Disability is often framed, in medical terms, as the ultimate disaster and certainly as a deficit.
From my first days in Washington D.C., where I rolled a whole four downtown blocks without seeing a single shop, cafe, bar or restaurant I could not access, to the beautifully accessible buses in New York City, I was in heaven.
In days gone by, short-statured people were not only labelled as ugly, stupid and freakish, they were often owned by aristocrats and treated, at best, as entertainment and, at worst, as pets.
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.
Yooralla is a people pleaser with a very powerful PR machine.
The mere suggestion that not speaking for a day can give you an appreciation of the social isolation that comes with the experience of disability, particularly those whose impairments prohibit them from communicating verbally, is insensitive at best.
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.
Paralympic sport and other disability sport can and should be celebrated in its own right.
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.
It is nothing short of baffling to me how a city like Melbourne, where I struggle to find accessible facilities on a very regular basis, could be considered the most livable city in the world. I suppose it all depends on what makes a city 'livable' for you.
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.
When patronised, I'm unfortunately more flight than fight. Perhaps it's because I actually feel quite wounded.
I quickly learned that asking if an interview space was wheelchair accessible was a bad idea; it gave a potential employer an immediate bad impression. It was either a black mark against my name, or a straight up discussion of why I wouldn't be able to work there because they had no wheelchair access.
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 let go of the notion of wanting someone to ignore the way I look in order to find me attractive, because really, what kind of relationship would that be? One where someone's only attracted to you because they're ignoring a fundamental part of you? No thanks.
Self esteem and a healthy body image for people with disabilities are so often hard-fought.
If everyone's looking at me, I might as well say something interesting.
For me, and for many other people with disabilities, our status as disabled people is one of which we are fiercely proud.
Too often, we fall into the trap of thinking 'equal' means 'the same' and that we achieve equality by treating everyone identically.
