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Welcome to the Disability Justice Book Club

Led by Dr. Jennifer Gagnon (and her service dog Ziggy)

Supported by the EDI Scholars-in-Residence Program and the Peña Fund  

Land Acknowledgment

We acknowledge that UBC’s two main campuses are situated within the ancestral and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people and in the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation and their peoples

Before we Begin: To Build and Dream Access Together

Diversity is a strength of our communities. The diversity that each person brings, including indigeneity, race, ethnicity, cultural background and national origins, gender and gender identity, sexuality, socioeconomic class, age, religion, disability, and more, is to be cherished, honoured, and respected. As a disabled, bisexual, settler, woman (she/they) who works as a precariously employed university lecturer and conducts research on disability and social justice, issues of accessibility, diversity, and inclusion are near and dear to my heart. My identity exists at the intersections of different forms of marginalization and privilege that inform who I am as a person in my life, work, and career. Our identities both empower and constrain. Together, our goal is to make our time together accessible, inclusive, and supportive for all of us and the identities and experiences that we bring with us.

Inclusion and accessibility are always a work in progress that responds to the identities and access needs of everyone in a dynamic and flexible way. While myself and everyone supporting the Disability Justice Book Club have taken care to proactively design-in accessibility, we also recognize that not every access need will be, or can be, anticipated, and that at times access needs might be in tension or conflict. We also recognize that everyone has access needs, whether or not you identify with disability. Some of our access needs have been “normalized” whereas others may still encounter barriers. We are always more than happy to support you if there is a way we can make the Disability Justice Book Club more accessible for you – please feel free to share any access needs that we have not yet met, or that you have just discovered in yourself.

Building and sustaining access can look different for different spaces and identities. This often means recognizing the complexity and interdependence of our bodies/minds and access needs. S.E. Smith in their essay “The Beauty of Spaces Created for and by Disabled People,” invites us to think of Crip Space as “a communal belonging, a deep rightness that comes from not having to explain or justify your experience. They are resting points, even as they can be energizing and exhilarating… Crip space is unique, a place where disability is celebrated and embraced — something radical and taboo in many parts of the world and sometimes even for people in those spaces.” If you identify with disability in some way, how do we together ensure that this is a Crip Space? If you are not a member of the disability community or do not see your identity in relationship to disability, then what does it mean to you to be in solidarity with Disability Justice, Disabled people, and Crip spaces? My hope for this space of learning, growth and creation, is that each and every one of us can feel power and safety so that who we are in relationship to disability can be centred, explored, supported, acknowledged, valued, and celebrated.

Thank you so much for being here and gifting us with your presence, insights, and experience. This space for exploring Disability Justice is only possible because all of us will it into being together. I want us to think through together how creating accessible spaces for everyone is an act both of struggle and power. Building access is something that we as individuals do, and also something that we cannot as individuals do alone. Access is both about holding power and exercising power – together we are powerful in creating the access and community we will into being, but we also have power exercised over us and through our surroundings that we struggle in and through.  Access is strength, creation, power, resistance, care, love, and community. Access is at the heart of Disability Justice.

Accessing the Texts and our Space

We recognize that things might not be 100% accessible for everyone, and are committed to collectively working together to create as much access as possible while occupying and challenging ableist spaces.

We have created an Accessibility Guide for each month’s readings. We strive to remove barriers in accessing the texts, and have chosen texts available freely, and that are compatible with a variety of accessibility tech. If you have any challenges accessing the texts in an accessible format, please let us know and we will do everything we can to remove or overcome barriers. I will also share these discussion guides in advance which may be used to guide your reading, (or not).

The Disability Justice Book Club will take place in Hybrid form for our first meeting (in person and online) and will meet online for the remainder of our meetings. For our first meeting, we will have reserved accessible seating, and seating that is more widely spaced for social distancing or for those who want more space around themselves. We encourage folks attending in person to wear masks if possible. In addition, folks are invited and encouraged to attend online and to engage equally with in person attendees. Our future meetings will take place exclusively online through Zoom. Everyone will have microphone, video, chat, and captions available that they may choose to use, or not, at your discretion. More information on room accessibility for our first meeting, and zoom accessibility for meetings is contained in the Accessibility Guide shared separately.

Expectations for Engagement and Participation

Participating in the Disability Justice Book Club is meant to be barrier-free and FUN! Try to read as much or as little of the readings as possible – even if you’ve only thought about glancing at the readings, know that your voice is welcome and supported in our discussion. Read as much, or as little, as is accessible to you – the greatest gift you can give us is your presence and your ideas! You can also attend as many, or as few, Book Club meetings as you would like – and I hope you invite others to join us too! Endeavour to recognize and honour that each of us is in a different place in our Disability Justice journey and that we have meaningful and valuable knowledge and experiences to contribute. While I have provided a discussion guide for each month’s readings with a few key quotes and discussion questions, please think of these as gentle suggestions, rather than as a rigid guide or set of expectations. This is your space and your conversation – I hope that our discussion takes us far beyond any questions that we start from. I also hope that you view me as a gentle and curious guide through these topics who is also learning more about Disability Justice every day. As Mia Mingus states, in “Access Intimacy: the Missing Link,” access is built “conversation by conversation.” As we start our conservation together, let’s all be mindful of differences in how we express and engage, and honour the diverse forms of participation, thought, speech, and engagement that each of us bring forward. Let us all also embrace curiosity, kindness, and access as guiding principles as we start our conversation and our journey into Disability Justice.

