6/25/26 - Stories

Andrew Pulrang

25 Jun 2026 • 5 min read

Hello again!

I skipped yesterday. Had a bunch of other life stuff to take care of. Let's head towards the end of the week with some storytelling, including an invitation to share some of your own. And once again ...

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I went to the world's only Deaf university

Carolyn Girard-Jaupaj and Celestine Fraser, Body Babble - June 22, 2026

"All my Deaf friends moved back to their home states and countries and suddenly, like a spell or maybe a curse, the words 'no other place like this in the world' rang in my ears louder than ever ... You can leave Gallaudet, but it will never leave you. I’ll always have an ache for the world that showed me that my quality of life could be better – even if I came out of it severely traumatised."

The "Deaf President Now!" story was very influential for me. The movement to get a Deaf President of Gallaudet University happened when I was in my Senior year in college. I had grown up with physical disabilities and almost no connection to other disabled people, to disability culture, or disability rights and politics. Learning about the effectiveness, creativity, and vibrancy of those Gallaudet students was the first step for me into a life substantially devoted to disability as more than my own annoying bundle of medical conditions. So, it was revealing, challenging, but ultimately an enriching experience to read about a Gallaudet student's exciting but deeply troubling experience there. It's remarkable that she can end her story with positive things to say about Gallaudet. At the same time, her decidedly mixed experience is quite similar to stories of people who go to other "dream" universities, only to be disappointed or betrayed in some way, yet come out still feeling a kind of positive connection.to it. It's also similar to how a lot of disabled people about disability communities themselves. Disability culture and activism are absolutely places where disabled people can truly find themselves. They also regularly stigmatize disabled people, often almost casually and inexplicably, discriminate against them, and traumatize them. Maybe all cultures and institutions do these things. But, that doesn't make them inherently harmful or useless. These collective community experiences and spaces are still vital for disabled people, even when they let us down.

Disability by David Turner review – a revelatory new history

Lucy Webster, The Guardian - June 19, 2026

"The sweeping perspective is anchored by incredible personal stories. We meet Duncan Campbell, an aristocrat who, at the turn of the 18th century, became a sensation as a deaf psychic, trading on myth and rumour relating to his disability to boost his fame and credibility at a time when deafness was equated with being childlike and ineducable. Or, two centuries later, May Billinghurst, the infamous “cripple suffragette” who used her bespoke hand-operated tricycle to break through police lines and commit acts of civil disobedience. Or, later still, Megan du Boisson, a 1960s housewife who campaigned for the first disability benefits awarded solely on the basis of impairment, when existing schemes only covered those injured at work or in war, leaving out almost all disabled women."

I'm going to order this book, if only to get to know some of the disabled activists and leaders throughout UK history whose stories are told in the book. I tend to focus on systems and ideas more than individual people in my thinking about disability history and activism. But, that's all the more reason for me to make an effort to learn about the disabled people who have made progress happen, and who have created disability culture for us.

How did disability shape your day?

Peter Torres Fremlin, Disability Debrief - June 17, 2026

"You’re writing in your diary before you go to sleep. How did disability shape your day? ... That's the prompt for our new open call for writing: Dear Disability Diary. If it grabs you, please send us a page from your journal!"

Maybe you'd like to do some storytelling of your own. Disability Debrief is looking for personal accounts of how disabled people spend our days. Click the link in the quote above for the details. Submissions up to 500 words are due on July 20, 2026.

Tell Congress to Stop the Dismantling of the Department of Education and Protect Students with Disabilities - American Association of People with Disabilities

Protect Vote By Mail, Submit a Comment to the United States Postal Service (USPS) with the American Association of People with Disabilities

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