Many public places still aren’t easy for people with disabilities

Maybe it’s because I’m currently running for disability commissioner at my school, Trent University, or maybe it’s just because I am an amputee, but disability advocacy has been on my mind a lot more than usual.

There are times in my life when posttraumatic stress hits a little too hard, the tears fall a little more frequently than is familiar, and the chronic pain is just too unbearable. Oddly enough, these are the times I accomplish the most.

When I’m in a rut, I put myself out there to do good; surely enough, karma willing, I feel better.

What I would like to discuss in this column is parallel to my current campaign goals, but I would also like to offer a closer look to all my readers about what it’s really like to live as a young person with two physical disabilities.

The first thing you need to know about physical disability activism is this: It’s physical. As important as mental health is to recognize as a disability, it is more acknowledged, accepted, and accommodated than people living with physical disabilities.

As a disabled, gay, teenager, life itself is even more inaccessible. Being a part of the LGBTQ community is a big part of my life, but as I learn more about Pride parades, LGBTQ gathering spaces, etc., I become increasingly more aware of the fact that it is still assumed everyone attending will be able-bodied, and spaces are often not accommodating.

Physical disabilities don’t just mean being accommodative towards people in wheelchairs either. It’s the people with hand/arm amputations, leg amputations, people who are blind and/or deaf (or hard of hearing).

It’s people who have diseases like ALS, Osteoporosis, Parkinson's Disease, or severe chronic pain that may be able to walk but still use a wheelchair.

It’s the people you wouldn’t expect that go through the most pain. As my mom has taught me, “always be kind, for you never know what’s going on in someone else’s life.”

The physically disabled community as a whole must be thought of in public spaces; the more important thing is for the people planning to build buildings, or plan classroom/work activities, to make the effort to ensure that all their needs are being met. A lot of the time, I feel like a burden. Correction: a lot of the time, my physical body feels like a burden.

The last thing I want to do is tell someone I need accommodations. I still do it, because I have the right to and I believe in representing myself as a disabled person for other, less vocal physically disabled people, but there’s something about this acknowledgement of my own disabilities without a proper understanding from others that makes me feel the tiresome weight of my body.

So why is this the case? I want change. I have been a SickKids and Terry Fox Foundation Ambassador for more than five years. In 2016 I was the Terry Fox Poster Girl featured in schools across Canada. Yet I still see buildings that are only meeting the standards of accessibility, nothing more, because no more thought is put into it. It’s a double-edged sword to see an elevator finally being put in somewhere, but then wondering why it wasn't there in the first place.

My goals for change are to create safe, understanding, empowering, and equal environments around the world, where physical disabilities aren’t alienated, but are openly invited and accommodated.

Maybe it’s too ambitious. Maybe I won’t see disability advocacy normalized for accessibility by the end of my lifetime.

But who would I be, as someone with the first-hand experience of a lack of representation, if I let the opportunity for change pass me by? The future should be all-inclusive, and as a person who has experienced so much in life already, I want to help lead the movement.