What is Disability Pride?

Summary:

Disability pride is about disabled people coming together, being publicly proud of who we are, celebrating ourselves, and demanding inclusion. It doesn’t just fight back against stigma, or raise awareness, or even ask for access. It REPLACES these things with joy, celebration and power.

Disability pride is disability led, so the sources and nature of pride depend on the disabled person. Some disabled people take pride in their disability itself, others in being part of a community or culture, and others in both. The point is that we reject narratives of pity, charity and shame. We demand empowerment and respect as part of the beautiful spectrum of human diversity.

Find out more on our resources page (this contains EASY READ versions) for added access.

The Global movement: 

Disability pride is a global movement dating back to before the 1990s with events or organisations across Europe, North America, Asia and Africa. . The first Disability Pride parade was held in Boston in 1990 to commemorate the passing of Americans with Disabilities Act. In 1991 Laura Hershey wrote her famous and beloved poem “You get proud by practicing.” Prior to that, in the 1980s, Deaf Pride was particularly strong. The Deaf community with its strong culture and pride has always been a leader in this area.

The Movement in Australia

Disability Pride is still not well known in Australia. However, disabled people have long been working to change that

Early examples include the radical protest by in 198,by activist Lesley Hall . She challenged ideas of beauty that exclude disabled women with a radical protest at the Miss Australia Pageant.

A great pioneer in Australia was Stella Young. She had Laura Hershey’s “you get proud by practicing” tattooed on her arm.

Key one off events took place in 2015 and 2017. Adelaide had a disability pride parade, the first in Australia. And Larissa McFarlane created a disability pride mural in Melbourne. The council took it down on International Day of People with Disabilities. Protestors successfully had it restored and it continues to this day.

In 2021 Disability Pride Sydney started Australia’s only annual disability pride festival and it has been growing ever since.

In 2022 Inner West Council became Australia’s first government to raise the disability pride flag and has flown it for international day of people with disabilities ever since.

Disability pride Sydney Mission and Values:

We believe in:

• Disability as an ordinary part of human diversity
• Our absolute right to respect and inclusion
• Being proud of who we are, celebrating and valuing ourselves and our achievements, without needing to do so “despite our disabilities”
• Reclaiming disability identity. People with disabilities are the world’s largest and most diverse minority. We have our own history, culture, languages and community. 
• Interactive and social models of disability – These models recognise that while disabled people have impairments, disability often results from how society responds to them.  If someone uses a wheelchair, stairs will keep them out.  A ramp will invite them in.
• Centering and empowering disabled people. “Nothing about us without us” is an age-old disability rights slogan. But we go further. We say “With us, by us and for us”

We fight against:

• The purely medical model of disability – viewing people with disability as “broken” and either needing to be “fixed” to fit the norm, or as “beyond repair” and therefore less valuable as humans.  Humans need to be considered differently to machines.

• The tragedy/charity model of disability, which assumes that disabled people all have sad and diminished lives because of our disability. It casts us as objects of pity rather than respect.  It assumes we have no contribution to make and casts us in the role of beggar and burden to society. We want your solidarity and respect not your charity.
• Shame, pity, stigma and self-hatred as responses to disability
• Any ableism, or idea that disability makes a person less valuable. 
• Exclusion, inaccessibility, and systemic inequality. These cannot be tolerated in any form.
• Disempowerment. Disabled people should be in control and empowered at all times, not the passive objects of kindness. “Nothing about us without us, is a decades old disability rights slogan. Disability pride is by us, with us and for us.

We’re proud because:

• Many of us see our disability as a positive part of our identity. 
• We are also proud of our community, identity and culture.
• We are an oppressed and marginalised minority and are proud of our solidarity with each other. 
• Many of us are proud to be part of the beautiful variations that enrich humankind.
• Disabilities are part of us and have helped shape us into who we are. We are proud of our whole selves, not proud of ourselves “despite our disabilities”