Disability Pride Month - July 2023
Disability Pride Month takes place each July. For some it may be a time to celebrate their individual success and for others to celebrate the feeling of pride about being disabled.
Disability is complex, so disability pride will mean something different to each disabled person. Accepting a disability, neurodivergence or chronic illness is an ongoing journey, and everyone will be at different points.
So, Disability Pride Month may be a time for disabled people to celebrate whatever stage they're at, and for non-disabled people to reflect on the fact that disability is not a negative thing, but simply a fact of life.
Ableism is an issue and results in barriers being created for disabled people.
Disability Pride Month can be a starting point for conversations and raising awareness among people who are not part of the disabled community on how to be better allies and what they can do to support disabled people.
Reflections on Disability Pride Month from
Alice Bennett, Co-Chair of INCLUDE
I have multiple disabling medical conditions - mental and physical, some lifelong, some more recently acquired. Although day to day it is about managing these conditions, my relationship with each of these in terms of my identity is different. Those I have lived with longer and am better at managing I am more at peace with; those developed more recently and with symptoms I am yet to effectively control, I struggle with more. Do I feel proud of any of these conditions? No. But Disability Pride isn't necessarily about feeling pride in your disabilities - pride is the antonym of shame. I have been made to feel shame about my conditions, been made to feel shame about becoming comfortable with disability being part of my identity. So many disabled people have been made (and are still being made) to feel shame. Disability Pride month is so important because it counters that. It is a refusal to accept shame as part of a disabled identity. And whilst I don't feel pride in my disabilities, I do feel proud of things I have achieved despite them, some of them things I was told I would never be able to do.
Disabled people are often creative problem solvers from working around barriers, are often fighters or campaigners from lives spent advocating for themselves and others, and ultimately, disabled people are survivors living in a world that often does not accommodate them. These are all things of which we can be proud of the disabled community. Happy Disability Pride month.
Jade, Disabled Students' Officer
Disabled pride month is a time to remember those who may have passed, whether due to their disabilities or neglect, and to continue our fight against all forms of ableism. It's also a chance to take pride in our conditions, to educate and to highlight our joys.
As someone who came into most of their diagnoses later in life, I can relate to how it can be hard to sometimes find joy and take pride when struggling with chronic illness. But it's important to remember is that it's not our disabilities that hold us back, if anything that is what ableism does.
Our disabilities give us so many amazing skills, like determination and compassion. Although it is not always all positives, you should always be proud of yourself, disabilities and all.
Resources
- Accessibility at York
- New reasonable adjustments process for staff with a disability or long term health condition
- Disability section of the Glossary of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Terminology
- Disability Guidance
- Accessible facilities on campus
- Disability history reading list: created for Disability History Month by the University Library.
Our actions
- The Disability Inclusion Framework outlines our approach to disability equality, which includes the physical estate, e-accessibility and culture and good practice. There is also a list of achievements made since the framework was created.
Disability related research at York
- Sleep education: time for a wake-up call?
- Supporting people with learning disabilities at the edges of social care in social housing and the private rented sector
- Unlocking nature - a participatory film project to show the benefits of natural spaces, particularly for people with mental illness
- Dr Katie Graham, School for Business and Society, is working on Becoming an 'irregular' art school - a project about collaborating with learning disabled artists which is led by an academic at Leeds.
Watch again
- They hear, but don't listen: experience of disability in higher education - Dr Nicole Brown
- Disability and technology: past, present and possibilities - by members of the University’s Teaching and Learning Team
- Journey to being active: in conversation with Mo Onyett, frame runner, and Beth Moulam, Paralympic boccia player and frame runner
- Access for whom - Dr Ossie Stuart
- Don’t stop negotiating autism and academia - Jason Arday
- Dyslexia superpower: moving from disability through learning difference to advantage - Nigel Lockett
- Countdown to success: marathon runner Charlotte Ellis in conversation