Access Aisle Interviews: LGBTQ+ Pride Panel

In this episode on the Access Aisle, Able South Carolina’s Asha Jones celebrates LGBTQ+ Pride Month with panelists Dr. Julie Edwards and Effy Francis who are members of both the disability and LGBTQ+ communities. Asha, Effy, and Julie discuss the importance of community, ways to improve access, and give personal perspectives on life as a person who identifies as a member of multiple and sometimes conflicting communities. 

'The Access Aisle' is a production of Able South Carolina.

Asha Jones is an EQUIP leader at Able SC who is a non-binary lesbian. Asha is passionate about disability education because she wants other people with disabilities to take pride in and advocate for themselves. She also wants to make society more accepting and accessible as a whole. 

Dr. Julie Edwards is a queer and disabled activist raised in Columbia, SC. Julie earned her doctorate in Pharmacy from the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy. Her activism focuses on rooting out inequities in the healthcare system. She looks forward to continuing to build community and solidarity locally so that more disabled and/or LGBTQIA+ individuals will run for and be elected office. 

Effy Alece Francis is a queer, non-binary trans person with physical and psychiatric disabilities, working, living & advocating in the south. Licensed as an esthetician and professional makeup artist, when they are not working in the beauty & wellness industry they are pushing for equity, inclusion and social justice in every aspect of life.

Able South Carolina is providing this podcast as a public service, but it is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of local, state, or federal legislation or policy. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Able South Carolina. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by Able South Carolina interns, board members, and staff are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Able South Carolina or any of its funders. If you have any questions about this disclaimer, please contact our Director of Advocacy and Community Access.

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00:14 Asha Jones: It has been 10,911 days since the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed and you are Parked in The Access Aisle. June is Pride Month, a time where the LGBTQ+ community celebrates our various identities, histories, and our resilience and resistance. Members of the LGBTQ+ community come from various backgrounds and many of us are also people with disabilities. It is estimated that over one-third of LGBTQ+ people are also people with disabilities. I have two panelists here today who are members of both communities. Would you all go ahead and introduce yourselves with your name, pronoun, and a little bit about yourself? My name is Aja Jones and I use she/her/hers and they/them/their pronouns. I am a non-binary lesbian. I am an EQUIP leader at ABLE South Carolina, and a fun fact is that I'm currently watching She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

01:07 Julie Edwards: My name is Julie Edwards. I use she/her/hers pronouns. I'm your local bi-pan queer cat lady. I have three cats and a dog who acts like a cat. I am an activist, I've done work with Indivisible Midlands as well as other local organizations. And excited to be here.

01:23 Effy Francis: And my name is Effy Francis. My pronouns are they/them/theirs. I'm a non-binary transgender as well as pansexual person. As far as work goes, I'm a licensed esthetician and make-up artist by trade, so love to beat me some faces, make 'em look cute, working on skincare, [chuckle] do it for all my friends. And then I am also a queer and disabled activist on every day that ends with Y.

01:50 AJ: Awesome, thank you so much. The first question I have for you is: What do you think the importance of community is for people with disabilities as well as the LGBTQ+ community?

02:02 JE: I'll start. Communities are where a lot of people on the fringes of both communities find themselves. I have had Type I since I was nine, but I didn't really understand what being disabled meant until I found a community on Twitter. So I really stepped into owning my disability status, identifying as disabled, and it brought me a lot of connections, a lot of hope. Hope and joy are where our communities shine, for me at least. And especially in this moment of this pandemic, we're all dealing with so much loneliness, and reaching out to people that we know that have similar life experiences to us is kind of a tether in all the storm that's going on right now.

02:46 EF: This is Effy. So I honestly think that community for any marginalized group is everything, but honestly, especially because I identify with both groups, but especially for disabled people and folks in the LGBTQI+ community. If we're going by history alone, we know that people with disabilities have traditionally been segregated from society, and so that's why the recent film on Netflix, Crip Camp, I really, really loved. It's, I think, a radical insight into what community looks like for folks with disabilities. I mean, as it turns out, we are just like everybody else. We have friends, we like exploring our sexuality, playing instruments, having dance parties, literally everything that non-disabled people do, we just literally have differing access needs. And going along with what Julie said, the same goes for the LGBTQIA+ community in that we have both faced such societal stigma. The phrase, "Nothing about us without us," is what first jumps to mind for me, which was really spearheaded by the disability community and now I hear it everywhere. So it's really cool that that resonates with people, and I think it really shows that having that peer-based kind of community is so, so important.