Confidentiality

A core practice of Disability Justice is confidentiality. Accessibility, safety, and inclusion all require that we are mindful to not disclose confidential information about the lived experiences of others. Many disabled folks have heightened concerns about confidentiality because of their experiences with ableism, discrimination, and marginalization. While some of us might feel comfortable sharing our experiences with disability and ableism, no one is required or expected to disclose. Folks may also not be “out” about their relationship to disability in all contexts and places at UBC and beyond. To further support control over disclosure of our identities and experiences with disability, we have created two cohorts for the Disability Justice book club 1) the Disabled and Proud cohort for folks who self-identify as disabled and who are interested in discussing Disability Justice with other self-identified disabled folks, and 2) the Disability Allies cohort for folks who do not presently identify as disabled or who would prefer not to disclose their relationship to disability. To support confidentiality and safety in these spaces, please treat the experiences of individuals as confidential and do not disclose anyone’s lived experiences without their enthusiastic consent. This Book Club is an opportunity to grow our knowledge and understanding of Disability Justice, and potentially “read yourself in” to Disabled community or explore how disability and ableism are already present in your experiences.

A Note on Language

It is crucial that folks be empowered to choose the language that represents who they are and how they perceive themselves. Throughout the Disability Justice Book Club, we will hear, encounter, and read many different ways that folks disclose and identify with, or do not identify with, disability as an identity. Honouring person choice language is one way that we can support inclusive and accessible spaces. Our understanding of disability is very broad. We understand disability inclusively to encompass the full diversity of bodies/minds, neurodiversity, physical, mobility, sensory, learning, and cognitive disabilities, as well as chronic illnesses or pain, visible or invisible, and mental or emotional differences, through which a person’s body or mind may be perceived or experienced to be different from the “norm.” While we recognize that many Deaf people don’t identify as having a disability, we encourage Deaf and hard of hearing people to take part. We aim to use person choice language and recognize that different people identify, (or don’t identify) with different language around disability. For example, the use of identity first language (Disabled person) aligns with Disability Justice advocates who argue that person first language (person with disabilities) unnecessarily separates disability from our identity. Most government, healthcare, and educational guidelines still use person first language making it the most commonly used in public discourse. While some find this emphasis on the person first and disability second empowering, others perceive the state abbreviation of PWD to be marginalizing. Still others may identify with language that rejects the word disability entirely such as neurodiverse, neurodivergent, chronically ill, Crip, spoonie, mental health condition, Mad, and many more ways of self-identifying that are all welcome under the broad umbrella of disability community. Identity based language is deeply personal, and reflects history, power, trauma, and agency – there is no one “right choice” universally, but there is a choice that feels right for you as an individual. While I personally identify with the term “Disabled person,” I honour, uphold, and will aim to reflect how you choose to identify.

Thank You to the EDI Scholars Program and Peña Family

The Disability Justice book club has been made possible by the generous support of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Scholars-in-Residence Program and by the generous financial support of the Marissa and Tony Peña Fund.

Reading and Discussion Guide for Month 1

To Start:

• What brings you to this book club? What are your hopes and dreams for our time together?

TL Lewis’ Definition of Ableism

TL’s definition: “Ableism: A system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in eugenics, anti-blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism.

This systemic oppression leads to people and society determining people’s value based on their culture, age, language, appearance, religion, birth or living place, ‘health’/wellness’, and/or their ability to satisfactorily re/produce, ‘excel’ and behave.’

You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.”

• • Let’s discuss and dig deep into TL’s definition of ableism. What do you think of this way to define and conceptualize ableism? What do you think TL means when TL writes: “you do not need to be disabled to experience ableism?”

• • How is ableism intertwined with other forms of oppression, especially heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism?

• How do you perceive ableism in your context? What can we as individuals do to challenge ableism? What about organizations, institutions, and places we are a part of?

Patty Berne, “Disability Justice: A Working Draft.”

• “While a concrete and radical move forward toward justice, the disability rights movement simultaneously invisibilized the lives of peoples who lived at intersecting junctures of oppression – disabled people of color, immigrants with disabilities, queers with disabilities, trans and gender non-conforming people with disabilities, people with disabilities who are houseless, people with disabilities who are incarcerated, people with disabilities who have had their ancestral lands stolen, amongst others. In response to this, in 2005, disabled activists of color, originally queer women of color incubated in progressive and radical movements that did not systematically address ableism – namely, myself, Mia Mingus, and Stacey Milbern, soon to be joined by Leroy Moore, Eli Clare and Sebastian Margaret – began discussing a ‘second wave’ of disability rights and ultimately launched a framework we called Disability Justice. The histories of white supremacy and ableism are inextricably entwined, both forged in the crucible of colonial conquest and capitalist domination. We cannot comprehend ableism without grasping its interrelations with heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism and capitalism, each system co-creating an ideal bodymind built upon the exclusion and elimination of a subjugated ‘other’ from whom profits and status are extracted.”
  • What makes disability justice different from disability rights? How is Disability Justice different from other social movements?

