Friday
December 23, 2005
SGN.org
Volume 33
Issue 51
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
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Disabilities Space: WELCOME |
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| Disabilities Space: WELCOME | ||
| By Cathy Hoog and Marla S. Nonken
- SGN Contributing Writers
Like able-bodied persons, people with both hidden and visible disabilities have their own opinions. Like able-bodied people, we each have our own personalities, approaches, and needs. How are those of us who identify ourselves as having a disability impacted as LGBT? Where can we go to discuss who we are as whole human beings? This column has come about as a result of people with disabilities who want to participate in the LGBT community and political events. One of our goals is to further educate all of us as to how to include/welcome people with various and sometimes conflicting needs in the LGBT community. When the SGN gave us the invitation to write this column, we found it to be a welcoming, a step towards opening up what has been a narrow path to walk down in terms of issues that impact all of us. Like all human beings, at times, people with disabilities stick our head in the sand in order to survive, maintain, cope, and remain stable. We are so busy working to survive that it is hard to take time to be proactive and address the many issues facing us all. It is easy to wear blinders and pretend nothing is wrong. We want to thank the SGN for this opportunity to start this important dialogue. Being involved as Dykes with disabilities, the amount of work and energy it takes to create a movement with other LGBT folks is exhausting. We need to collaborate in order to work effectively in the community and with our allies based on honest intentions, good boundaries, mindful communications, and respect for self and others. The mission/plan of our ongoing column is to educate, enlighten, enhance, open lines of communication, and learn from each other. If we have the willingness and the courage to face our own hypocrisies, we may agree to disagree, but as a result, hopefully, we will reach a new consciousness within our able/disabled LGBT communities/political selves. As people with disabilities how do we learn the survival skills that we really need to self advocate? We will explore, create and learn how to implement survival tools that will increase access to all LGBT community members.We need to further understand what it takes to welcome all of us. The LGBT community is part of a larger society and we know that nothing is going to be perfect anytime soon. We have to keep the expectation that all people have value and, regardless of the difficulties we may face in society, working together with our allies is the only way to push those structural and attitudinal barriers and achieve equality. Acknowledgements: S. Naomi Finkelstein, for her informative and passionate June 2005 SGN article, "Leaving Out Disabled People at GLBT Events," to Jean Buskin (Jean's List-a social justice and political activism calendar) in which she gave me a web page that presents compiled lists of disability accommodations for indoor and outdoor events, i.e., marches, rallies, meetings, etc. You can view this page at www.scn.org/activism/calendar/disabilities.html. Thank you to the SGN for including the site address on their calendar page, to Queer Women with Disabiltiies, to other Dykes, disabled and allies, who continue to walk the talk. Marla S. Nonken has been a Dyke/disability activist for over 25 years involved in a wide range of disability issues and other human rights/political activism groups and organizations. She is also a songwriter and performer. She is currently involved with Dyke Community Activists. Cathy Hoog has lived and advocated in the Deaf community all of her life, and has connections to many other disability communities both personal and professional. Dyke Community Activists is a grassroots and social activism group who work for Lesbian and women's rights, and fight other oppressions including racism, class injustice, anti-semitism against Arabs and Jews, fat oppression, ageism, and ableism. We believe in making connections and building coalitions between different groups of people as a way to create social justice and to learn about each other. Any woman is welcome to join. For further information, our email is dykecommunityactivists@earthlink.net and the website address is: www.home.earthlink.net/~dykecommunityactivists/ |
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International Readers |
 
It's new!A blog created by the SGN staff so you can be heard |
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"Putting on the Ritz |
The Beauty of Freedom through |
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copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2005