Author: Christian McMahon
How Rule Changes for CalFresh Will Positively Impact Disabled Californians
During the decade or so before I landed my current job, I lived in Los Angeles while receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI). This is to say that I lived in a county where the average rent for a studio apartment…
What Transportation Access Really Means for Disabled People
The strange man at the gas station in Utah approached shyly. I was alone, several hundred miles from home. It was one of those anonymous pit stops between where you’re from and anywhere else that sees a ceaseless tide of …
Showing Up in Public in a Disabled Trans Body
The first time I limped out of the men’s locker room and into the YMCA indoor swimming pool area without a rash guard covering my surgery-scarred chest, I felt queasy. I was certain it would turn into an 80’s high…
Slowing Down and Embracing Surgical Recovery is Still Living
I am working through one of those once a half-decade-or-so massive health shifts that folks with any chronic condition may find familiar: a rapid shift in function, surgery to implant more metal bits in me that set off alarms whenever…
Midterm Elections are Over, But Our Work for Disability Representation in Government Isn’t Done
Minority groups have always been under- or un-represented in office - a fact that has left far too many voices out of the process of creating the laws we all must live by.
Why We All Need to Fight for the Rights of Transgender Disabled People
It’s a difficult time to be disabled in America. We are stretched thin, fighting for our lives on multiple fronts. And when your own house is on fire, it’s understandable to feel that you lack the resources to fight for…
For Disabled People, the Path to Employment is Still a Maze
Luck, an unusually high tolerance for throwing myself into the disquieting unknown, and a measure of family privilege have allowed me to forge a path through the working world that is best described as an erratic squiggle. A long arch…
Sex Education is for Everyone. Even Disabled Kids.
We live in a society that desexualizes disabled bodies. This allows the topics of sex and sexuality to be left out of the educations of many young disabled people. As disabled students head back into the classroom this year, this…