Anonymous

Disability Rights Washington Reflects on 35 years with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Posted on October 20, 2025February 13, 2026 by Anonymous

July 26, 2025, marked the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – a landmark piece of legislation that expanded certain civil rights to people with disabilities. The ADA ensured inclusion and access where there had previously been segregation, exclusion, and physical barriers. In King County, Washington, Disability Rights Washington marked the moment with a Disability Pride Celebration hosted by King County’s Executive, Shannon Braddock, and the Office of Equity, Racial, and Social Justice. The event featured information about disability rights movements from the past and present, and highlighted both recent wins and present threats to the disability community. While guests enjoyed a buffet brunch, we listened to speakers discuss what disability pride and the ADA means to them. July 26^th is designated as Disability Pride Day in King County to celebrate the continuing contributions of people with disabilities. King County issued a proclamation demonstrating its continued commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. The proclamation further commits to the principles of “Nothing About Us Without Us” – ensuring people with disabilities have a voice in matters that affect us.

Reading King County’s Disability Pride Day Proclamation, ADA Specialist Darya Farivar reminded us how we got here, “the disability rights movement was born out of urgent necessity and was led by activists who took personal risk and demanded change including the 1990 Capitol Crawl.”

Accepting King County’s Proclamation, Eric Mathes discussed the importance of the anti-discrimination aspects of the ADA; “On this day, July 26th 1990, George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act. I was 13 years old…the ADA protects against discrimination [and], for public service, it says people with disabilities must have an equal opportunity to benefit. [The ADA is] a life with support from family and friends, having a great education, being active in the community, and being, myself, an activist.”

It has been difficult to feel celebratory as we moved through Disability Pride month amidst federal attacks on the ADA, the disability community at large, and other marginalized communities targeted by the current administration. King County’s event, as well as the many ADA celebrations across the country, offered a moment to reflect and reconnect with the movement that led to the ADA and the power that community can have when we come together.

“While some people in this moment are scared to move forward, they are wondering if we should be doing equity events. We are not asking permission. It is the right thing to do; and we will continue to do it,” said Office of Equity, Racial, and Social Justice Director Monisha Harrell.

For Erin Musser, a disabled activist, the event was a space for disabled people to “just [be] able to exist.” While our current systems continue to marginalize many in our disability community despite the ADA, the idea of simply being able to exist is becoming increasingly radical. Current Medicaid cuts, immigration enforcement, and executive orders like Trump’s criminalization of homelessness target the disability community directly.

How should we and our allies show up in a world where the federal government is scrubbing words like “disability” “equity” “accessibility” and “race” from its documents and threatening funding from equity-based programming?

Our political climate demands the same level of urgency today as we needed to create the ADA. The rights we celebrated at this event are now under threat. For the disability community, there should be nothing about us without us, but we also need our community to move with us. Will you join us both in celebration and in the continuing fight?

About Rooted In Rights

Rooted in Rights exists to amplify the perspectives of the disability community. Blog posts and storyteller videos that we publish and content we re-share on social media do not necessarily reflect the opinions or values of Rooted in Rights nor indicate an endorsement of a program or service by Rooted in Rights. We respect and aim to reflect the diversity of opinions and experiences of the disability community. Rooted in Rights seeks to highlight discussions, not direct them. Learn more about Rooted In Rights

Considerations for the Disabled Job Seeker

Posted on August 8, 2025 by Anonymous

Searching for a job is pretty much always a bad time, but there’s no denying it’s even harder when you have a disability. Many jobs ask if you need accommodations to apply. It’s supposed to be a benefit and make the process more fair, but I wonder if it’s not also, sometimes, a screening device. I’ve been job searching for months now and I always self-identify as having a disability even amidst the nagging doubt that I shouldn’t. While being disabled is a legally protected class, enforcing equity in an application process is almost impossible to do as an individual applicant. Though I wonder if my self disclosure takes me out of the running before I’m even interviewed, I wish employers knew how much thought and consideration I, as a disabled applicant, put into my choice to apply. Before even clicking “apply,” I’ve already answered a multitude of questions for myself.