• “A Disability Justice framework understands that all bodies are unique and essential, that all bodies have strengths and needs that must be met. We know that we are powerful not despite the complexities of our bodies, but because of them. We understand that all bodies are caught in these bindings of ability, race, gender, sexuality, class, nation state and imperialism, and that we cannot separate them. These are the positions from where we struggle.”
  • What makes Disability Justice a collective and intersectional struggle, and not simply individual advocacy?

• “This is Disability Justice, an honoring of the longstanding legacies of resilience and resistance which are the inheritance of all of us whose bodies or minds will not conform. Disability Justice is a vision and practice of a yet-to-be, a map that we create with our ancestors and our great grandchildren onward, in the width and depth of our multiplicities and histories, a movement towards a world in which every body and mind is known as beautiful.”
  • How is Disability Justice shaped by disabled people to be different from other social movements, protests, or forms of advocacy and struggle?

Sins Invalid 10 Principles

• A brief summary of the 10 Principles of Disability Justice: 1) Intersectionality, 2) Leadership of Those Most Impacted, 3) Anti-capitalist Politics, 4) Commitment to Cross-movement Organizing, 5) Recognizing Wholeness, 6) Sustainability, 7) Commitment to Cross-Disability Solidarity, 8) Interdependence, 9) Collective Access, 10) Collective Liberation
  • What are your thoughts on these 10 Principles? Are there any principles you think are missing or that you would change?
• Let’s look deeper into two of the 10 Principles:
  • “INTERSECTIONALITY ‘We do not live single issue lives’ – Audre Lorde. Ableism, coupled with white supremacy, supported by capitalism, underscored by heteropatriarchy, has rendered the vast majority of the world ‘invalid.’”
  • “COLLECTIVE LIBERRATION No body or mind can be left behind – only moving together can we accomplish the revolution we require.”
    • What are your thoughts on these as a foundation for Disability Justice and shaping a social movement?
  • Looking at the 10 Principles of Disability Justice, how do you think UBC (or higher education in general) could better include these principles?

Christine Miserandino, “The Spoon Theory”

• Do you think the Spoon Theory is helpful to explain what it is like to live with chronic illness and/or invisible disability?
• How do you distribute your Spoons in your typical day? Do you feel you have Spoons left at the end of the day? What happens if you run out of Spoons? How do you “save” spoons?
  • What would your day be like if you had 25 Spoons?
  • What if you had 12 Spoons?
  • What if you had 7 Spoons?
• Do you use your Spoons on the activities you want? What demands your Spoons versus where do you want to spend your Spoons?
• What are things that support “getting a spoon back” or adding a spoon to your drawer – is this possible for you?
• Christine Miserandino writes: “I had one spoon in my hand and I said, ‘Don’t worry. I see this as a blessing. I have been forced to think about everything I do. Do you know how many spoons people waste everyday? I don’t have room for wasted time, or wasted ‘spoons’ and I chose to spend this time with you.’”
  • How might counting and carefully choosing how we spend our spoons support making more intentional or meaningful choices about our time and what we do?

Mia Mingus Access Intimacy

• Mingus defines Access Intimacy in this way: “Access intimacy is that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else “gets” your access needs.  The kind of eerie comfort that your disabled self feels with someone on a purely access level.  Sometimes it can happen with complete strangers, disabled or not, or sometimes it can be built over years.  It could also be the way your body relaxes and opens up with someone when all your access needs are being met.  It is not dependent on someone having a political understanding of disability, ableism or access.”
  • Does the idea of Access Intimacy resonate? How do you experience Access Intimacy? What does Access Intimacy feel like to you?
• “Access intimacy is not just the action of access or “helping” someone.  We have all experienced access that has left us feeling like a burden, violated or just plain shitty.  Many of us have experienced obligatory access where there is no intimacy, just a stoic counting down of the seconds until it is over.  This is not access intimacy.”
  • How is disclosing disabled identity and our access needs an intimate act? What makes it challenging to disclose? What eases the intimacy of disclosing?
• Mingus writes that “anyone can experience access intimacy.” How is this similar and different from TL’s statement that “you do not need to be disabled to experience ableism”?
• How is disabled identity socially created, often in and through access (or the lack of access)? What does it mean to identify as a “politically disabled person” and how is this related to the desiring of access intimacy?

Questions to Take With Us

• What does Disability Justice mean to you?
• What is one change or shift you would like to commit to making towards Disability Justice?