04:11 JE: Yeah, in this pandemic time, queer people are especially going to be at risk for losing their jobs. It's hard to get hired if you don't present the way society expects you to already, but I think one thing that is so amazing about our communities is how we provide mutual aid for each other. If you know someone's out of work, well, I know three people I can ask to throw in $10 and maybe that person gets to eat that day. And while we still fight for the structural changes that need to happen, it's a beautiful thing to see our communities aid each other.

04:42 EF: Absolutely, kind of my mantra lately. Community Care. Who takes care of us? We take care of us.

04:49 AJ: Agreed. I really agree with that. Community is so important and we do take care of each other. My next question is a sort of follow-up to that. Since you both are both advocates and activists, would you mind telling a little bit about your advocacy in these communities?

05:04 JE: Sure, I'll start. My actual first foray into activism was after the Pulse massacre. I, like many in the queer community, just was devastated by it and I felt like I had to do something. So I started on Facebook reporting gun sales that were not supposed to be happening, and that got me interested in especially online activism, being a disabled person. And so I've helped several movements. I'm Type I diabetic, so I'm involved with the Insulin For All movement providing affordable, I want free, insulin to diabetics everywhere, 'cause it is such an expensive medication and our community is very tightly bonded. We are always crowdsourcing insulin for people. So that's the stuff I do on a day-to-day basis.

05:48 EF: That's fantastic, Julie. So I actually got my start into advocacy and activist work as an EQUIP leader with ABLE South Carolina, kinda what Aja's really excelling at today. I worked as an EQUIP leader from almost the beginning of the program's inception as a year-round program, not just a six-week summer series, and I did that until about two years ago. So aside from sharing my lived experience as a disabled young adult, I really, really focused my advocacy work on things like sexual health education and LGBTQI+ intersectionality for the disability community. Some examples of that were I served on a coalition such as SAASH, the State Alliance for Adolescent Sexual Health, and representing an event such as the Safe School Summit, which was an annual summit to highlight the kind of violence that happens in schools and for young adults, when it comes to bullying and all the things that intersect with that. And so I really focused on how that impacts students with disabilities, young adults with disabilities, as well as I eventually, really came into activism as a Fat Liberationist and pushing for openness around that as well.

07:14 AJ: Thank you. So we've already started touching on this. What topics and issues do you think overlap between communities?

07:21 JE: The one that I think most people in the LGBTQIA community don't fully realize is that not all disabled people, including queer disabled people, can get married. If you rely on Medicaid, it could be very possible that getting married would remove your status for Medicaid. I am currently in that situation, and so it gets... I try to tell people that marriage equality hasn't fully come all the way to everybody and that the fight's not over. So that's definitely one area that overlaps.

07:52 EF: Julie, oh my gosh, I'm so glad you brought that up because I feel like that is an issue that constantly gets overlooked. So thank you for bringing that up. For me, while I think there are a lot of similar overlaps between the queer and the disability communities, such as things like under-representation and things like media and educational curriculum, both communities deal with micro-aggressions and systemic prejudice, and both communities have had their own prominent civil rights movements in the US. There are still, however, certain ways in which our stigmas are actually complete opposites. And I really noticed this doing advocacy work for young adults, is that while queer folks are hyper-sexualized, disabled folks tend to be de-sexualized and presumed to be asexual, therefore not needing sexual health education. And where queer folks are vilified and viewed as deviants, disabled folks are pitied and viewed as incompetent. So I just think it's really interesting how both these communities intersect, both of them grow through a lot of similar barriers. It's just interesting to see how some, they are complete opposites and I think that's really something that needs to be accounted for.

09:11 JE: When I was in pharmacy school, I got a chance to really see how systemically-oppressed queer people are, as well as disabled people in the medical community. As far as even just accessing queer-affirming, trans-affirming doctors here, it's difficult sometimes. Even having coverage to go see those doctors, very expensive, and our state has not expanded Medicaid as it should have when the ACA passed. So unfortunately, disabled folks, queer folks, and then, especially, black-queer-disabled folks are at such a high risk of being overlooked by the medical community. And you see that playing out in this pandemic where black people are dying at such a higher rate of this, and we know why. And as a queer disabled person, I have a doctorate and I still have a hard time getting doctors to take me seriously, to listen to me. And again, that's where it comes back to community, is sometimes you can't find doctors that do that and your community's gotta be there for you to either help you find new providers...

