This interview was conducted by Ben Rowsome and Lydia Vlagsma, EDF Youth Committee members.
Being young, having a disability, and in the LGBTQIA+ community can often mean that your voice is underrepresented in the media and the wider public. The EDF Youth Committee set out to explore how young people with disabilities who identify as queer experience the disability community and gather their advice on inclusivity. We interviewed three individuals from the LGBTQIA+ and disability communities to share their perspectives.
Pride celebrations and accessibility
One of the first things we were curious to find out, in the spirit of the recent Pride celebrations, was just how our interviewees celebrated Pride this year.
Rachael Nugent (they/them), a 24-year-old physics student in Trinity College Dublin in Ireland,celebrated Pride by going to see the parade in Dublin with their girlfriend and friends. They were enlightened by how the parade brought so many people from different advocacy groups and companies together – a real show of solidarity. Afterwards they went for food, with plans of going to the afterparty in Merrion square, but it was too rainy in the end. Rachael also remarked on the Pride Hub shop in Dublin, where they had gone some weeks before Pride to buy t-shirts and other such bits and bobs. In the same spirit, there was a pop-up during Pride selling t-shirts, flags and such.
Despite the festivities, we very quickly got a sense of the inaccessibility that has too often arisen during the Pride celebrations and other such LGBTQIA+ events throughout Europe.
Jopie Louwe Kooijmans (they/them), a 33 year old neurodivergent/disability advocate from the Netherlands, went to celebrate Pride at their local Pride march (ZaanPride) this year but had to leave early on account of how inaccessible it was. They remarked on how they don’t often feel comfortable at Pride events because they find them extremely overstimulating and not Covid safe, and thus struggle to find a way of really celebrating Pride. To try and compensate for this, they mostly focused on their own online activism during Pride month. In that respect, Disability Pride month is more ‘their’ month because there is so much more focus on accessibility, but since Disability Pride Month (July) is lesser known they find that there really aren’t as many events and most people would simply ignore it. Given this, they tend to focus more on their own activism for Disability Pride Month.
This experience is echoed by Clementine Doevendans (her/tree), a 28-year-old disabled lesbian activist from the Netherlands. “I live in Amsterdam and I’ve been frustrated about the inaccessibility of pride for years. For years I walked in the disability block of the pride march, last year in the Palestine block, because there is no pride in genocide. It seems like people forget that pride started out as a protest, not a party. I think there is to little connection between queer people with and without disabilities, and a big gap between both communities. Then, Disabled people could’ve taught non-disabled people a different view on what life should be and how to live equally. As disabled people have a unique and unexplored view and experience on life, provided by the inaccessibility and systematic oppression that, including and putting disabled voices on top would problably create an immense change and improvement of life for everyone.”
Patricia (she/her), a 23-year-old trans woman from Romania now living in Belgium. Reflecting on the differences between Romania and Belgium however, she states: “Unfortunately pride is not accessible in Romania, because it is a country in which LGBTQ is not accepted. There are some organisations for LGBTIQ+ but they have difficulties to do activities and engage properly with their community due to lack of funds and possibilities. And also one of the barriers is lack of people accepting LGBTIQ people.”
Identities within the LGBTQIA+ community
After learning how our interviewees engage with LGBTQIA+ spaces in their countries, we asked them to reflect on their experiences within the LGBTQIA+ community versus the disability community and how these identities complement or conflict with each other.
Rachael, acknowledging how their disability has impacted them, remarked: “Figuring out my sexuality while being ill took me a bit longer than anyone else. Dealing with other things might take extra time, but you will eventually figure it out. Chronic illness can be invisible unless using aids – same goes for LGBTQ (invisible until disclosed).” They also remarked how it was easier to disclose to the likes of lecturers in college as opposed to a romantic partner. Having developed their chronic illness in secondary school, everyone was aware of their disability at that point, but at college there was no one who knew. “So that was difficult to disclose to friends. Everyone reacted really well, it’s such a big part of my life. Harder to attend lectures. With girlfriend: tough to say it so soon and not knowing how they will respond.”
Jopie, highlighting some of the parallels between these two aspects of their identity, stated: “My identities are both mostly invisible as well, although I feel like you can easily see I’m queer just by the way I dress. Others just don’t see that though, weirdly enough. Even when I’m completely decked out in rainbows they seem surprised whenever I tell them I’m queer and nonbinary. In a sense it feels safe, especially since queer and trans hate has been on the rise for years. I have a choice to disclose it to people or not. In the case of my disabilities, I’m a very public disability activist so I don’t get to hide them as much. Pretty much as soon as you google my name you’ll see I’m disabled. I currently work in mental health care as a content creator so I am writing and talking about disability full time. I’ve been anonymous for a long time as a disability activist, but I feel like it was a good decision to go public as I have been able to do much more now that I’m ‘out of the closet’ as disabled.”
