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" We often hear that people mean well: that so many just don't how to interact with people with disabilities. They're unsure of the 'right' reaction, so they default to condescension that makes them feel better in the face of their discomfort. "

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" For lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We're not real people. We are there to inspire. "

Stella Young

Inspire

Real

People

" 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. "

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

" We all learn how to use the bodies we're born with, or learn to use them in an adjusted state, whether those bodies are considered disabled or not. "

" 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

" When I was seven and watched an episode of 'Beyond 2000' that featured a floating armchair, I thought we'd definitely have one of those by 15, at the latest. "

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

" Disability doesn't make you exceptional, but questioning what you think you know about it does. "

" 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. "

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

Stella Young

Everyone

Say

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" My mother loves to remind me that about the age of four, I made a somewhat formal announcement that I was going to be a plumber when I grew up. "

Stella Young

Mother

Plumber

" I have a condition called Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI), which has affected my growth and bone strength. In short, people with the kind of OI I have generally experience hundreds of fractures in their lifetime and use wheelchairs for mobility. "

" Disability simulation fails to capture the nuance and complexity of living in a disabled body. And it certainly fails to give a deep understanding of systemic discrimination and abuse faced by disabled people. "

" Self esteem and a healthy body image for people with disabilities are so often hard-fought. "

" 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

" Yooralla is a people pleaser with a very powerful PR machine. "

" Yooralla, like most disability service organisations, is full of good people who are passionate about the rights of people with disabilities. "

" I've lost count of the number of times that I've been approached by strangers wanting to tell me that they think I'm brave or inspirational, and this was long before my work had any kind of public profile. "

Stella Young

Brave

Inspirational

" For me, and for many other people with disabilities, our status as disabled people is one of which we are fiercely proud. "

Stella Young

Disabilities

Proud

" In days gone by, short-statured people were not only labelled as ugly, stupid and freakish, they were often owned by aristocrats and treated, at best, as entertainment and, at worst, as pets. "

" We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect. "

" From pink water bottles for breast cancer to dumping a bucket of ice water on your head for neuromuscular conditions, it seems we're bombarded by requests to be 'aware' of one thing or another. "

" Apologies are great, but they don't really change anything. You know what does? Action. "

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

Stella Young

Because

Than

" It became very clear to me that Yooralla was not as interested in media coverage that explored issues faced by people with disability as it was in giving a pat on the back to journalists who maintained the status quo by giving readers the warm and fuzzies over their morning paper. "