9/23/26 - September Monthly Q&A, with Peter Torres Fremlin
Good afternoon!
This is the second edition of the Disability Thinking Weekday Monthly Q&A. The first one, last month, featured Julia Métraux, disability reporter at Mother Jones. Today's interview is with Peter Torres Fremlin, the UK-based creator of Disability Debrief, which Peter describes as:
"... a weekly newsletter that explores the world through a disability lens. The Debrief curates news from 170+ countries, and features original work by writers and artists from around the globe."
You can learn more about the ideas, goals, and approaches of Disability Debrief on its About Page.
Disability Debrief is one of my favorite disability-themed newsletters. When I got the idea of monthly Q&As, I knew that Peter would be one of the first I would ask to participate. I'm so glad that he agreed. Now let's get to know Peter Torres Fremlin better through his answers to our standard five questions:
- How, why, and when did you get involved in disability culture and / or activism?
Sometimes the way I tell this story is that I say "I became disabled on the stairs of a hotel in Bangladesh". I grew up with a physical disability in the UK, but I guess like many people I tried not to be defined because of it or indeed connect with other disabled people. Then at university, studying literature, I started to read about disability and get more interested.
After I graduated I was in Bangladesh learning Bangla, and seeing I climbed the stairs with difficulty, someone approached me: "You're disabled, I'm disabled, and we have a group of disabled people. Come and visit."
It's an invitation that changed my life, my first connection with other disabled people in terms of disability. From there I went on to research with people with physical disabilities in Brazil, who became my friends also. And then back to Bangladesh where I started work on disability inclusion in international cooperation, which went on to become my career.
And, it's funny - of course when I came back to the UK (in 2020) I looked for disability community locally. We don't really have any pan-disability organisation where I live, but I've met disabled people through the creative and arts scene.
- Which kind of disability-related problem do you experience most from day to day?
I have an Ulrich Muscular Dystrophy, which is one of the more "mild" muscular dystrophies, but is progressive and with time gets less mild! So, a daily issue is managing my impairment, whether that's the regular physio, moving between my wheelchair and other chairs/bed, and then trying to keep up a few steps of walking which I try to do as a hobby/for fitness.
As my condition progresses, this daily management gets harder. I can still manage at home by myself, but I don't know how long that will be the case for, or how I will arrange assistance/care when I can't.
These changes in the last few years also mean, (accelerated by breaking my leg), that I now use a heavy power wheelchair full time. Combined, it means that now if I go somewhere that isn't set up for me I need assistance. Together with the big wheelchair this has really slowed down my travel game, which used to be a foundational part of my life. I lived abroad for over a decade.
Maybe I'm focussing on the changes, as there are a lot of other things around accessibility that one kind of bakes into one's approach in life. So, I'm not mentioning the restaurants or shops I can't get into, or the issues with transportation, as they aren't daily issues, they're a given.
And one reason I can focus on the changes is that I have a good baseline of accessibility in other areas. I could get a power wheelchair when I needed one, I have step-free access to my flat and fingers-crossed a lift that works. My town is totally scootable by wheelchair and a lot of public transport is accessible. Plus I'm lucky to have good work and and income which means I can navigate other costs by myself.
Plus I'm lucky to have good work and and income which means I can navigate other costs by myself. And in the UK we have public healthcare, so that isn't one of the costs I need to calculate.
- How has your thinking about disability changed over the years?
While I was working on disability in international development I was taking quite a bureaucratic view of disability, writing about policies and programmes and laws and whatnot. I always felt a disjunction with my own life, and knew that what I was writing in the policy brief wasn't what would match my own life.
In the past few years, through making Disability Debrief, I've been able to connect those different ways of knowing about disability, and shape what I call a disability lens. I really think disability gives us new ways into seeing the world.
Maybe we see things related to our own disabled experience, (for instance I will quickly see if there are steps somewhere, as I find those difficult). But also when we think about disability more widely, access, attitudes, different ways of doing things, who's included, who's left out, we get a great new insight into other issues.
Disability gives us a new view onto the world, whether that's about the climate crisis, artificial intelligence, or the impact of politics going rightwards.
- What do you think is the most urgent issue for disabled people right now?
It's hard to know which way to turn with the world changing as it is! If we're not worried about the climate crisis, then there's wild speculation about what AI will do to the economy (or our species), let alone the political chaos and international instability.
We're on the frontlines of climate change and climate disasters. We're caught by the changing politics, whether it's austerity measures, backsliding democracy, or the increase in ableist attacks and cuts to the services we need to live. And we're also the ones experimenting with new technologies like AI, as well as the ones at risk of being discriminated by it when applying to work or getting a benefit or just trying to pass through a facial recognition gate.
Disabled people are on the edge of the future, and the future is very uncertain. The political basis through which we secured rights and progress in the past decades is seemingly being thrown out of the window. How do we continued to find ways to secure our place in society?
- What do you think is the most promising opportunity for disabled people in the near future?
The thing that has really grown, and that is within our power to keep, is disability community. That meeting on the stairs in Bangladesh changed my life, and I'm a firm believer that connecting with other disabled people shows us how to live and who we can be. Together we're stronger, we can have each other's backs, and we can figure out what we need to do.
Thank you Andrew to you and your readers for being part of that, and part of what disability community means for me.
And thanks again to Peter for his time and insightful answers. If you enjoyed reading them, I urge you all to visit and subscribe to Disability Debrief, and help support it if you can.
Disability Thinking Weekday is a Monday-Friday newsletter with links and commentary on disability-related articles and other content. You can help promote Disability Thinking Weekday by forwarding it by email or posting on your social media. You can also comment by sending me an email at: apulrang@icloud.com. Collected comments are shared on the first of each month. A free subscription sends a newsletter to your email each weekday. Benefits of paid subscription include:
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