Patricia, giving a sense of the stigma that she often faces as a person with a disability, remarked:“When I go to Romania and I am walking with my white cane, without knowing my identity, they will say ‘you poor girl’ – so if they find out my identity I will be sent directly to hell!” Also acknowledging the big difference in pride between Belgium and Romania, she stated: “I would like to explain that the first big difference is from my perspective – as a trans person – [and that’s] that there are no medical people who are specialised in trans care [in Romania]. And if you want to start a process of changing your gender, like hormonal treatment, you need to search a lot for endocrinologists and to pay them for this care. While in Belgium, you have specialised medical personnel and everything is accessible. You can access them and you know about them. And the biggest difference is that no one judges you here [in Belgium].”
Getting to know our interviewees a bit more allowed for a deeper insight into the life of an LGBTQ person with a disability. For instance, when we asked Rachael whether there were any struggles around dating with a disability, and how they managed that, they mentioned the following: “My girlfriend and I met online, through a dating app. We were chatting for a couple of weeks, then [had a] video call. [When] planning our first date, I knew I was going to have to tell her [about my disability], because it impacts how far I can walk and what I can do. So I told her about the ways in which it impacts my life. It wasn’t an issue at all. I figured if I want this to go as smoothly as possible, I need to make her aware.” They also remarked on like it was disclosing their disability to friends for the first time: “So that was difficult to disclose to friends. Everyone reacted really well, it’s such a big part of my life. Harder to attend lectures. With my girlfriend, it’s tough to say it so soon and not know how they will respond.”
Clementine also shared some experiences around having a disability and romantic relationships: “I was in a relationship when I started using a wheelchair. This relationship was not really good for me – or her – but my disability made us both more afraid to leave each other. And even now, many people enjoy my company and accept my wheelchair and the idea of my disability, but not as much what the reality of having a disability means. For example when I am annoyed because of pain, or when I have to sleep a lot or when I cannot do things, then people don’t understand or find it difficult to accept.”
Final Thoughts: Messages to Human Rights Advocates and Policymakers
To conclude our interviews, we asked them what their message to (aspiring) advocates for human rights – or to policymakers and decision makers – would be. They responded passionately as follows:
Rachael: “It’s so important to hear from the community (whether it be the disabled community or whomever). It’s great if people want to bring awareness but so important to get the perspectives from people with lived experience.”
Jopie: “Listen to (multiple) marginalised people and amplify their voices. Don’t lose touch with the community. Listen to queer, trans, neurodivergent, disabled people of colour. Protect their rights and advocate for their rights, and the whole world will become better for it. A second thing: accessibility helps everyone. Abolish ableism and actively work to make your movement or political party more accessible. More accessibility means more people will be able to join you, more people will understand what you’re standing for, more people will feel connected to you and your movement or political party will become bigger – which gives you more opportunities to advocate for justice and human rights and create a revolution.”
Patricia: “First of all to provide much more support than they [currently] do. And to provide much more support but also protection, mainly in Romania. And more rights – in Romania they don’t have rights. Most of the people in my situation in Romania live in the country[side] because they don’t have rights, so they can’t live really. And that Romania accepts LGBTQIA people, because it’s something normal.
Clementine: “educate yourself on ableism. It is crucial to understand the long history of ableism, which is rooted in eugenics, and how this still affects disabled people to this day. For example the marriage penalty and the prenatal NIPT tests. Moreover, it is important to acknowledge the wide diversity within the disabled community, and to be honest about the different levels of exclusion that people with disabilities experience. For example, being born with a disability creates a different reality compared to a fluctuating disability that means you can sometimes walk. And finally, we really need allies who speak out about inaccessibility and exclusion.”
Reflections after the Interviews
Our interviewees, who clearly highlight community and support for improving the situation regarding disability and LGBTQIA+ across Europe, have given us a lot of food for thought in terms of what our plans are within the EDF Youth Committee to put the wheels in motion for a safer, more inclusive and more accessible Europe. The sheer diversity of perspectives has proven that there will be no one-size-fits-all solution, but that there is still a lot that can be done within our home countries as well as in Europe as a whole.
This will truly be the starting point – all thanks to those, like our interviewees, who are willing to tell, and passionate about telling, their story – for implementing real change throughout Europe. As Roberta Metsola recently remarked upon having been reelected as President of the European Parliament; “Europe is all of us!”