Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, sensory, or a combination of multiple factors. Disabilities can be present from birth or can be acquired during a person's lifetime. Historically, disabilities have only been recognized based on a narrow set of criteria—however, disabilities are not binary and can be present in unique characteristics depending on the individual. A disability may be readily visible, or invisible in nature.
Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social class. The term encompasses various often-populist political phenomena and rhetoric, such as governmental migration policies that regulate mobility and opportunity based on identities, left-wing agendas involving intersectional politics or class reductionism, and right-wing nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic "others."
Disability studies is an academic discipline that examines the meaning, nature, and consequences of disability. Initially, the field focused on the division between "impairment" and "disability", where impairment was an impairment of an individual's mind or body, while disability was considered a social construct. This premise gave rise to two distinct models of disability: the social and medical models of disability. In 1999 the social model was universally accepted as the model preferred by the field.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a Canadian-American poet, writer, educator and social activist. Their writing and performance art focuses on documenting the stories of queer and trans people of color, abuse survivors, mixed-race people and diasporic South Asians and Sri Lankans. A central concern of their work is the interconnection of systems of colonialism, abuse and violence. They are also a writer and organizer within the disability justice movement.
Laura Ann Hershey was a poet, journalist, popular speaker, feminist, and a disability rights activist and consultant. Known to have parked her wheelchair in front of buses, Hershey was one of the leaders of a protest against the paternalistic attitudes and images of people with disabilities inherent to Jerry Lewis's MDA Telethon. She was a regular columnist for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, and on her own website, Crip Commentary, and was published in a variety of magazines and websites. She was admired for her wit, her ability to structure strong arguments in the service of justice, and her spirited refusal to let social responses to her spinal muscular atrophy define the parameters of her life as anything less than a full human existence. She was also the mother of an adopted daughter.
Ecofeminism integrates feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyse relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in her book Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974). Ecofeminist theory introduces a feminist perspective to Green politics and calls for an egalitarian, collaborative society in which there is no one dominant group. Today, there are several branches of ecofeminism, with varying approaches and analyses, including liberal ecofeminism, spiritual/cultural ecofeminism, and social/socialist ecofeminism. Interpretations of ecofeminism and how it might be applied to social thought include ecofeminist art, social justice and political philosophy, religion, economics, contemporary feminism, and literature.
Kay Ulanday Barrett is a published poet, performer, educator, food writer, cultural strategist, and transgender, gender non-conforming, and disability advocate based in New York and New Jersey, whose work has been showcased nationally and internationally. Their second book, More Than Organs received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Literature Finalist. They are a 2020 James Baldwin Fellowship recipient, three-time Pushcart Prize Nominee, and two-time Best of the Net Nominee. Barrett's writing and performance centers on the experience of queer, transgender, people of color, mixed race people, Asian, and Filipino/a/x community. The focus of their artistic work navigates multiple systems of oppression in the context of the U.S.
Southerners on New Ground is a social justice, advocacy and capacity building organization serving and supporting queer and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, uniquely focusing its work in the southern United States through community organizing for economic and racial justice. The organization is unique, as most of the places it does work in do not have an LGBTQ organization like it.
Leroy F. Moore Jr. is an African American writer, poet, and community activist. He was born November 2, 1967, in New York City. He is one of the founders of Krip Hop.
Sins Invalid is a disability justice-based performance project that focuses on artists with disabilities, artists of color, and LGBTQ / gender-variant artists. Led by disabled people of color, Sins Invalid's performance work explores the themes of sexuality, embodiment and the disabled body. In addition to multidisciplinary performances by people with disabilities, Sins Invalid organizes visual art exhibitions, readings, and a bi-monthly educational video series. Sins Invalid collaborates with other movement-building projects and provides disability justice training.
Lydia X. Z. Brown is an American autistic disability rights activist, writer, attorney, and public speaker who was honored by the White House in 2013. They are the chairperson of the American Bar Association Civil Rights & Social Justice Disability Rights Committee. They are also Policy Counsel for Privacy & Data at the Center for Democracy & Technology, and Director of Policy, Advocacy, & External Affairs at the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. In 2022, they unsuccessfully ran for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 7A, losing to state delegate Kathy Szeliga and delegate-elect Ryan Nawrocki.
Crip, slang for cripple, is a term in the process of being reclaimed by disabled people. Wright State University suggests that the current community definition of crip includes people who experience any form of disability, such as one or more impairments with physical, mental, learning, and sensory, though the term primarily targets physical and mobility impairment. People might identify as a crip for many reasons. Some of these reasons are to show pride, to talk about disability rights, or avoid ranking types of disability.
Alexandre Baril, is a Canadian writer and since 2018 an associate professor at the School of Social Work, at the University of Ottawa. He researches sexual and gender diversity, bodily diversity, and linguistic diversity. He considers his work to be intersectional, involving queer, trans, feminist and gender studies, as well as sociology of the body, health, social movements, and of critical suicidology.
Mia Mingus is an American writer, educator, and community organizer who focuses on issues of disability justice. She is known for coining the term "access intimacy". She advocates for disability studies and activism to centralize the experiences of marginalized people within disability organizing. She is a prison abolitionist, and she advocates for transformative justice in her work against child sexual abuse.
Patricia Berne is an author, artist, film director, disability justice organizer and co-founder of Sins Invalid, a disability justice-based performance project that incubates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and LGBTQ/gender-variant artists. They are a founder member of the disability justice movement.
Stacey Park Milbern was a Korean-American disability justice activist. She helped create the Disability Justice movement and advocated for fair treatment of disabled people.
Eli Clare is an American writer, activist, educator, and speaker. His work focuses on queer, transgender, and disability issues. Clare was one of the first scholars to popularize the bodymind concept.
In disability studies, the term bodymind refers to the intricate and often inseparable relationship between the body and the mind, and how these two units might act as one. Disability scholars use the term bodymind to emphasize the interdependence and inseparability of the body and mind.
Disability and LGBTQ+ identity can both play significant roles in the life of an individual. Disability and sexuality can often intersect, for many people being both disabled and LGBTQ+ can result in double marginalization. The two identities, either by themselves or in tandem, can complicate questions of discrimination and can effect access to resources such as accommodations, support groups, and elder care.
Models of disability are analytic tools in disability studies used to articulate different ways disability is conceptualized by individuals and society broadly. Disability models are useful for understanding disagreements over disability policy, teaching people about ableism, providing disability-responsive health care, and articulating the life experiences of disabled people.
