Disability Solidarity”—are dedicated to exploring this topic. Others, like Britney Wilson’s “On NYC’s Paratransit, Fighting for Safety, Respect, and Human Dignity,” discuss intersecting oppressions to draw emphasize various points. In Wilsons’s case, she uses an anecdote about dealing with racism to help illustrate how she felt while being sexually harassed by an Access-A-Ride driver.

Other essays in this collection discuss intersectional identity without focusing on oppression. In her essay “If You Can’t Fast, Give,” author Maysoon Zayid describes the unique experience of observing Ramadan as a person with cerebral palsy. While she acknowledges Islamophobia, the majority of the essay is centered on the unique way she experiences Islam as a disabled person and the way her faith has built-in accommodations for her, such as giving alternatives to fasting during Ramadan. This perspective challenges the idea that accommodating disabled people is a new idea and highlights the ways disabled people can find joy and support in communities and institutions, even in a largely ableist society.

Disability Visibility’s diversity extends beyond catering to multiple intersecting identities. To thoroughly represent varying experiences of disability, Wong gathers a diverse range of opinions and philosophical perspectives. For example, some contributors, such as Ricardo Thornton, argue that disabled people are as “normal” as the nondisabled population, especially since being able-bodied is often not a permanent state of being; many people who are born able-bodied become disabled during their lifetimes. He notes that “[p]eople sometimes say that I’m not like some of the other people with intellectual disabilities. The only thing that’s special about me is that people believed in my potential to learn […] and they took the time to help me learn” (88). Others, like Sky Cubacub, make a point to highlight the differences between disabled and nondisabled bodies. These authors are both proponents of disability justice, but they approach their shared goal from wildly different angles.

Disability Visibility’s breadth of variety is not a comprehensive sample of disabled people’s experiences, nor does it claim to be. Notably, every author represented in this text knows what the Disability Visibility Project is and values its mission enough to participate. This is not the case for all disabled people. Despite their similarities, these authors all bring unique experiences and perspectives to Disability Visibility. This text is not a universal guide to the disabled experience; rather, it presents a sample of case studies. This in itself demonstrates the potentially infinite individuality and diversity within the umbrella of disability.