By Rhys Wright, Shan Heyworth, Amy Blay and Rosie Green
To celebrate Disability Pride Month, we’re recommending some non-fiction books that provide insight into life as a disabled LGBTQIA+ person. These books represent just a few of the vast spectrum of disabled people within the LGBTQIA+ community; through first-hand narratives and perspectives, their authors can give us a better understanding of how queerness and disability can intersect and what needs to be done to create a more equal and accessible society.
Go the Way Your Blood Beats by Emmett de Monterey
The intersection of queerness and disability is a nuanced subject. For disabled people within the LGBTQIA+ community, this experience is far from monolithic. As Emmett de Monterey’s debut memoir observes, “there are as many ways to be disabled as there are to be alive.”
Diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a child, de Monterey briefly became the subject of international media coverage after undergoing surgery that would supposedly “cure” his disability. Growing up in London during the eighties and nineties, he grappled with schools that wouldn’t accommodate him and lived through Section 28 as a gay teenager.
In his memoir, de Monterey recounts the formative experiences of his childhood, including his relationships with his family and overcoming ableism and homophobia. It’s full of poignant recollections and astute observations; in particular, his discussions of the social and medical models of disability and how ableism can be easily internalised make for insightful reading.
De Monterey’s individual experience of queerness and disability provides a fascinating look into how our society views these identities. This memoir illustrates that while some progress has been made since de Monterey’s childhood, there’s still so much more left to accomplish.
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
In the first essay in Care Work, Piepzna-Samarasinha declares: “I’m not an academically trained disability scholar, and I’m not going to pretend that this next section fits (white-dominated) disability studies academic standards.” Indeed, this collection of essays is personal, accessible and passionate, going beyond mainstream disability rights conversations.
Piepzna-Samarasinha is a Canadian writer, poet, artist, activist and winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry. As a disabled queer femme of colour, intersectionality is at the heart of much of their writing, including Care Work. The book looks back at the history of queer, Black and Brown mutual aid, activism and care, and Piepzna-Samarasinha’s own experiences and looks forwards to the future of disability justice. The essays explore how disabled communities come together in care webs, as well as the ways in which they can be complicated and imperfect.
Care Work is an important and powerful book that delves into the necessity and intersectionality of disability justice and provides a framework for working towards this justice.
Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Eli Clare
In Exile and Pride, writer, poet, activist and speaker Eli Clare’s passion shines through in a combination of academic criticism and passionate storytelling that works to highlight the overlap between disability and queerness. First published in 1999, Exile and Pride’s essays explore Clare’s experiences of being disabled, queer, growing up in a rural area and suffering through childhood abuse.
In an admirable move, the updated versions of Exile and Pride contain footnotes from Clare, reflecting on mistakes made in the original text and how his feelings towards certain subjects have changed over time and with input from readers. These unashamedly honest additions have solidified Exile and Pride as a seminal work in queer and disability studies.
Though eye-opening and incredibly thought-provoking, readers are advised to check Exile and Pride’s content warnings before diving in.
Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It by Greg Marshall
Funny, insightful and emotional, Leg is the memoir of Greg Marshall’s life as he learns more about his identity through coming out of the closet and his journey from hiding his leg and shying away from other disabled people to finally understanding how that label fits him.
Marshall’s experiences of discovering himself and accepting his identity as gay and disabled follow different trajectories that converge at various points. Always concerned about the attention his leg brought him, he felt this spotlight more acutely when not yet out of the closet, and descriptions of his sexual encounters don’t shy away from his self-consciousness about the complications his cerebral palsy brought to the bedroom.
Though his identity as a disabled gay man is central to his experiences, the memoir is as much about his role as a writer, activist, carer, partner, brother and son. Marshall has succeeded in recounting a life filled with hardship and struggle without it feeling like simply a story of suffering. While the sections following his parents’ illnesses, his fear of AIDS and his struggle to accept his disability are tender and emotional, they are interspersed with humour and domesticity. These universal ups and downs – first love and breakups, career changes and family gossip – beautifully convey the message that he is not living a tragedy, or a stereotype, or an inspirational story of overcoming disability; he is living his life.
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