Monthly Archives: May 2018

Below is a transcript of the tape that was made of my speech at the Inspire Awards, given out by Toronto’s LGBT community, at the ceremony on May 5th. The beginning and ending are from memory, which is unreliable, the middle is from the portion of my speech that was recorded. (Joe assists me with […]

Today I will be receiving a lifetime achievement award at the “Inspire” ceremony here in Toronto from the LGBTQQ+ community. It’s for my work regarding sexuality, adulthood, and self advocacy with people who have intellectual disabilities. I feel humbled by the award and challenged by the fact that I have one minute to speak after […]

Okay, this is a subject I’ve written about before but I’m going to take a different turn in the telling. We arrived at a hotel with a booking guaranteeing an accessible room and there wasn’t one. The clerk, handed me a key to a room, not telling me that it wasn’t accessible, even though I’d […]

Does it matter that I have a disability? Yes. It does. People keep saying that they don’t think of me as disabled. Even though I am. People keep saying that they don’t see me that way. Even though I am, quite visibly, disabled. People keep saying that I shouldn’t speak of myself that way. Even […]

While Joe was getting his hair cut I was wandering around the store. He takes much longer than I do and I fill that time by browsing. I was rushing back to the hair cutting place when I had to come to a stop because there were two people who were blocking the pathway. The […]

I keep getting told that it’s “not prejudice.” I keep getting that patient voice explaining to me that prejudice as a motivating factor is just in my mind. I keep having explained to me that, essentially, there is no such thing as prejudice against people with disabilities. After shopping for groceries in my local store, […]