Words matter. These are the best Stella Young Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
We think we know what it’s all about; we think that disability is a really simple thing, and we don’t expect to see disabled people in our daily lives.
The magnitude of discrimination and stigma faced by people with disability in Australia cannot be underestimated. People do not understand disability, and people fear what they don’t understand.
Apologies are great, but they don’t really change anything. You know what does? Action.
When I was seven and watched an episode of ‘Beyond 2000’ that featured a floating armchair, I thought we’d definitely have one of those by 15, at the latest.
If everyone’s looking at me, I might as well say something interesting.
We fill our lives with all sorts of things that make it easier for us to get along in the world: wheelchairs, crutches, grabber sticks, hearing aids, canes, guide dogs, modified vehicles, ramps, as well as other kinds of services and supports. Disability does not necessarily mean dependence on other people.
People get all up in arms when I describe myself as a crip because what they hear is the word ‘cripple,’ and they hear a word you’re not allowed to say anymore.
We all learn how to use the bodies we’re born with, or learn to use them in an adjusted state, whether those bodies are considered disabled or not.
The thing about living with any disability is that you adapt; you do what works for you.
I grew up in a very small country town in Victoria. I had a very normal, low-key kind of upbringing. I went to school, I hung out with my friends, I fought with my younger sisters. It was all very normal.
We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect.
I have always felt like a loved, valued and equal member of my family.
I have a condition that is included among the 200 or so classified as Dwarfism.
Believe me, people with disabilities are just as concerned about benefit fraud as anyone else. Money spent on those who are not in need is money that isn’t being spent on vital services to support us in the community.
Paralympic sport and other disability sport can and should be celebrated in its own right.
I used to think of myself in terms of who I’d be if I didn’t have this pesky old disability.
Let’s not forget that the Paralympics, just like the Olympics, are built on a rich history.
From pink water bottles for breast cancer to dumping a bucket of ice water on your head for neuromuscular conditions, it seems we’re bombarded by requests to be ‘aware’ of one thing or another.
Even those among us who are lucky enough to love our jobs would have to admit that at least part of the reason we work is to earn money. In between all this work, we like to eat out at restaurants, go on trips, buy nice things, not to mention pay rent and meet the cost of living.
By far, the most disabling thing in my life is the physical environment. It dictates what I can and can’t do every day.
Yooralla is a people pleaser with a very powerful PR machine.
I really love filling out forms – quite fortuitous, really, given that as one of Australia’s 4 million-ish disabled people, ticking boxes and recording my life for other people is what I’ve spent a fair chunk of my time doing.
People with disabilities are simply part of diverse communities in the U.S.
I do not identify as a person with a disability. I’m a disabled person. And I’ll be a monkey’s disabled uncle if I’m going to apologise for that.
In many ways, I’m incredibly lucky to have been born with my impairment and that it’s visible. It means my path has been predictable.
Death is not treatment, even if it’s medically facilitated.
I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve been approached by strangers wanting to tell me that they think I’m brave or inspirational, and this was long before my work had any kind of public profile.
My everyday life in which I do exactly the same things as everyone else should not inspire people, and yet I am constantly congratulated by strangers for simply existing.
The purpose of our justice system is to reflect the values of our society and to punish those who violate our standards.
As a wheelchair user, I am utterly obsessed with toilets, and all my friends know it. A simple invitation to the pub is consistently followed by, ‘Do you know if they have an accessible toilet?’
The Paralympics have for too long been considered the poor cousin of the Olympics. It’s always run after the main games and rarely gets anything like the media coverage.
Disability simulation fails to capture the nuance and complexity of living in a disabled body. And it certainly fails to give a deep understanding of systemic discrimination and abuse faced by disabled people.
For lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We’re not real people. We are there to inspire.
It became very clear to me that Yooralla was not as interested in media coverage that explored issues faced by people with disability as it was in giving a pat on the back to journalists who maintained the status quo by giving readers the warm and fuzzies over their morning paper.
When patronised, I’m unfortunately more flight than fight. Perhaps it’s because I actually feel quite wounded.
I, like many women, buy into patriarchal standards of beauty every day. I very rarely leave the house without make-up. I dye my hair. I wear clothes that I choose carefully for how they make me look to the outside world.
I have a condition called Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI), which has affected my growth and bone strength. In short, people with the kind of OI I have generally experience hundreds of fractures in their lifetime and use wheelchairs for mobility.
Many of us, particularly those of us with disabilities who have faced persistent discrimination throughout our lives, not least when trying to find employment in the first place, take enormous pride in our hard-fought jobs and careers.
In my own home, where I’ve been able to create an environment that works for me, I’m hardly disabled at all. I still have an impairment, and there are obviously some very restrictive things about that, but the impact of disability is less.
Disability is often framed, in medical terms, as the ultimate disaster and certainly as a deficit.
Too often, we fall into the trap of thinking ‘equal’ means ‘the same’ and that we achieve equality by treating everyone identically.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that from puberty onwards, the female body is disgusting and unruly and must be tamed, trimmed and tinted to within an inch of its life before it can be allowed to roam freely in the public eye.
On the whole, my life is and has been wonderful.
I once choked on a chip at a friend’s birthday when I was seven and had to be sent home, as I’d broken my collarbone coughing.