Throughout Disability Pride Month, our Engagement Coordinator, Devon Anderson, connected with disability advocates across the country to talk about our collective work for the community at this time. This edited transcript shares her conversation with George Ramirez.
What does disability pride look like to you as an act of community care?
GR: I think for me, it looks like being bold and courageous. As an individual living with a disability, you have to be bold and courageous because the world is not necessarily built for us, right? We have to create our own path, our own narrative, our own way through life. Then, we have to be able to care for others in our community in the same way. We also understand that disabilities look different. So that may require even somebody such as myself, who’s very visibly disabled, to stand up for the next individual and say, hey, they matter too. Being in the disability community, it is way bigger than just myself. So keeping that in mind is how I love and care for somebody else who is disabled.
DA: How are you carrying that with you? How are you acting boldly and courageously yourself in a time when it is so hard for some to be either?
GR: It’s so interesting you ask… I was just having a conversation this morning with a friend, and I think what it comes down to is simply just being educated. You know what I mean? And that’s important, because you’re right, in times like this, it is very hard to be bold and courageous. But it’s not always what it appears to be. Oftentimes people think being bold and courageous is loud and out there. Sometimes it’s just simply being educated: being informed and having an opinion, and knowing when to share that opinion, who to share that opinion with, and what spaces allow you to share that opinion. So, that audience awareness is also knowing where it is safe.
DA: So you have a disability, but you’re also advocating and caring for the disabled community and others through your practice. So for you, how are you successfully able to retain that identity and then maintain that in your professional work? Especially for Disability Pride Month, do you think having a disability makes you a better advocate, listener, communicator, therapist for the community?
GR: So that is a great question that I wrestle with all the time. For me as a therapist, I work specifically in substance use. Every now and then I do get a patient who will come in, and they have cerebral palsy or another disability. Sometimes there are other staffers who are like, you guys are a great fit. And I think, well, probably, but not necessarily. In the four times that it’s happened in the year and a half that I’ve been there, yeah, we’ve been a great fit. I think it’s a reminder of just simply saying like, hey, I see you, but also understanding that our disabilities, while they may be the same, we’re also very different, right? Being able to come alongside them and offer that support as a disabled individual is great, but also holding space for them and realizing that our stories are different. I think it definitely helps that I’m a part of the community, but I don’t think that because I’m disabled I am a better advocate. Every case is different. Even for myself, there’s a lot of components to even my own disability that I still have to learn. I’m still learning every day. The older I get, I’m learning different things about myself and what I can and can’t do. And let me tell you, I just got a puppy for the first time and I’m like, this is hard as a disabled individual. And I never thought it would be, but it’s a little challenging. That’s kind of how I remind myself, OK, you’re disabled and you’re going to come across a lot of people who are disabled. Just because you’re both in that same community, there’s a lot you don’t know.
DA: I love that. So then reversing, we’re talking about Disability Pride Month. Some people are not celebrating disability pride necessarily, they’re celebrating other things this like disability resistance or disability solidarity. For you, what are you celebrating?
GR: It took me a really long time to be comfortable and almost proud of my disability. At times it has hindered me from different opportunities and I became angry about it. It wasn’t until my late 20s where I was finally like, okay, I can accept this. I do celebrate my disability with pride because at the end of the day, it’s not going anywhere. When I look at it now, there’s a lot of things that I have accomplished. I take pride in that because as a disabled person, I know what it’s like to walk into a room and already have people size you up and limit you into who you are and what you can do. And when you open up your mouth and tell people that you have a master’s degree or you’re a therapist, it’s like, oh, that’s good for you. Is it good for me because I’m disabled or is it good for me because I’m a person who wants to help others, right? Realizing that is like, there’s so much more to me. My disability has been such a huge part of that because it’s literally been part of every journey that I’ve been on. I’ve gotten through college. I’ve lived on my own. I went to Paris for the first time last month, and I cried like a baby. One, because it hurt to walk 30,000 steps around Versailles. But then second, because to be able to walk the streets of Paris as a disabled person when I was supposed to be using a wheelchair. And to be able to fly 6,000 miles by myself in a foreign country and make it back. It was a huge accomplishment, not only for me as a person, but as a disabled individual. So I celebrate that. I celebrate all that being disabled encompasses.
DA: What you just said is so important. You said, it’s been with me throughout all my life. If I’ve been breathing, I’ve been disabled, you know. A lot of people don’t have that same perspective if it’s something that they were aging into or an accident happened and they now have a disability. So I love that perspective – thank you for putting voice to that. What part of the work of disability joy are you carrying forward for yourself, both personally and professionally?
GR: Going forward, I hope that I can be a voice for the next generation. For me, I would love to work with individuals who have disabilities and not be ashamed of them. That’s a long-term goal, but it starts now. That’s why I mentioned, like, okay, what can I do to be more intentional? Whether it’s encouraging individuals to just be the best that they can be for themselves, or even for me. I also understand that I’m a representation of our community every month. A great way to propel that forward is to really start with myself and others around me. It may even look like saying, Hey, I’m gonna be honest with you, it really sucks to be disabled today. My body hurts and this or that. I guess what I’m getting at is being able to have open conversations about what it’s genuinely like to be disabled. Because I’m sure you’ve heard it, you hear it all the time: oh, you’re such an inspiration. I hate that. People genuinely mean well, but it’s like, do you know what that entails to be an inspiration? It kind of hurts. So breaking down that narrative looks like just being genuinely myself all the time, regardless of what that looks like.
DA: What would your version of inclusion look like going forward? If you’re starting these conversations for the next generation, what do you hope to see in five or ten years, Disability Pride Month or not? What does that look like for you to be the person others can gain inspiration from in being themselves and being who they are?
GR: I thought about this yesterday. I had an aha moment. I was thinking about my disability and about other people that I know who are disabled. I’m going to be 34, and I’m at the point life where I am responsible for my own self, right? There was a time when I was growing up, I would complain here and there. I felt like I was owed something because I was disabled. The truth is, nobody owes me anything, right? I am responsible for standing on my own two legs or whatever it may be, to find a way to care for myself the best way that I know how. Nobody else is going to do that for you. Nobody owes you anything. You’ve got to create your own path, you know? That’s what I would love people to know about themselves, especially within our own community is you got to forge your own path.
DA: So for you, if you are thinking about disability community care, what do you hope for in the next year?
GR: This time next year, I hope that the conversation is still going. It is a very much unknown time for so many things, for so many people. For so many reasons, so many communities are just being silenced. We’re already showing glimpses of our community being silenced, pretty rapidly it seems. Quickly. My simplest and purest hope is that the conversations are still going. Like I said, it doesn’t have to be it can be bold and courageous. I just hope that these conversations are still going where they need to be.
George Ramirez is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist in Southern California. As someone with Cerebral Palsy, George is a passionate advocate for the disability community both personally and professionally. George received his Masters of Arts in Clinical Psychology in December of 2023 and is currently specializing in work with people with substance use. George was a participating panelist in the 2023-2024 Disability & Health Webinar Series conversation on mental health and disability.