My Body Is A Political Protest

ID: Katie is a white female with blonde hair that she is wearing down. She is facing the camera wearing a white pearl necklace, a black cardigan, and a pale pink tank top that says #CripTheVote in rainbow letters. To the right of the letters are ADA logos in a grey and blue ballot box. She is standing in front of a cranberry-colored wall.

I stand at almost 5’3. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white female. These are the things that can be seen. These are the things that my white privilege protects me with daily.

What cannot be seen: I am queer, disabled, and chronically ill from physical, neurological, and mental illness. I am one of the ‘drains on the system’ using SSDI. I am on Medicare, the health insurance that people usually forget to remember is set aside for anyone over 65 AND disabled people who are younger than 65. Until recently, I was on SNAP. On paper, quite literally, I am one of the people most consider to be a drain on the system, and for the majority of 2020, I have heard every single day how much better it would be if I died.

Up until this election, I had stayed out of politics. What I knew was they divided people and made people mad. I don’t feel like I have a choice anymore. I have to learn and help where I can. Even if what I am doing is screaming on my social media accounts. I am mad and I am divided. If it were up to them, I would be segregated so they could go back to their normal lives.

A few months ago, I thought I knew enough, I thought I was doing enough. I didn’t know anything. I have thrown myself in. It felt like the right choice with every new death threat. It felt like the right choice every time someone told me they were doing enough. Being disabled means being told the bare minimum should be accepted as someone’s best effort.

What I know is, a reasonable accommodation doesn’t mean it is reasonable for the person who needs it, it means it is reasonable for the business. What I know is, CRISPR will try and erase disabled communities under the veil of doing some good. That’s always how eugenics works.

What I know is, disabled people are a reminder to everyone else that this could happen to them. It is cheaper, more convenient, and less of a reminder of their own fates, if they get rid of us by any, means possible. We will not be erased. We will not be going away.

My disabilities and chronic illnesses may be invisible, but I am not.