This #DisabilityPrideMonth I have been talking about a few things that are sometimes over looked when thinking about how environments impact people with disabilities and there is one last thing I want to address on this final weekend of the month: Photos.
When I was a child and lived in a hospital for months at a time over years getting operations, having my legs torn open and reset again and again, there was something else traumatic happening to me. The doctors, to monitor the progress of all the children at the hospital, would make us undress, down to only our underwear bottoms, and take photographs of us.
When people ask me now, as a 45 year old woman, why I will post a photograph of myself in a bikini I think of those moments. When I take and post those photos, I feel like I am taking back my autonomy. I am choosing to celebrate my body, not be critical of it. To take pride in all the work I have done and things I have overcome to get my body to the place it is right now. It has not been easy, it was not even necessary for my body to be experimental, but it happened and here I am, trying to make the best of it.
Girls with disabilities are seven times more likely to be in abusive situations and much of this comes from our bodies and selves being devalued in so many ways by so many people. We need to do a better job of making sure all people with disabilities know how beautiful our bodies are and that these bodies are ours. We get to say what happens to us, we were created this way, and we have a purpose just as we are.
Gerd Ludwig’s iconic photograph of eight children in Moscow missing their forearms due to a birth defect caused by industrial pollution.