10:15 JE: Honestly, there's been times where I've seen people who realize that they had a condition that they needed to get seen, thanks to communities talking. But those structural ones, especially medical racism, is one that cut... It's intersectional struggle. We have to look at those that are most at-risk and try to get them what they need. And so I think Medicare for All and those plans, that if we were able to get there, think of all the disabled people who currently are underemployed because maybe they need the Medicare. I'm on SSDI, I need my Medicare and Medicaid. I can't really go work part-time right now 'cause I am too ill to, but if I were feeling like I could, it's sometimes difficult to then have health coverage. So having universal health coverage is gonna allow queer disabled folks to open up businesses, it's gonna allow them to start non-profits more easily because that side of it will be taken care of, so that's something that I'm passionate about.

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11:29 AJ: There are issues people face as people with disabilities and there are issues that people face as queer trans people. What issues and topics do you think are important that happen in the spaces where that crosses, when these identities come together?

11:45 JE: One issue, I guess, is who we're centering when we have our stories told, queer disabled people.

11:52 EF: When looking at things like I believe discrimination and misunderstandings in both disability and LGBTQI+ spaces, as somebody with these multiple identities, this is where things get frustrating for me. As someone who both has a significant disability as well as being a gender and sexual minority, I have found that despite both communities having so many intersections and so many shared oppressions, it's still really difficult to find a place where both my identity and access needs are respected at the same time. So in queer spaces, it's often very difficult to find things like specifically, disability inclusion, whether it's architectural accessibility, accessibility via ASL interpretation, image-video captioning, being accommodating of neurodivergency, etcetera.

12:49 JE: Absolutely. I stopped going to some conferences because I just got so tired of being overlooked. Conferences especially, I've just had a hard time, and that's an area where we could employ queer disabled people to have sensitivity training, access training. You need to make sure that your movements are open to not just queer people, queer disabled people. Our stories matter and we want to tell them, but we got to get where we're able to do so, and being overlooked, it hurts.

13:19 EF: And kind of on the flip side, in disability community spaces, I have honestly found it personally near impossible to have things like my identity and my pronouns, as a non-binary person, respected and used. So I think there is still a lot of work to be done as far as disability inclusion in the queer community and queer inclusivity in the disability community, and I'm trying to do everything I possibly can to marry the two and make it easier for people like myself who have these multiple parts of our identity, respected and taken seriously.

13:54 JE: I also really felt that in higher education. When I was in grad school, being queer and being disabled was really tough to navigate in a conservative, professional environment. And that's where so much growth could be done, and it's just the sort of respectability thing that people expect from queer people and queer disabled people. Breaking down the notions that we have to use the tone of voice you wanna hear to tell you why you're wrong. [chuckle] But in Higher Ed, it was tough because I didn't wanna be seen as deficient in my program and not deserving of my degree, but what was really happening was that my professors weren't taking my access needs seriously, they were punishing me at times for it, for time missed or different things. And I know that it's really hard in academia for queer and queer disabled people to get positions where honestly they do a ton of good as far as inclusion and access.

14:53 EF: As somebody in both the communities, one thing that has been really helpful with me is honestly the app Twitter. It has really become a space that I feel like activists within the disabled community have really been thriving. It's given a lot of visibility, especially in terms of activism. And so that's one of the places where I feel like a lot of people can learn from and access what these activists are doing in real time.

15:25 JE: Yeah, sometimes I'll just actually Google disability hashtags, and I often find people with big platforms, they'll have little write ups of these hashtags like, "Disabled people are hot," or, "Disabled isn't a bad word," or... There's a bunch of hashtags, and I always find people to follow and talk to and connect with through those, again, through Twitter.

15:47 AJ: Thank you for sharing that. I'm gonna have to also say Twitter has been a wonderful resource for me, connecting especially with disability activists and also just the peer support that you find there online for either community. And for those who are a member of both, there's lots of peer support out there, and that has been very helpful for me to learn more about myself and be able to do the things that I want to do because I've spoken to people who have been in similar situations before. So thank you for that.

