Disability Pride Questions and Answers
This short blog post is for anyone who has ever wondered what Disability Pride was or wished they had language to share with someone who has questions. Questions include “What is Disability Pride?”, “How can Able-Bodied people show respect for Disability Pride?” and more. I am an Autistic, ADHD, and Dyscalculic educator, writer, coach, and workplace strategist. The responses reflect my personal beliefs and do not necessarily reflect the mainstream or most common perceptions of Disabled and Neurodivergent people. Ready to know? Let’s go!
“Not knowing is a strength, not a weakness. It lets us be open to new ideas and different opinions, to a world we may not have known otherwise.”
What is Disability Pride Month?
“Disability Pride Month is an annual observance in July that celebrates people with disabilities, commemorates the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and promotes disability culture and visibility.
Observed every July, Disability Pride Month recognizes the importance of the ADA, which was signed into law on July 26, 1990. It highlights disability culture, history, and community pride. This month challenges the harmful idea that people with disabilities need to conform to norms to live meaningful lives. Their lives are just as full, valuable, and worthy of respect—no more, no less.” (ARC, 2025)
Does it have anything to do with LGBTQ+ Pride?
Not necessarily; although a significant percentage of disabled and neurodivergent people identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community, disability Pride is intricately interconnected to all other groups of people who have unearned disadvantages, like LGBTQ+ people, People of the Global Majority in the West, women and femme of center folks, and other populations. Pride emerged in response to pervasive negative and limiting beliefs, actions, and systems that perpetuated unearned disadvantages in targeted groups.
How can Able-Bodied people show respect for Disability Pride?
I cannot and would not speak for every person who is disabled, but I can say that for myself, I’m hoping that able-bodied people begin to understand that disability is not binary. The perceived division between Disabled and able-bodied people is largely a social construct that shifts and changes shape. Just like how definitions and ideas tied to race and gender have changed, so too have ideas around disability. Before the 1940s, left-handed individuals struggled to achieve full acceptance or even navigate everyday situations (the lack of left-handed scissors being one notable example). That is a type of disability, and it waned in prevalence as prejudice against left-handed people waned.
I’m not sure I follow. Could you elaborate?
I’m happy to. The social model of disability argues that disability is a relationship between the landscape and a person or people in that the landscape disables a person. Western over-culture struggles to accept the notion that the landscape is not a static, unchanging reality. The social model posits that human beings have an impact on the landscape simply by the way we move, much like how rain falls and eventually pools within a valley, culminating in a river. The valley shapes how the rain falls, where it pools, and its direction at first. But over time, the river reshapes the landscape. The influence is multidirectional and fluid. If Able-bodied people understood that the way things have been done is descriptive rather than prescriptive, we could start to create expectations, social dynamics, and ways of being that are inclusive and affirming to people of all abilities.
So, like, are they proud that they're disabled?
The idea of a person being “proud” of being disabled probably stupefies a lot of folks. On the other hand, someone could be offended by this line of thought. I can easily imagine an unfruitful conversation that results in an accusation of ableism. I say unfruitful because an attempt at understanding is likely now ended, and the misunderstanding continues. From my point of view as a Disabled person, I am proud of my ability to survive a landscape that has and continues to disable me. I am proud of my perseverance after encountering judgment, ridicule, exclusion, and discrimination. I am proud of having discovered my neurotype and the ways of being that work for me and my body, even though everything around me gave me no encouragement, space to explore, or grace.
I’d like to know more about Disability Pride. Where can I go?
I recommend visiting The ARC’s website and this article, which describes the history of Disability Pride Month.
A note about the term “unearned advantage”
Unearned advantages is the term I use instead of privilege because it, in my view, better articulates the role of power and how the environment shapes experience. As an example, I am a gender-expansive and Intersex person who is assumed male. Many argue that I have male privilege, but I counter that it is not a privilege to be misgendered and unseen. Instead, I suggest that I have the unearned advantage of being assumed male and tie it to a location.
I get to go to the gym late at night and have no second thoughts about traveling home via public transit. Many women face the unearned disadvantage of having a limited window of time to go to the gym as a safety strategy. This same unearned advantage shifts across space and time.
Many women in East Asian nations report feeling very safe walking late at night. Unearned advantage/unearned disadvantage encourages a richer discourse and exploration of how the environment shapes experience and how to account for inequities.
