My disability exists not because I use a wheelchair, but because the broader environment isn't accessible.
Disability doesn't make you exceptional, but questioning what you think you know about it does.
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.
We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect.
The killing of a disabled person is not 'compassionate'. It is not 'euthanasia'. It is murder.
The thing about living with any disability is that you adapt; you do what works for you.
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 used to think of myself in terms of who I'd be if I didn't have this pesky old disability.
I currently live independently without any funded support. I'm educated, and I'm employed. I enjoy paying my taxes and contributing to the economic life of Australia.
I tend not to think about living to some grand old age. Then again, I don't think about dying, either.
The purpose of our justice system is to reflect the values of our society and to punish those who violate our standards.
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.
I do sometimes painful things to my body in an effort to conform to culturally imposed beauty ideals.
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.
I use the term 'disabled people' quite deliberately, because I subscribe to what's called the social model of disability, which tells us that we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses.
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.
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.
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.
I don't generally talk about medical terms when I discuss my position as a disabled person. I take a social rather than medical approach to disability, and so long Latin names for congenital conditions are not relevant.
Apologies are great, but they don't really change anything. You know what does? Action.