Do my skills match this job?

This is the most basic question that any job seeker asks, I think. Do I have the qualifications to match the requirements for the position, and could I do well in the role? I can often say yes to this. I consider myself a bright, talented person who can accomplish most any task under the right circumstances… which leads to question two:

Does this job work for my physicality?

This is where I have to start being brutally honest with myself. I’m looking for something that’s primarily seated. I can stand and walk, but I need to ask myself whether as a person with physical disabilities: can I stand for an hour today, or can I do it daily? Could I do this job for eight hours a day, five days a week? If I could, would it be to the detriment of everything else in my life? I mean, it’s great to be able to do the work, but if the rest of my time is simply spent recovering rather than experiencing any type of relaxation or recreation or joy… well that’s not sustainable.

Is this job sustainable for me?

I tend to look at nonprofit work because it aligns with my personal belief system. That means again, I’ve got to be pretty brutal with myself here. Part of the reason I’m job searching now is that my last job exacerbated my mental health and forced me to take some time off. Even if my best self is absolutely capable of doing the job, I need to consider if it’s sustainable. For me, high stress work isn’t sustainable. I can’t keep up with a culture of constant crisis because my disability doesn’t understand the difference between work stress and legitimate danger. That means instead of looking at direct service these days, I’m looking for a more administrative role. Less exciting, maybe less rewarding, but certainly less stressful.

What’s the commute situation?

This may seem like a silly question but it’s actually a massive part of the decision making process. If the commute is an ordeal and parking is difficult, it reduces my ability in general. That means that I have less to give and my answers to the first questions change. A long commute with offsite parking means I am less capable both mentally and physically to complete my work, making me have to choose between the job and my life outside it.

Ultimately, searching for a job can be a challenge regardless of whether or not you have a disability, but having one (or two or three) definitely ups the difficulty. My disabilities are a major consideration when job searching. By the time l’ve applied l’ve already considered the full impact of taking the job. Employers should appreciate the thoughtfulness, resourcefulness, and strategy their disabled applicants bring.

Based in Los Angeles, Anonymous (she/her) is a disabled attorney and cat lady. Photo of skeleton with bone arms thrown in the air in front of a laptop and calculator at the header of this blog is an actual photo of the author (sarcasm).

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Doing Harm: How The Remnants of “Hysteria” Impact Chronically Ill People

Posted on December 5, 2024October 7, 2025 by Anonymous

EDITOR’S NOTE: We want to acknowledge that, like many societal institutions, scientific and historical research often leaves trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people out, erasing our identities and disparities. As a result, though attempts have been made to use language that is as inclusive as possible, articles and essays like the one below are often forced to use language that is limiting to accurately convey the available data as it has been published (whether historical or present-day). But our commitment to highlighting and uplifting trans, non-binary, and gender conforming people and their work remains.

The word “hysteria” inherently evokes misogyny. Deriving from the Greek word for “uterus,” it was used in ancient Greece as a diagnostic label for women with symptoms ranging from dizziness to paralysis and menstrual pain—all of which were attributed to a “wandering womb.” Throughout history, the label was given to women who were perceived as unreasonably ambitious, attention-seeking, neurotic, or sexually dissatisfied. In Freudian times, it eventually evolved to refer to a mental disorder thought to primarily affect women, causing physical manifestations.

In an age of medical advancement and greater attention to gender equity, most of us would consider this gendered catch-all diagnosis for unexplained ailments to be unthinkable. But chronically ill people of marginalized gender identities, and just about anyone with a chronic health condition that disproportionately affects women, can attest that modern medicine hasn’t progressed as far beyond the hysteria diagnosis as one might expect.

I’ve crossed paths with countless people whose disabling physical symptoms were initially attributed to a variety of psychological explanations— from anxiety to repressed trauma. Many were given diagnostic labels that were essentially equivalent to hysteria by a different name, before years later receiving correct diagnoses of chronic illnesses that disproportionately affect women, like endometriosis or postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).

