Opinion: Disabled Pride? Only if you’re queer and disabled.

This weekend saw the first Disabled Pride in the UK, but should cis straight people ever be allowed to appropriate a queer event?

Full disclosure: I’m a disabled queer person and anything said in this post reflects both of those identities.

Now that’s out of the way, onto the issue at hand. So a bunch of cisgender straight people saw the hard work that the queer community had done and how successful Pride was and decided to claim it as their own. The straight community finally found a way to do it – through disability.

An event to celebrate disability should be a great thing. Disability has long been treated with contempt and disgust in society. A safe space for all disabled people would be welcome – just don’t screw over queer people to do it.

A safe space for all disabled people would be welcome – just don’t screw over queer people to do it.

If there was a block of white people holding up a ‘Queer Lives Matter’ banner, then they’d deserve to be epically slammed by the equality movement at large. Queer Black Lives Matter would be something to support, because it still centres blackness and unity against racism. It’s a distinction the disabled community have spectacularly failed to understand. They’ve tried to hijack a queer event for predominantly allocishet people. Instead of building up their own event, they’ve taken one that was already popular.

There is no unity between different movements. Queer spaces are often not accessible for disabled people. The queer movement still priorities having sex over everything else and that’s just not compatible with being inclusive to disability. The disabled community too have long ignored queer rights, and even silenced queer disabled people. Talking about queerness is just a bit too “ick” for some people still.

In the 80s and 90s, when gay and bisexual men were dying by the thousands the disability community rallied around haemophiliacs who were seen as ‘innocent victims’. Gay and bisexual men were shamed for their sexuality. AIDS was treated as an inevitable punishment for what was seen as such a sinful life. This stigma led to death. The queer community had to look after themselves.

It is why these events cannot be shared. Many activists actually gave their lives for events we now treat as parties. To just see the popularity of Pride and to try to take it for your own cause ignores the history of Pride and why it ever mattered.

To just see the popularity of Pride and to try to take it for your own cause ignores the history of Pride and why it ever mattered.

The disability community should start a new event where disabled people can celebrate their resistance, their identities and their defiance. Make it inclusive for queer disabled people and for disabled people of colour and it will be entitled to wholehearted support from every equality activist in the UK – but just call it something else. Don’t steal the name of Pride. Don’t erase the struggles of trans women of colour who started the queer rights movement. Don’t erase the disabled community’s own shameful history when it comes to queer acceptance because there is no harmony.

Here’s the thing, when you are straight, allosexual and cisgender and scratch your head about why Pride can’t be about you then it’s as selfish as when people want a Straight History Month whatever excuse you try to give it. Build your own event, with intersectionality at its heart. Don’t just jump on the work of others, particularly when many queer disabled people don’t feel welcome in the disabled community.

Queer people fought to bring about Pride. It was an event created when queer people had no rights. It was a yearly event that was on the calendar even as AIDS ravaged the community and everyone else did nothing. Pride is therefore inherently about what it means to be queer. The event is a huge success because of queer people and trying to cash in on the brand name of “Pride” rather than create an original event relevant to the disabled community is the worst kind of cynicism designed to profit from the activism of others. Pride is so inextricably linked with queerness and for allocishets to be running an event in that name is to co-opt an entire movement.

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