July Is Disability Pride Month

I don’t think I knew until last year that Disability Pride Month existed. When I first heard it, my ears did a double take. Disability Pride Month? Not Disability Awareness Month?

Pride is a complicated concept. In the US, we’re all about pride, in ourselves, in our country. In many other cultures, it’s not viewed as a positive thing to be proud of yourself as an individual. 

When I think of pride, I think of it as being proud of something I’ve accomplished or achieved. For example, I’m not “proud to be an American” because that was all chance–I happened to be born to US citizens. I didn’t choose it or do anything to make that happen. This country has achieved lots of amazing things that I’m grateful for, and it’s also failed in lots of ways that turn my stomach and break my heart.

I was born with cerebral palsy. That was chance too. Am I proud of being disabled? No. Am I proud of some of the things I’ve achieved while living with a disability? Sure. 

I think what I’ve just written is a common reaction to a month of “disability pride.” But after my initial reaction, I learned more about Disability Pride Month and understood that I was thinking of it too narrowly. To have disability pride is not only, or necessarily, to be proud of being disabled, but also to recognize that disabled populations have struggled, have been and are still marginalized, excluded, disregarded. To have disability pride is to be proud of those who have come together and fought for equality, for representation, for inclusion.

Disability Pride in the US originated to commemorate the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in July 1990. While there have been celebrations around the anniversary of the passing of the ADA each year, the first official Disability Pride Month was July 2015, coinciding with the 25th anniversary.

Since 2019, there’s even been a flag! The Weinberg Family Cerebral Palsy Center has a great page on the history and meaning of the Disability Pride flag.

 2021 design by Ann Magill

Here are a few other resources to help you celebrate Disability Pride:

Disability Cultural Center, San Francisco

Crip Camp, a documentary that is not only about a camp for people with disabilities but more about the disability rights movement, and the incredible lengths activists went to to get the government to sign Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Gemma Hubbard at Wheels No Heels gives a great overview of Disability Pride.
Disability Partnerships has wonderful free adaptive exercise classes on Zoom.