Author: Alaina Leary
How LGBTQ+ Disabled People Are Celebrating Virtual Pride
Content note: includes mentions of COVID-19 and police brutality toward Black people Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, many in-person Pride events have been postponed or turned virtual. And while I do miss the experience of dressing in an all-rainbow outfit…
How to Make Your Virtual Meetings and Events Accessible to the Disability Community
As meetings and events continue to take place in virtual spaces as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, accessibility is too often an afterthought. Even event organizers and activists who normally work to make sure their in-person events are accessible…
Rooted in Rights Reviews – Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist
The prologue to Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann with Kristen Joiner starts with the words, “I never wished I didn’t have a disability.” It’s a powerful way to begin a memoir, one…
Friendsgiving is my Favorite Queer, Disabled Chosen Family Holiday
Our first Friendsgiving was in a dorm apartment on the third floor; we carried my friend, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, up the stairs along with her manual wheelchair. We drank cheap wine and ate home-cooked turkey…
Rooted in Rights Reviews – Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law
In her memoir Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law, Haben Girma welcomes readers into her world. “I like my deafblind world. It’s comfortable, familiar. It doesn’t feel small or limited,” she writes, and the memoir illustrates that. …
Celebrating My LGBTQ+ Pride Helped Me Find Disability Pride
My first display of public LGBTQ+ pride was the rainbow pin that I attached to my purse in middle school: In the center, a pink triangle with text that read “Out Loud” and rainbow stripes that radiated outward from the …
The Joy of Being Autistic in Spaces Built By and For Autistic People
When Haley Moss, an attorney, visual pop artist, and author from Florida, was 13, she went to the Autism Society of America Conference, a conference dedicated to presentations, discussions, and workshops about autism. It was the first time she’d …
What I Wish People Knew About Being a Young Cane User
Although Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, the genetic connective tissue disorder I have, is lifelong, my symptoms have varied throughout my life. I started using a cane in August or September 2016 to help with balance, stability, stamina, and chronic pain. I don’t …