Celebrating Pride Month

In recognition of Pride Month, RespectAbility celebrates the diversity and positive impact the LGBTQ+ community adds to the United States. At the same time, we recognize that the data shows that full equity for the LGBTQ+ community in public life has yet to be achieved. This is of particular importance to the disability community, because there is tremendous intersection between the disability and LGBTQ+ communities.

According to a Gallup poll, the number of adults identifying as LGBTQ+ in America is 7.1% (approximately 23.5 million people), double what the data showed in 2012. At the same time, only 13 members of the U.S. Congress identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community: 2 senators out of 100, and 11 out of the 435 (2.5%) members of the House of Representatives. This means that the LGBTQ+ community is markedly underrepresented in the halls of power.

Even as we wait for and work toward better representation, we must also work to ensure that those in power right now represent and listen to the needs of communities historically left out of the conversation. This applies especially to those who are multiply marginalized, like people at the intersection of the disability and LGBTQ+ communities. According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), 36% of LGBTQ+ adults self-report as having a disability, and 52% of transgender adults in particular self-report a disability, compared to 24% of non-LGBTQ+ adults who self-report a disability. [continue reading…]

The heart of RespectAbility’s self-employment project is a collaborative gathering of best practices and resources. Like most collaborative processes, the project has many moving parts, but that doesn’t mean that we need to wait to start sharing the information with our readers. RespectAbility Policy Fellow Audrey Bayne has invested significant time and energy learning about state Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) self-employment programs. Below, she briefly describes how Texas is leading the way.

The national Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) argues that the inherent flexibility of self-employment is often a better match for people with disabilities than traditional “nine to five” employment, making them more likely to retain their employment status. VR clients whose cases end in self-employment make an average of nearly 80% more income than their peers who obtain traditional competitive integrated employment (CIE). Despite self-employment providing significantly more flexibility and income than traditional CIE, many states’ VR offices are not adequately equipped to assist their clients in pursuing this kind of employment.

In fact, despite its significant benefits, nationally only 1.7% of VR cases end in self-employment. Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rehabilitation Research and Training Center surveyed several hundred VR employees and found that a majority of those employed by state Vocational Rehabilitation offices did not feel adequately equipped to assist their clients in seeking self-employment. RespectAbility’s self-employment project is looking at the successes of different states, in the hopes that we can all learn from each other.

One standout state in the area of self-employment for VR clients is Texas. In 2019, 9.1% of Texas clients’ cases closed in self-employment, more than five times the national average. There appear to be some secrets to Texas’ success. [continue reading…]

The Bentonville Film Festival (BFF) took to the screens – both live in Arkansas and virtual on computers and TV sets throughout the country – for its ninth year. Chaired by Academy Award winner Geena Davis, BFF champions women and diverse voices.

According to festival programmers, “over 30% of the (competition) program is comprised of creators with disabilities” and “25% (of onscreen leads) represent talent with disabilities.” This is an increase from 2021, when eight percent of the directors, four percent of the writers, and four percent of the leads identified as having a disability.

Below please find a guide to several of the films featuring disability in the plot or talent with disabilities. A majority of BFF offerings are available virtually through Sunday, June 25. [continue reading…]

CW: suicide, depression

Directed by Nicole Melillo, the fantasy short The Cab took home the Jury Award for Best Short Film at the 2023 Bentonville Film Festival. With its fresh take on mental health, the short film’s praise is well-deserved. [continue reading…]

My Eyes Are Up Here is an odyssey to get the morning after pill. How could a short film be an odyssey? When a disabled woman of color needs to travel to a pharmacy for the morning after pill, the number of obstacles and quick assumptions she has to face parallels those of Odysseus. The short film was part of the 2023 Bentonville Film Festival – a festival focused on promoting underrepresented voices in entertainment.

