Pride and perseverance
Some thoughts on Disability Pride Month
Living with hearing loss impacts every aspect of my life. It shapes how I communicate, navigate the world, and connect (or, more often, don’t connect) with others.
During Disability Pride month, I find myself thinking lately about unexpected support—the small, impactful ways people have shown up and advocated on my behalf when I couldn’t.
There’s my wife, of course, who helps translate basically everywhere we go, and who’s learning ASL with me so we can communicate a little easier.
Tangentially, we just learned the sign for poetry, and it’s perfect:
There was my former manager, who helped me when the accommodation I asked for1 at work was denied by HR.
There was the friend who joyfully texted me throughout the all-girl Led Zeppelin cover band concert because I could not hear a word she said.
And on and on.
These small acts each form a stitch in the great blanket of resilience and solidarity and help to cover me when times get bleak.
One of my favorite stories of allyship is in Kim Nielsen's A…