I, myself, can vividly recall sitting in a doctor’s office exam room at 14 years old, desperately hoping that this visit would be the one to finally provide an explanation for my severe abdominal pain that had suddenly begun months prior and never dissipated. Instead, the gastroenterologist declined to order any tests, impatiently telling my mother that anxiety is common in teenage girls and recommending psychiatric medication.

As my health declined further in early adulthood, I learned that chronic illnesses like myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), a neuroimmune disease that mostly impacts women, have been especially plagued by these stigmas, and people with ME are still forcibly institutionalized in psychiatric facilities around the world. As the COVID-19 pandemic has brought similar infection-triggered chronic illness experiences into mainstream public discourse, it’s been disturbing to witness some healthcare professionals speculate that Long COVID is a form of “mass hysteria,” despite an abundance of scientific evidence to the contrary.

These mislabellings are harmful, not because there is anything shameful about the possibility that someone could be living with a psychological condition. Rather, what is shameful is that women and other people of marginalized gender identities are still treated as unreliable reporters on our own bodies. It is harmful because this gendered misdiagnosis obstructs access to necessary medical care, disincentivizes biomedical research on certain diseases, and even prevents us from seeking support for comorbid mental health symptoms out of concern that doing so could further damage our credibility.

In her book Doing Harm, Maya Dusenbery explores the self-perpetuating cycle of bias and scientific neglect that keeps us stuck in the dark ages of gendered medical gaslighting: “Women’s symptoms are not taken as seriously because medicine doesn’t know as much about their bodies and health problems. And medicine doesn’t know as much about their bodies and health problems because it doesn’t take their symptoms seriously.”

In order to truly leave the days of the hysteria diagnosis behind, we need to address what Dusenberry refers to as the “knowledge gap” and the “trust gap.” We need more research and medical education on conditions that disproportionately affect women. And, we need a radical deconstruction of the gender biases in healthcare that perpetuate the dismissal of our pain.

Anonymous (she/her) is a nonprofit professional and chronic illness advocate based in New England.

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A Stake in the Fight: An Activist’s Take on Eco-Ableism

Posted on November 6, 2023October 7, 2025 by Anonymous

I’ve been involved in advocacy on disability and chronic illness-related issues for several years now; my work has taught me important transferable skills. Because I have a deep love for nature and our planet— and since disabled people are disproportionately impacted by climate change —I sometimes ask myself why I’m not using those skills to organize at the intersection of disability and environmental justice.

The unfortunate truth is, everytime I begin to dip my toes into an environmental advocacy space, I’m reminded rather quickly of the reason I haven’t spent much time there. As a disabled person whose access needs don’t always align with the idealized “perfect” eco-friendly lifestyle, I’ve had a few too many interactions with individuals in the environmental activist community that left me feeling misunderstood and unwelcome. I know that I am not alone in this experience.

I believe that living in alignment with our values is important, and for me, that includes being mindful of how my actions impact the earth. I practice eco-friendly habits as much as possible: I thrift almost all of my clothing, I compost, and I’ve made nearly every sustainable swap that one could think of. But as someone living with complex, disabling chronic illness, certain lifestyle changes are not possible for me.

My particular disabilities mean that I cannot simply forego air conditioning in the summer, go vegan, or bike to work. I rely on my car more than I would like to because walking too far can trigger chronic pain. In addition, my weekly immunoglobulin infusions produce an unfortunate amount of plastic waste that is outside of my control.

Some people with disabilities face different barriers than I do to sustainable practices, depending on their needs. I have disabled friends who require plastic straws to drink, and others who rely on pre-packaged foods and single-use items because chronic illness limits their ability to cook. Unfortunately, these kinds of needs and limitations, when asserted in environmentalist spaces, often seem to be met with skepticism, disapproval, or even condemnation.

