Los Angeles, CA, June 14 – For the second year, RespectAbility is proud to announce the recipients of its annual awards recognizing individuals working to advance opportunities for people with disabilities. Elizabeth Kim is the recipient of the 2023 Justin Chappell Memorial Award and Nicole Homerin is the 2023 Steve Bartlett Award recipient. Each will receive $1,000 and be honored on stage at RespectAbility’s 10^th Anniversary Celebration, sponsored by Wells Fargo, in Los Angeles on July 27. [continue reading…]

Queer and trans disabled folks are at the center of queer trans history and disability history, because the movements incubate and cross pollinate each other. For instance, during the 504 occupation, the owners of the lesbian bar in the East Bay brought shampoo and conditioner and washed people’s hair in an act of tangible solidarity and direct mutual aid. Trans artist and activist Leslie Feinberg’s last collection of work, a photoessay that documented life from their window as a chronically ill person, is another example of this overlap.

My friend Emet embodied intersectionality. He was a queer trans disabled chronically ill rabbinical student and rabbi. He served on the boards of NCIL and GLSEN. He was a person that people were drawn to, so naturally, a mutual aid network made up of queer trans chronically ill and disabled folks formed around him. The hospice center where Emet died was originally founded to care for HIV/AIDS patients. Whenever I visited, I always imagined the young queer and trans chronically ill networks of care that existed there together before us. [continue reading…]

Receiving an Meta Quest VR (virtual reality) headset as a Christmas gift in 2020 brought me immense excitement, primarily for the wide array of games and virtual experiences it offered. However, little did I know that this device would lead me beyond the realm of gaming and introduce me to an entirely new realm of religious services and spiritual exploration in the metaverse.

Prior to this, I had been engaging in online church services, seeking a sense of community and connection. It was during this time that I discovered the Word Of Grace Meta Church, led by Pastor Jonathan Long. Attending services in the metaverse opened up a whole new dimension of worship and spiritual growth for me. The immersive environment, combined with the guidance and leadership of Pastor Long (who we affectionately call Pastor Jonny), created a unique and meaningful experience. It allowed me to connect with fellow believers from around the world, transcending physical barriers and expanding my understanding of spirituality in the digital age. Immersing myself in a virtual reality church experience strengthened my connection to my Christian faith in ways I had never experienced before.

After participating in a few Sunday services, the impact was so profound that I encouraged seven more of my family members to invest in VR headsets. Now, we attend church services together, despite living in four different cities separated by an average distance of three hours. This new technology has eliminated the barriers that once prevented us from worshiping as a family. [continue reading…]

During this Mental Health Awareness month, I’ve been reflecting on how faith communities address mental health needs and become more inclusive in this area. While there still is a need for more education and decreasing stigma about mental health, it is encouraging to see more communities being willing to discuss these topics and offer ways to support people.

I have also realized that mental and emotional support even in a religious or spiritual framework can take many forms. It can be individual or group counseling, peer support, having a book study/discussion, connecting with others who have shared experience, or creating an education program.

When I moved overseas to Korea, one of the first things I did was to look for any Jewish community. Although I hadn’t been involved in a community back in New York, I somehow suddenly felt the need to connect with other Jewish people when I was so far from home. Finding a community means belonging to a group of people, and for Jewish people especially, there is an unspoken understanding and connection.

When I discovered Chabad, which had just newly started in Korea, there were Jews of many nationalities and religious levels, but everyone was welcome. The common thread was that we were all living in a foreign country and had to deal with adjusting to a new culture, unfamiliar customs, language issues, and not having support systems. In many ways, because we were such a small community, people got to know others and could develop relationships and support each other more. For myself, I felt most supported by being invited to Shabbat every week, joining women’s groups, and meeting individually with the rabbi’s wife for talking and learning. Later, some of my friends and I created our own Jewish group to support and include LBGTQ+ and intercultural couples/families who face many issues both in Jewish communities and in Korean society. [continue reading…]

In the disability community, we know that mental health-related disabilities are disabilities. It still feels like the rest of the world has yet to catch up. As a person of faith myself who has mental health-related disabilities along with fellow family members, I have wondered why this identity disparity existed between mental health conditions and disability.

