How I Learned to Claim Crip

For the first time since I arrived in DC, I'm actually kind of wishing I was somewhere else. And where might you ask, do I wish I was? Where could I possibly want to be besides this awesome city? Well, Orlando, Florida, of course! No, I don't want to go to Disney World, although that would be fun, and I'm not missing the notorious Florida summer heat. No, it's nothing like that. I wish I was in Orlando right now because that's where the Society for Disability Studies Conference is happening.

 I love SDS. Last year's conference in Denver, Colorado represents a huge shift in my personal journey. It is the plot change in the middle of the story, the fork in the road, the defining moment. To be honest, I don't know if I would be sitting here in DC, without it.

Let me explain. I ended up at SDS because the professor I was doing research with submitted a proposal and we got accepted for a poster presentation. There was a whole large group of us, but it was really important to her that I go, because she thought it would be good for me. So, that was the set of circumstances that landed me in Denver. I wish I could really put into words everything that transpired over those few days. I can't. I can tell you it changed everything, though. The people I met challenged me to look at things in a different way. I saw for the first time that advocacy--no activism-- could belong to me, and not just my mother or my friends. Most important of all, I found a community.

 For the first time in my life, I really felt like I was part of something. I met people who shared experiences that I thought belonged to me alone. I learned to speak a new language with words like ableism, crip, and privilege. I learned that my experiences mattered, that the life I live is valid. I met people who still continue to teach me so much. I saw for the first time the shared history of disability. I understood that my disability made me part of something, instead of separating me from it. I remember the first time I heard someone use the word "crip" it made me uncomfortable.

Despite what I told my friends back at school, disability pride was a foreign concept to me. Disability just was. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it wasn't something to be proud of. It was at best something to try and ignore. I didn't know how to make disability part of the life I wanted when it just seemed to always be getting in the way. The friends I met there would call me out (lovingly, of course) when I  would express internalized ableism and oppression. I learned that my experiences and the experiences of my community are valuable. I learned that  blending in wasn't always the best option. It was like a light switched on in my head, and everything changed. Now, disability didn't just have to do with me, it had to do with my community.

 It was in Colorado that I found my passion. It was in Colorado where I first started feeling that it may be okay to talk about this stuff. When we first arrived, my mother commented that she felt like an outsider, being one of the few able-bodied people in the room. I laughed and said now she knew what I felt like every day of my life. She tells that story often. I think it's emblematic of the experience. Everything changed, everything switched, for the first time that I could remember I wasn't the outsider. It wasn't able-bodied people talking about disability and disability issues, it was disabled people talking about and giving voice to our own lived experiences.

I wish I was in Orlando. Not for Disney World or Universal, but because SDS showed me how to claim crip, and that means everything to me.