A few years ago, in a conversation with a local climate organizer, I tried to explain why following a vegan diet is not possible or healthy for everyone. Like many others in the chronic illness community, I’ve endured extended stretches of time during which I could only tolerate a few “safe” foods without scary mast cell activation syndrome reactions. Over the years, I’ve learned that my most consistently safe foods are not plant-based and that I need to give my body whatever nourishment it accepts.

As I explained this to the activist, she asked invasive questions about my medical conditions, expressed disbelief that any chronic illness could make a fully plant-based diet inadvisable, and implied that I was further harming my health by not being vegan. Essentially, someone who barely knew anything about me told me that I was wrong about my own disabled body. I have watched a similar pattern of behavior unfold repeatedly on social media, whenever a disabled person states that a particular eco-friendly change isn’t accessible for them.

I didn’t know until recently that there was a term for this particular brand of disability discrimination that shows up in environmental activism, called “eco-ableism.” Eco-ableism is the result of nondisabled people failing to consider that their proposed solutions to environmental issues can make life inaccessible for disabled people, all while neglecting to recognize the fact that disabled people are some of the most vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis. In my experience, eco-ableism often also involves a failure by nondisabled people to believe or empathize with disabled people when we speak up about our access needs or the ableism that we’ve encountered.

There are steps that environmental activists can take to prevent eco-ableism and make their spaces more welcoming to disabled people. One of the changes I most hope to see is a shift away from the scrutiny that disabled people are often met with when we assert our needs. Everyone can be a better ally in general to disabled people by trusting that we know our own bodies and access needs better than anyone else can.

Unfortunately, nondisabled skepticism about our access needs is nothing new for the disability community. Many of us know what it’s like to fear that we’ll be harassed for using accessible parking, accused of “faking” if someone sees our legs move in a wheelchair, or judged as “lazy” if we are unable to work.

Activists striving to be anti-ableist in their organizing can avoid perpetuating this exhausting scrutiny by accepting a disabled person’s stated access needs without disbelief, invasive questions, or unsolicited feedback. If a disabled person shares that there is a particular way they need to eat, drink, get around, or take care of their body, the first instinct of fellow advocates should be to believe them.

I’ve also noticed that eco-ableism typically manifests when activists are spending energy analyzing each others’ individual actions, often at a detriment to work on larger systemic issues. To be clear, our individual choices matter; we should all do what is within our abilities to live in alignment with our values. However, irresponsible corporations and government inaction are largely to blame for the climate crisis— not disabled people who need straws to drink.

I hope that, instead of questioning individuals about whether their disability actually prevents them from making a specific sustainable swap, advocates will redirect that energy toward systems change that creates a more just world for all of us. Since climate change has a disproportionate impact on people with disabilities at a systems level, an inflexible focus on individual actions that frames us as the problem ironically only serves to further alienate a marginalized group from advocacy on an issue that we are experiencing most acutely.

Finally, to avoid eco-ableism and ensure that proposed environmental policy changes don’t inadvertently leave any marginalized group of citizens behind, it’s also essential that disabled people play a significant leadership role in shaping environmental movements and policy.

When diverse perspectives are valued and integrated into a movement, the solutions we fight for are solutions that lift up all of us, as opposed to unintentionally creating more obstacles for some. To achieve true equity, not only do we need to make sure that disabled people have seats at the table, but also that our viewpoints are regarded as important and meaningfully incorporated into decision making.

Despite the barriers some disabled people might face to a sustainable lifestyle, disability justice and environmental justice are not in conflict. Rather, they are deeply interconnected, and the disability community has a serious stake in the fight for the future of our planet. Disabled activists also have valuable skills and perspective to bring to environmental advocacy; I’m confident that our involvement will only make the movement stronger. While eco-ableism is discouraging, I’m optimistic about the kind of world we can build when we work together to ensure that all perspectives, abilities, and needs are taken into account.

Anonymous (she/her) is a nonprofit professional and chronic illness advocate based in New England.