16:18 JE: I would say another resource is find queer artists. If you're into music or arts or things, Columbia has a great art scene that is always open to finding new people to add to. So once we get past where we can have people and gatherings in larger spaces, the arts community is always where you find resilience, and the people that are the most resilient are the ones oppressed at these intersections. So that's another place that I tend to find friends.

16:50 AJ: Well, thank you. So my next question: What would make the LGBTQIA+ space and disability spaces more accessible for their members who are a part of both communities?

17:04 EF: Honestly, I just want both communities to have better awareness of each other, and honestly, even going beyond awareness, acceptance. We have so much in common, so much overlap in the folks that make up these communities. I just want people with these intersecting identities like myself and Julie and Aja to feel seamlessly at home in both groups. And I know with the autistic community specifically, pushing for not just awareness, but pushing for acceptance. And I think that can be carried into this kind of situation as well. 'Cause it's like, we know we exist, other people know we exist, and I think it's more of just a matter of pushing for not just knowing we exist, but actually how to accommodate us.

17:56 JE: And even past accommodation, how to put people like us in power positions, in the positions that a lot of time traditionally, if it's the LGBTQI movement, it was generally white gay men as with cis men as the face, and getting more people who are disabled and queer in these positions where we can have change and make it more accessible for disabled people is really important, that sort of pass-the-mic mentality.

18:27 EF: Oh, absolutely. Julie, I think you hit it on the head earlier. It's just thinking about, who are we centering in these communities? Who is underrepresented? I don't think it's a matter of speak up for the voiceless, which is a terrible way to phrase things. I think it's, exactly, it's pass-the-mic, give people the opportunity and the access to speak up for themselves.

18:52 JE: Yeah, there's one specific thing that tears at my heart specifically, that cuts definitely both, is if we think about incarceration, how disabled people are treated in prison. I don't see a ton of activists or disabled activists that are specifically focused on abolition, I wanna find more of them, because I've seen stories of how chronically ill and disabled people and queer trans folks in incarceration situations. I don't think that advocacy for them gets talked about nearly as much as it should, especially in a state like South Carolina.

19:29 EF: Right. School-to-Prison Pipeline is one that definitely jumps to mind affecting...

19:33 JE: Exactly.

19:34 EF: It's affecting primarily people of color, black people especially, and intersecting, again, with disability, folks with psychiatric issues that are deemed behavioral and then just get, honestly, shut down by the system, which it was built to do. So, again, [chuckle] so many good things.

19:53 JE: Exactly.

19:54 AJ: Both people with disabilities and LGBTQIA+ people are over-represented in the carceral system. And when you factor in race, especially with black people, the disparities become even more obvious. So thank you for talking about that. So my next question is: What experiences do you have with pride in those communities, and how do you show that pride?

20:18 JE: Pride through art is just so beautiful to me, the art that people create in these challenging times, whether it be Effy and I, we both love make-up and to express ourselves through that. But visual arts, all of it, Pride Month gives me joy like it should and that sense of community in times where society wants to separate us, Pride is very much a coming-together moment. So, for me, I just, I like to hang my Bisexual Pride flag outside my house, do bright make-up and have fun. Unfortunately, this year it's up in the air whether people will be able to gather, so I'm interested to see the creative ways that people have Pride this year and create that resilience art that's just inspiring and makes me wanna keep fighting.

21:09 EF: I think the way that I have and show the pride that I carry in both these communities is super radical. So between reclamation of the term 'queer' as an all-encompassing term that I feel really fits both my gender identity and my sexuality, and then something like embracing identity-first language for describing my experience as a disabled person. Language, honestly, I think can be a really great way to show pride because it's not just who we are, it's how we describe who we are, and through language especially. I don't like to use all of these euphemisms for my identity, like the hashtag campaign Say the Word. I think it's really important to highlight that disability, disabled, it's not about something...

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22:03 JE: There's one that disabled people, Disabled People Are Hot. That is a good one to check out, that hashtag.

22:10 EF: Yep, created by Andrew Gurza. Yeah. [chuckle]

22:12 JE: Exactly. There are such great hashtags that disabled people... It's been so joyous to see expressions of sexuality, like you said earlier Effy, that normally are ignored by society or people are surprised that disabled people are sexual, and it's just... [chuckle]

22:28 EF: Right.