A high-profile model Sonya (Jillian Mercado) wakes up from a one-night stand with a clumsy man named Tom (Ben Cura). Quickly, they discover that she will need to take the morning after pill, so Sonya begins the journey to get it with Tom as her unwanted sidekick. As Sonya goes about her business, you witness the numerous ableist situations and people Sonya has to deal with every day. There is only an unstable makeshift ramp to get out of Tom’s building. The ride-sharing service is inaccessible. Obnoxious women will not move their shopping bags out of the accessible area on the bus. None of these moments are surprising to Sonya, as they are the reality of being visibly disabled in our society. However, through Tom’s now-open eyes, a day in the life for Sonya is an extensive journey. [continue reading…]

After being financed by the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund, Voyage avec mon pere, translated to A Journey With My Dad, premiered at the 2023 Bentonville Film Festival in the Competition Animation Films category.

The hand-drawn animated short follows a precocious 5 year old girl named Tamar as she accompanies her dad to a hotel for a vacation. Tamar is overjoyed to jump into the pool with all the other father and daughter duos, but grows increasingly impatient when her dad struggles to blow enough air into her floatie. She jumps in and is filled with curiosity upon seeing a man with one leg swimming underneath. Her curiosity is cut short when her dad pulls her out of the water. He gives her a menacing glare as he catches his breath. [continue reading…]

As a final project for her Spring Fellowship, Policy Fellow Emily Snodderly wrote and delivered this policy speech examining the practice of paying subminimum wages to people with disabilities.

In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act created the federal minimum wage, but it included an exception for people with disabilities. The exception was intended to preserve employment opportunities for people, especially wounded veterans, who couldn’t keep up with “normal production” in factories. Now, 85 years later, thanks to this law, an estimated 53,000 workers in the United States earn less than minimum wage, sometimes pennies per hour, solely because they have a disability.

This is the typical experience of a worker with a disability earning subminimum wage. We’ll call her Janet. Janet is a 35-year-old woman with an intellectual disability. For the last 15 years, she has worked in something called a sheltered workshop. Like Janet, all her coworkers have some sort of disability. For 10 hours a week, they sort and package products like jewelry or soap. Every 6 months, Janet’s supervisor times how fast she works in order to justify her current wage. She earns $4 an hour–about average for sheltered workshop employees. After an entire year of sorting and packaging the same way every day, Janet has earned a grand total of $2,000.

Oftentimes, when I first tell someone about subminimum wage employment, their reaction is positive. They say, “Isn’t that a good thing? If employers can pay lower wages, it incentivizes them to hire people with disabilities. Plus, people who couldn’t otherwise get a job get the satisfaction of having a job.” However, this perspective is based on two false assumptions. [continue reading…]

Many Americans with and without disabilities use fixed-route transportation like a city bus or commuter rail to reach their desired destination. However, people with disabilities may need additional transportation assistance to reach destinations beyond traditional public transportation routes. Public transit authorities provide paratransit services for eligible persons with disabilities if they cannot safely travel short distances to a bus stop. For instance, minibuses are used for these purposes. However, there can be issues with the timeliness of these services and the limited distance that is covered.

Federal law requires city transportation authorities to provide paratransit for eligible people with disabilities within three-quarters of a mile of the fixed route of a city bus or commuter rail. Transportation authorities are not required to provide paratransit services beyond these limits but may extend services. This regulation aims to enable people with disabilities to reach their destinations safely but creates challenges depending on the location. [continue reading…]

June is Pride Month, a month of profound and unending gratitude for me. I am an openly queer and disabled clergy person. Without the radical dreaming and action from our queer and disabled ancestors, my path would not be possible.

Disability and Queerness have always been intertwined, from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) classifying homosexuality a mental illness, to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) disabling millions of queer community members. In the disability community our love and embodiment has always been queer. Our communities know how to love and embrace people and lifestyles that do not fit the norm.

I am named after a disabled and queer uncle who passed away from AIDS in the 1980s. He was a committed advocate against discrimination toward queer people with AIDS in the workplace. His death was the catalyst for my grandparents to join our LGBTQ affirming church. While there, they created AIDS support groups at the church, and slowly became surrogate parents for many queer people whose families had abandoned them. [continue reading…]