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" The Paralympics have for too long been considered the poor cousin of the Olympics. It's always run after the main games and rarely gets anything like the media coverage. "

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" The magnitude of discrimination and stigma faced by people with disability in Australia cannot be underestimated. People do not understand disability, and people fear what they don't understand. "

Stella Young

Disability

Australia

People

" As a wheelchair user, I am utterly obsessed with toilets, and all my friends know it. A simple invitation to the pub is consistently followed by, 'Do you know if they have an accessible toilet?' "

" I use the term 'disabled people' quite deliberately, because I subscribe to what's called the social model of disability, which tells us that we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses. "

Stella Young

Live

People

" I, like many women, buy into patriarchal standards of beauty every day. I very rarely leave the house without make-up. I dye my hair. I wear clothes that I choose carefully for how they make me look to the outside world. "

" Disability is often framed, in medical terms, as the ultimate disaster and certainly as a deficit. "

" The battle to find a workplace that's wheelchair accessible is a feat in itself, let alone an employer who's going to be cool about employing someone with a disability in a job you actually want to do. "

" I grew up in a very small country town in Victoria. I had a very normal, low-key kind of upbringing. I went to school, I hung out with my friends, I fought with my younger sisters. It was all very normal. "

" For me, in some ways, my whole life is a bit performative and always has been - because I'm stared at and looked at everywhere I go. "

Stella Young

Always

Because

" Many of us, particularly those of us with disabilities who have faced persistent discrimination throughout our lives, not least when trying to find employment in the first place, take enormous pride in our hard-fought jobs and careers. "

" I let go of the notion of wanting someone to ignore the way I look in order to find me attractive, because really, what kind of relationship would that be? One where someone's only attracted to you because they're ignoring a fundamental part of you? No thanks. "

Stella Young

Way

Look

" Doctors are not fortune tellers, and neither am I. Having lived with disability since birth does not afford me immunity from illness. "

" I have a condition that is included among the 200 or so classified as Dwarfism. "

" If everyone's looking at me, I might as well say something interesting. "

Stella Young

Everyone

Say

" I quickly learned that asking if an interview space was wheelchair accessible was a bad idea; it gave a potential employer an immediate bad impression. It was either a black mark against my name, or a straight up discussion of why I wouldn't be able to work there because they had no wheelchair access. "

" Physical access is one of the very first issues disability rights activists of the 1960s and '70s fought for. "

" I don't generally talk about medical terms when I discuss my position as a disabled person. I take a social rather than medical approach to disability, and so long Latin names for congenital conditions are not relevant. "

" I do sometimes painful things to my body in an effort to conform to culturally imposed beauty ideals. "

" On the whole, my life is and has been wonderful. "

" When patronised, I'm unfortunately more flight than fight. Perhaps it's because I actually feel quite wounded. "

Stella Young

Because

Than

" My disability exists not because I use a wheelchair, but because the broader environment isn't accessible. "

" I went to school, I got good marks, I had a very low key after-school job, and I spent a lot of time watching 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Dawson's Creek.' "

" Let's not forget that the Paralympics, just like the Olympics, are built on a rich history. "

Stella Young

Rich

Just

" I do not identify as a person with a disability. I'm a disabled person. And I'll be a monkey's disabled uncle if I'm going to apologise for that. "

" I used to think of myself in terms of who I'd be if I didn't have this pesky old disability. "

" I've got the best job in the world; I love it. I get to meet so many interesting people, and I get to make sure that other people with disabilities can tell their own stories as well. "

" The mere suggestion that not speaking for a day can give you an appreciation of the social isolation that comes with the experience of disability, particularly those whose impairments prohibit them from communicating verbally, is insensitive at best. "

" I once choked on a chip at a friend's birthday when I was seven and had to be sent home, as I'd broken my collarbone coughing. "

" The killing of a disabled person is not 'compassionate'. It is not 'euthanasia'. It is murder. "

" Believe me, people with disabilities are just as concerned about benefit fraud as anyone else. Money spent on those who are not in need is money that isn't being spent on vital services to support us in the community. "

Stella Young

Money

People

" Disability informs almost every part of my life. It's as important, if not more so, than my gender and sexuality. It's certainly a great deal more important to me than my religion or whether or not I caught a tram, ferry or bus to work. "