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.
From Stella Young
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.
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.
I am not a snowflake. I am not a sweet, infantilising symbol of fragility and life. I am a strong, fierce, flawed adult woman. I plan to remain that way, in life and in death.
I identify very proudly as a disabled woman. I identify with the crip community. I didn't invent the word 'crip'. It's a political ideology I came to in my late teens and early 20s.
For me, in some ways, my whole life is a bit performative and always has been - because I'm stared at and looked at everywhere I go.
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.
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.
If everyone's looking at me, I might as well say something interesting.
For me, disability is a physical experience, but it's also a cultural experience and a social experience, and for me, the word 'crip' is the one that best encapsulated all of that.
26 perspectives
17 perspectives
13 perspectives
11 perspectives
3 perspectives
2 perspectives