The moment a disabled person attends a fashion show, enjoys a concert, appears at a community gathering, or posts a smiling photo online, someone inevitably decides: "If you can do that, you must not need much care," or "You can't have chronic pain—you are too happy," or "You don't look disabled. You are too pretty, too handsome, too active, too strong." Comments like this, and attitudes like this, are more harmful than one thinks, literally reinforcing and perpetuating stereotypes that increase barriers to access, improved health outcomes, and joy.
These comments and beliefs are inaccurate and harmful. They reflect an outdated belief that disability cannot coexist with pleasure, creativity, ambition, or public presence. It treats joy as a threat rather than a sign that a barrier has finally been removed, because access is a right, not a favor.
My success in navigating the barriers around me is success wrapped in pain, because I have to work five times harder with five times the pain, just to be told, when I am fatigued, that I am lazy or, worse, not really disabled. My request for access requirements allows me to be successful in a dignified and human-centered way. Many disabled people push their bodies far beyond what is safe or sustainable before their needs are believed and their access requirements are taken seriously, especially those with invisible disabilities or who require higher levels of support.
For many of us, there are better days and worse days. Some days I can do more, but I still have to constantly gauge how much energy I have left and what it will cost me later. I’ve worked hard to build my own system for pacing my time and energy as someone living with a spinal cord injury. Even with that, I can’t always predict when a migraine, muscle spasm, weakness, or pain flare will hit.
Here is the truth: Joy does not erase disability. Joy is our right.
No two disabled people are exactly alike, even if they have the same disability. I am not speaking for everyone because all of our access needs are typically individual needs and should be curated to support individual needs.
I know quite a few disabled people, and although we are not a monolith, one common thread runs through many of our stories: the systems around us keep demanding proof that our disabilities are real. Over time, that cycle of suspicion and re‑evaluation adds its own layer of stress and long‑term impact
As a disabled person who acquired my disability, I’ve experienced a stark difference between the stereotypes I was fed on TV before I was disabled and the lived experiences of me and my disability community. These perceptions and outdated paradigms are harmful to me and many other disabled individuals.
We are not one-dimensional. That is precisely why I created my social enterprise production company and social movement, Shifting Creative Paradigms - Leveling the Playing Field®, because media is a powerful way to change the paradigms of how disabled people are viewed. This notion that there is no mobility in disability, no joy in our lives, and that if there is, then we are not disabled, often leads to people leaving access as an afterthought or as a thought not considered at all in design. If you think disabled people are not outside and should not be outside, then you probably won't think of them when writing scripts, booking musicians and accessible venues, hiring for a job, and planning or producing design plans for events, gardens, concerts, parks, clubs, workspaces, restaurants, rock climbing (yes, disabled people can participate in rock climbing), fashion shows, and any other recreational activity.
Now, some people can't seem to shake the static stereotypes of what disability looks like because it serves their need to be a martyr, to save someone instead of giving people autonomy, all of which are wrapped up in pity. A trauma-informed approach helps explain this pattern. When care is motivated by pity, it becomes conditional. Support remains only as long as the disabled person appears unwell. As soon as we smile, dress up, or participate, pity evaporates, and sometimes so does support. If your willingness to assist me is tied to feeling sorry for me, then the moment I experience joy, you'll misread it as proof that I no longer need care. Real access is a partnership. It affirms our full humanity without requiring us to perform suffering to remain eligible for help.
