When Self-Acceptance is Political: Some Thoughts on Identity and Body Politics

In another essay, I wrote the words, "I am not pieces of my identities, but layers upon layers of complicated, beautiful, and complex existences that meld together to make me the person that I am."

Recently, I've been thinking about why that is such an important statement for me as a disabled, fat woman living in our society. I've been thinking about the way I show up, and the way my identities shape my experience in the world, particularly in regards to being disabled.

My identities are not pieces of me. I'm not a puzzle that can be broken down and separated into its various parts. My identities are layers that overlap and meld together in unique ways to shape my experiences in the world, and make me the complex, unique, and beautiful person that I am. 

For me, disability is one of those identities. My disability, like my fatness, influences the way I move through the world, but it is not a bad thing or something to be avoided, it is simply one part, and one layer to who I am.

I posted a quote on social media saying that disability is part of what makes our world so beautiful and complex, and the response was definitely mixed.

There were quite a few people who responded and told me that disability is anything but beautiful. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I wanted to unpack a bit more in this essay, because it is not a simple thing.

Like I have said many times before, I personally see disability as an identity, not a problem or a deficit. Like any identity, disability is complex. There are good parts and bad parts to being disabled and living in a disabled body. When I talk about beauty and joy in the context of the disabled experience, that does not negate the difficult parts. Being proud of my disabled identity and culture does not mean I can't acknowledge there are parts of my disability that I definitely don't like. Yes, there are things about my disability I wish I could change, or get rid of altogether, but that doesn't mean that I wish I was able bodied or nondisabled. Don't get me wrong, I know that there are plenty of disabled people who do wish this, and do want a cure, and I have definitely been there in the past, but that's not where I'm at anymore.

For me, being disabled has brought me a community that changed my life. My disability has connected me to people who have become some of my best friends, and greatest loves. Being disabled has given me a history, and a connection to something bigger than myself. My disability is an inextricable part of the person that I am, and I cannot separate the ways in which it has influenced my life and my experiences from any of my other identities.

The truth is when I really take a hard look at it, most of the time when I think about things in my life related to disability that I wish I could change, I realize upon reflection that what I really want to change is ableism. What I mean is, that personally, I've gotten to the point where it's not things like the fact that I can't walk that bothers me, as much as it is the fact that people treat me differently, and oftentimes like I'm less than human because of it. For me, it's not being disabled that's the problem. It's the way the world responds to disability.

Instead of fighting for a cure, I want to fight against the oppression that makes disabled people feel like they are less than nondisabled people. I want to fight against the discrimination, prejudice, and lack of equity experienced not only by disabled people, but by people from a range of marginalized communities.

Most of the time, being disabled isn't actually the difficult part of my life in and of itself, sometimes it is, like when I have chronic pain, or some other medical issue, and I'm not here to discount that. Impairment is real, but most of the time the challenges I face are created by society. I have an impairment, there's no denying that, but when the real problems arise, is when my impairment meets society and there is a mismatch.

Let me explain a little bit more using some examples.

Let's start with an easy one, physical access to buildings. It took me a long time to realize that my wheelchair is not what keeps me out of inaccessible places, the lack of a ramp or elevator is. My wheelchair is not what limits me, in fact it plays a big role in liberating me, and giving me the freedom to move through the world on my own terms. The problem is that we think of ramps and elevators as an accommodation instead of an expectation.

Nobody would ever build a five-story building without stairs because we know people can't fly from floor to floor. Stairs are an expectation. We don't have to wonder if a building will have them if there's more than one story, because we already know it will, but the same is not true for ramps and elevators. Ramps and elevators are still largely seen as something special, or extra, not something expected. That's what keeps me out of buildings, not my chair.

The same logic holds true for other examples. Take the high levels of unemployment in the disability community. When you really look at things, the issue is not that disabled people are universally unqualified or unable to work. While some people's disabilities make traditional work very difficult or even impossible, that's not the case for everyone, but nondisabled people still struggle to see disabled people as qualified and valuable in the same way as a nondisabled person.

This goes beyond work and extends to relationships. The reason that you will so often see stories about somebody asking a disabled person to prom or on a date being cast as "inspirational" or "heartwarming" is because our culture views disabled people as less valuable and less desirable, but it's the culture that needs to change, not disabled people. It took me years of hating my body for things I could not control to get to this point, but I now realize that my body has never been the problem, the way other people view and understand my body is what is problematic.

My disability, my fatness, and any of my many other layers are not bad things. They are not moral failings, or something to be ashamed of, or apologize for. They don't make the broken. They don't make me ugly. They don't make me undesirable. Most importantly, they don't make me any less human or deserving of love and respect and anyone else.

When I say disabled is not a bad thing, it is a political statement, because I am openly proclaiming that the way I move through the world is not where the problem is.

When I talk about disabled joy and disabled beauty, it is political.

When I refuse to apologize for my fat, disabled body, it is political.

Even though these things seem like they are deeply personal, they are political. The way you exist in the world is political, especially if you are marginalized, because our world is set up to systematically advantage some people over others. Our society has declared that some ways of being an existing in the world are inherently better and more valuable than others. Pushing back against that is a revolutionary and inherently political act.

Identity is complicated.

We are all made up of many layers, and some of those layers of afford us more privileges than other layers. For example, the fact that I'm white means that I have privileges based on my race that make it easier for me to exist in our society the way that it is currently structured, but the fact that I'm disabled means that I experience oppression because of that specific aspect of my body that makes navigating the world more difficult and complicated. Nobody is one-dimensional, and the way the layers of our existences come together impacts every single experience we have in this world.

We need to fight against oppression and work to make our world more equitable for everyone regardless of the body they inhabit and the way they show up world. However, just because society oppresses us because of some of our identities, it doesn't mean that those identities are in themselves bad. It's the oppression that's the problem, not the oppressed.

I am disabled. I am fat. I am a myriad of things. I may not always love every part of myself, but I accept the person that I am. I will not apologize anymore for existing in my body, because I have come to realize that my body is not the problem, society is. I will acknowledge the inherent struggle of impairment, but I will also acknowledge the way that struggle is compounded by societal oppression. I will not try to fit my body into society's boxes, and I will not apologize for being different and taking up space.

I will allow myself to be, exactly as I am. I will acknowledge the struggle, but also embrace the beauty of my existence, because there is great power in refusing to see yourself, or your body, as a problem to be fixed.