Disability Pride Month

What is Disability Pride Month?
Disability Pride Month, celebrated every July, honors the disability community's history, achievements, experiences, and struggles. Originating in 1990 to commemorate the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the month promotes visibility, awareness, and acceptance of the disability community. It celebrates each individual's diversity and uniqueness while advocating for equal rights and accessibility. Since the first official Disability Pride Month in July 2015, various events, parades, and educational activities have highlighted the achievements and contributions of people with disabilities, emphasizing their strengths and abilities and working towards a more inclusive society.

Disability Rights vs. Disability Justice
Disability Rights primarily focuses on achieving legal equality and protections for people with disabilities. The emphasis is on removing barriers and ensuring access to the same opportunities as non-disabled people through laws, policies, and advocacy. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a key example of disability rights legislation.
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Disability Justice, on the other hand, goes beyond legal rights to address the broader social and systemic issues that affect people with disabilities. It encompasses an intersectional approach, recognizing how various forms of oppression (such as racism, sexism, classism) intersect with ableism. Disability justice emphasizes collective liberation, community building, and the importance of lived experiences and leadership from disabled people, particularly those who are marginalized within the disability community.

Image Source: Business Upturn

Crip Time
Crip time is a concept that highlights the unique relationship between time and people with disabilities. It challenges the conventional understanding of time and productivity by emphasizing flexibility and accommodating the diverse needs of individuals with disabilities. Crip time acknowledges that people with disabilities might need more time for certain tasks and that their schedules might not align with standard expectations due to factors like fatigue, pain, or medical appointments.

The Importance of Disability Pride Month
Disability Pride Month serves several purposes:

• Acceptance and Honor: Celebrating the uniqueness of each person and their disabilities.
• Visibility and Awareness: Promoting awareness of disabilities in mainstream society.
• Self-Acceptance: Encouraging individuals to embrace their disabilities.
• Pride and Unapologetic Identity: Fostering pride in being disabled and being oneself without apology.
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Reflections from HOPE's  Co-Director Elizabeth
Elizabeth's reflections highlight the challenges of navigating work within the constraints of traditional business hours and societal expectations. She discusses the shame associated with not adhering to "normal" business hours and how adjusting her schedule to accommodate her body's needs is a form of disability justice.
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Elizabeth emphasizes that the limitations often attributed to disability are more about societal barriers than the disabilities themselves. She advocates for a shift in perspective, recognizing that society often imposes these limitations rather than them being inherent to the individual.

Personal Experience and Chronic IllnessIn a recent interview, Elizabeth shared a personal story about struggling with chronic pain, fatigue, and illness due to Lyme disease. She discussed the challenges of maintaining a conventional work schedule and the importance of pacing herself to prevent fatigue crashes. Despite having a flexible job, she feels pressure to adhere to traditional work hours, reflecting internalized ableism and unjust societal expectations.
"Doing what we need to take care of our bodies can be hard when we’ve been conditioned to see rest as laziness. I think part of the challenge is found at the intersection of capitalism and ableism, where the societal script says we must be working and productive at all times and if we can’t do that the same way as everyone else, we’re lazy."

She highlighted the importance of creating work environments that accommodate different needs and schedules, challenging the capitalist standards that equate productivity with worth. Elizabeth's story underscores the need for greater understanding and flexibility in workplaces to support individuals with disabilities and chronic illnesses.
"For me, it’s the worry that if I vocalize my need to prioritize pacing in my work schedule, people will question my ability to do my job... I want to talk about this more and encourage us to challenge the rules we adhere to just because we’ve never known anything else, and to think differently about how we can craft work to fit our bodies and not our bodies to fit our work, a thing Disability Justice has known for years."

Disability Pride Month, Disability Rights, Disability Justice, and concepts like Crip Time all contribute to a broader understanding of the experiences and needs of people with disabilities. They promote a more inclusive, accepting, and supportive society. The pride aspect emphasizes that people with disabilities are not defined by their disabilities but by their strengths and abilities. HOPE stands with all individuals with disabilities, and we are glad to cultivate a community that is actively trying to break down the capitalist and white supremacist standards of “work-life professionalism” that we’ve all been conditioned to, where disability or illness don’t mark people as unreliable.