6/17/25 - Disability rights globally and in the US ... and disabled sports

Hi there!

I hope your week is off to a decent start. Here are your three disability-related links for Tuesday ...

Global action needed as progress stalls on disability-inclusive development goals

United Nations - June 10, 2025

"Nearly all the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators for persons with disabilities are off track, the UN deputy chief said on Tuesday, as people from around the world gathered for the largest annual meeting on disability-related issues ... 'The message is stark: persons with disabilities face higher poverty, greater unemployment, deeper food and health insecurity and more limited access to education, jobs, and digital technologies,' said Amina Mohammed ... But action is underway."

From my American perspective, I have always felt two contradictory ways about United Nations efforts to promote disability rights and disabled people's wellbeing globally, like the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, (CRPD). I admire their ambition. And from what I can tell, the goals and modes of thinking the UN are following are sound. But what kind of real-life impact do they have? Is it all any more than a bunch of talking points, awareness-raising, and reasons to have big meetings every few years. If that's all it is, that's still not necessarily bad. Continuing to talk about these things has value in itself. But it would be more encouraging if these efforts had some real positive influence on the lives of people with disabilities around the world. My sense is that UN disability efforts have had some positive impact, particularly in countries where progress on disability rights might not have been possible without the UN's goals and support. But that's only a sense. I don't have much information. It's something I feel like I need to read about more often.

The Department of Energy Is Quietly Slashing Disability Rights

Julia Métraux, Mother Jones - June 13, 2025

"In May, the Department of Energy quietly introduced a proposal to eliminate its longstanding requirement that new buildings receiving funds from the agency be accessible to disabled people—a rule in effect across the federal government since 1980, thanks to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act."

This really does feel like a trial balloon ... a test case for undoing longstanding disability rights regulations not by changing the law, but by undermining the regulations in favor of "flexibility." One thing I have always thought notable about disability rights laws – especially those around physical accessibility – is that not being flexible is unusually important. If a wheelchair requires at least 32 inches to get through a doorway, being "flexible" with a builder and letting them make 28 inch doorways won't make a place just a little less accessible. It will make it totally inaccessible. In any case, letting the Department of Energy to do this will open the door to every other department, including those where accessibility and equal rights for disabled people are even more essential.

HOW BOCCIA GAVE ME A SHOT AT BEING AN ATHLETE

Cara Liebowitz, Audacity Magazine - June 11, 2025

"Every sport I tried became another reminder of what I couldn’t do. I wanted to move. I wanted to compete. Mostly, I wanted to stop feeling like sports were built for everyone else ... In 2019, I rolled into boccia practice at Medstar National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, DC, secretly expecting it to be a snooze-fest. But one practice changed everything. I left exhilarated. For the first time, I had found a sport that actually fit me."

I wonder how many disabled people avoid even trying adaptive sports and activities precisely because they are adaptive, and therefore seem like they might be a "snooze-fest?" That's a shame. In many cases, shame is a major component, too. Our internalized ableism tells us, "How could any disabled-only or adaptive activity be anything but boring, or faintly ridiculous?" We need more personal stories like Cara's to encourage all of us disabled people to give things a try, and to be willing to embrace things that might really suit us, even if they might look strange and obscure to others.

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