22:30 JE: It's odd to me at first because I've never considered that being the possibility or the reality. But Pride, I think also educates people who are not part of either community about how they are treating people in the communities. And again, like you said, modeling language, teaching a lot of... I don't like Allies as a term, but people that show solidarity with our communities, teaching them how to use the language and then go out in their communities and help spread this acceptance, awareness, is also just really important. It's hard to measure word-of-mouth change, but it is one of the most foundational ones, is teaching people in your life who you are, how they're not respecting you potentially, but how they could do better and how they can show you love. 'Cause that's what both communities really do survive on is the love that we find in our communities.

23:25 AJ: Thank you for those wonderful responses. I definitely look forward to seeing what Pride looks like this month. And I hope that we find a way to show that sense of community and to share that love, even though we may physically be separated. And I think the disability community does a good job of that too. So perhaps that's something that we can share. My last question is: Moving forward, what changes are you working on or what changes would you like to happen within these communities, how these communities interact with each other?

23:56 EF: I can jump on this one. So like I mentioned before, my advocacy work has always really been specifically tuned to highlighting the similarities between these two communities and how we're so much stronger together. I guess, as an example, I attended a trans and queer-focused camp within the last two years and while it was an amazing experience, I was able to join other campers following the event, other campers with disabilities, and pushing for better future accessibility. We actually came together as a group and put together a letter that we sent to the non-profit org that was hosting the camp. And honestly, we saw some really great change through that advocacy work, and I think that's just a testament to the kind of work that we can do together. And honestly, that's just the hope I carry for not only the future, but for the present. I think we do place a lot of hope in talking about the future, but also, we have the tools we need to make the present better now. And I think through these group advocacy efforts for both ourselves and on behalf of others, we will reach full inclusion no matter where or who we are.

25:18 JE: Yeah. And sort of building on that, I think one of the most important thing any movement or community or non-profit or activism group, whatever you... You always need to be looking inward and being introspective about who you're leaving out in your org, who's not being listened to, and just to really address things within the community, such as fat oppression, racism in both communities. It's... And talking about language, I see a lot of times people in my queer community, unfortunately, using language online that's very disablist, making fun of mental illness, calling different political leaders fat, and trying to get them to understand that our struggles are united because no one is free until we all are. So a lot of introspection I think needs to be done constantly, not just when if there is any sort of incident or outrage, that's not necessarily the time to... Introspection should be going on all the time. And that's what I like to, when I talk to new, younger activists, really get into their head about really taking a step back.

26:35 JE: 'Cause sometimes you want to help something so badly, but you don't realize you're not giving the help that the person needs. If that's the case, then there's really no point in organizing or doing what you're doing. So that's a really important thing moving forward that really all communities need, but especially our queer and disabled communities.

26:54 AJ: Thank you all for Zooming in here today. Any final remarks?

26:58 EF: Yeah, just as a final comment on what we've been sharing today, and Julie, I really, really think you hit it on the head there at the end is, I think inclusion is not an end goal, it's a journey, and it's one that never ends. And so, like you said, I think we need to constantly be introspective, we always need to commit ourselves to once we know better, we do better. It's not offensive being called out when you're using the wrong language, doing something that is not actually helping the community you're trying to help. Going on the intent-versus-impact model, I think we just need to be mindful of what our impact is and I think that that will really help this inclusion that we're trying to reach. But Aja, thank you so much for having us on here today.

27:58 AJ: Yeah.

27:58 EF: It was really great to be able to speak on our experiences.

28:01 JE: I was gonna add just one last thing. I wanna speak to some of the listeners out there right now who maybe haven't identified with the community fully. Pride as a queer person and Pride as a disabled person aren't time-sensitive. Just because you aren't visible and loud in your work that you're doing as a queer disabled person, it's not time sensitive. We welcome you with open arms to the community, but it is all about self-exploration too and figuring out where you fit in, where you need support and where you need community. So if you're not quite there yet, it took me time to identify as disabled, but once I did, I found so much love and support, that I just wanna encourage people to look for communities 'cause it's a lonely time right now.

28:47 AJ: Thank you all for being here today and thank you to our listeners. ABLE South Carolina is here for you and we want you to be here with us, so subscribe to our email, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and contact us by phone. You've been parked in The Access Aisle, a production of Able South Carolina.

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