I believe a lot of it has to do with a continued investment in the mind-body separation. This concept has deep religious and philosophical origins that I would be happy to nerd out about with anyone over Zoom coffee sometime. The mind-body separation contends that the mind and the body are separate entities from one another. Many of us subconsciously buy into this philosophy whether we know it or not. We go to school to train our minds, not our bodies. We go to the gym to train our bodies but not our minds. The disability community has known from the beginning that this separation is simply not real. When many of us have a stressful day, it manifests as pain in our bodies. Or if we are having tremendous pain in our bodies, our mental health suffers. [continue reading…]

Ben Spangenberg is the Senior Manager of RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program. Ben was born with Spina Bifida in Long Beach, California in 1981. His mother had amniocentesis, but the test got switched and his development was seen to be within the ‘normal’ range. They did not confirm his diagnosis until his mother went into labor. Ben’s doctors immediately threw his parents suggestions on how to take care of a child with disabilities. Ben said, “The doctors firmly suggested that my parents leave me at the hospital so the state could take care of me. My parents said, ‘no way’ and raised me as much as possible like my brothers and sisters.” This was a common conversation between doctors and parents of children with spina bifida then.

According to Amy Kenny in her book “My Body is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church,” 67% of people feel uncomfortable talking to a disabled person. This manifests when a nondisabled person offers to help a disabled person, assuming disabled people cannot live independent lives.

Ben and a few of the Spring 2023 Fellows agreed to share their experiences when nondisabled people ask to pray over them. People often have good intentions, but this does not excuse the impact of this act on the person who is prayed over. Each person interviewed comes from a Christian background where one of the core teachings is that all individuals are created in God’s image and reflect the divine. [continue reading…]

As the program manager of the Minneapolis Jewish Community Inclusion Program for People with Disabilities for 13 years, I was invited to speak about the program at numerous Jewish community events. I spoke about changing attitudes and fighting stigma to advance inclusion. Following many presentations, someone from the audience waited to speak to me, waiting in the back of the line. Their question was always the same. “Do you include people with mental illnesses in the inclusion program?”

I saw hope in their eyes. But the inclusion program focused solely on disabilities. I gently explained that mental health wasn’t part of the program’s purview. The hope of finding acceptance and spiritual support faded as they turned away, rejected by the Jewish community. Even the inclusion program excluded them.

The program excluded me, too. I am neurodivergent. I was diagnosed with ADHD, depression, and anxiety disorder in my early 40s. These conditions have been a part of me my whole life. Once I began the process of understanding the diagnoses and working with mental health providers, I leaned into spirituality and my community, and found support and comfort there. [continue reading…]

Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

In celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, RespectAbility recognizes the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) to our society.

According to the Annual Disability Statistics Compendium, there are 18,814,944 Asian Americans living in the United States. Out of that number, 1,454,941 have disabilities. The states with the largest population of Asian Americans with disabilities are California and New York, which have 509,446 and 131,682 of AAPI with disabilities in residence, respectively.

A 2021 report from the New American Economy research fund found that the AAPI community is the fastest-growing minority group in the United States. In the last decade, the AAPI community grew by 25.5%, contributing to about 20% of the total population growth in the country. In 2019, AAPI households brought in $783.7 billion and were able to contribute $167.9 billion in federal taxes, and $72.5 billion in state taxes. However, according to the same report, the AAPI community still had about $543.4 billion in purchasing power after taxes.

This is the very definition of a growing and thriving community, and yet it is clear that stigma and bias continue to result in under-diagnosis of disabilities in the community, leading to gaps in outcomes. [continue reading…]

Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) students are the least likely of all races to receive special education services. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 15% of all public school students are in special education, compared to only 8% of Asian American students. The gap is less drastic for Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students at 12%, but it is still significant. This gap means it is very likely that AANHPI students who would benefit from special education services are not receiving them.

Previous research and opinion articles have blamed this discrepancy on AANHPI families’ resistance to special education due to stigmas about disability. They argue that disability is often seen as a weakness in AANHPI culture, which may cause students or their parents to hide the disability. While this may be true in some AANHPI families, we cannot assume that this is the primary explanation. When we buy into the culture-blaming narrative, we miss critical structural factors preventing AANHPI students from accessing the education they need, including racial discrimination and language barriers. [continue reading…]