6/2/25 - Disability organizations, disabled doctors, and disabled skateboarding

Good afternoon!

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Now here are your three disability-related links for today ...

Disability groups 'stepping back' over benefit cuts

Beth Rose and Alex Collins, British Broadcasting Corporation - April 7, 2025

"Fazilet Hadi, head of policy at Disability Rights UK, a DDPO, said there was an 'anger and sense of betrayal' felt by millions of disabled people over the cuts which she described as 'the Government's massive attack on the incomes of disabled people' ... Ms Hadi said: 'Currently, Disability Rights UK, continues to have dialogue with ministers, as we believe it is important to express the depth of opposition to government plans ... Having said this, we will reconsider our position, should the wider disabled people's movement decide to take a different stance.'"

I just realized that this article is a bit old. I don't know whether or not UK disabled organizations are "stepping back" from dialog with the government, now that their plans for cutting disability benefits are a bit more solid and threatening. What struck me about the headline and quotations is that they reflect some discussions I have noticed happening here in the US, though in the much more informal spaces of social media. At least some disability activists here are definitely thinking about whether the time has come to spend less time and energy on traditional advocacy with politicians and government departments. Maybe it's time to focus more on other ways to fight for disabled people – like protest, civil disobedience, or "mutual aid." Personally, I am undecided about this. But, I find the discussion interesting, and probably important. Even though I sometimes find talk of disengagement and nontraditional advocacy perplexing, maybe even defeatist, I realize it's probably stuff that needs to be said.

One woman's fight to remove barriers for aspiring doctors with disabilities

Kristin Wright, National Public Radio - May 15, 2025

"'There's still a lot of people from that old school mentality that are out there that discourage individuals who may have a disability from entering the medical field, without even truly understanding what their needs are or how to make the appropriate accommodations.'"

I never wanted to be a doctor. My father was a pediatrician. I don't know if that made me less likely to think of a medical profession, or if it makes my lack of interest surprising. I also have some fairly significant physical disabilities. I don't know if I consciously ruled out becoming a doctor because of them, or if being a doctor simply never occurred to me because of my disabilities. Sorting out what we want and what we think we might be able to do is complicated. But when a disabled person like Taylor Carty positively wants to be a doctor, and essentially qualifies to study for it, they should be given the chance to prove themselves and help innovate over any barriers. Deciding before they even touch a patient that they can't do any doctoring because they can't do one specific part of it is clear discrimination – and not even really consistent with good medicine. On the other hand, overcoming barriers in the medical profession isn't as simple as accommodations in an office job. So the specifics are definitely worth exploring with an open mind for all sides of the debate. This article does a good job with that.

Blind skateboarder Dan Mancina builds world's first adaptive skatepark: "Everyone should have the opportunity to try skating"

Lena Smirnova, Olympics.com - May 20, 2025

"For Mancina, who is fully blind and skates with the help of a white cane, this park is a place of no limitations and one where he hopes to teach other people with vision impairments to skate and break free of the barriers they face in a normal city setting ... 'I think of it as giving them the opportunity to try it out,' Mancina told Olympics.com. 'Traditionally, there's not as many opportunities for sports for the blind, so really it's just giving that as an option. Not everybody wants to skate, but everyone should have at least the opportunity to try it.'"

Again, it's all about choice, preference, and the freedom and infrastructure to try. I have no desire to skateboard, and never have. But it's good to see a skateboarder with a disability doing something substantive to show how skateboarding can be made an option for more disabled people. It's a niche area of accessibility. It's nowhere near as important as some of the broader issues in accessibility and workplace accommodations – employment, equal education, and accessible housing. But when it comes to access to all possibilities for disabled people, more is better. And access to anything and everything – even the seemingly trivial stuff – is still important.

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