cristian-castillo-vktJC0johyU-unsplash-1-scaled
Picture of EmilyCC
EmilyCC
EmilyCC lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her spouse and three children. She currently serves as a stake Just Serve specialists, and she recently returned to school to become a nurse. She is a former editor of Exponent II and a founding blogger at The Exponent.

#EqualAccess Series Guest Post: Embracing Disability

by EmilyCC

This post is part of The Exponent’s #EqualAccess Series. Disabled voices rarely get a chance to speak for themselves, but this blog series seeks to eliminate the stigma that disabled people are less than, and need a representative to speak on their behalf. This blog series is intended to break stereotypes by gathering the voices of disabled individuals. #DisabilityExperience

The image below is a photo of sun rays shining through the clouds, sparkling over an ocean. Islands in the background frame the picture.

#EqualAccess Series Guest Post: Embracing Disability

When I review and edit submissions for the magazine or the blog, I try to be an unobtrusive as possible when interacting with our writers. I have told myself that I don’t want to pry or make them think that their piece isn’t already so great.

I always thought that I was scared of putting my foot in my mouth and hurting their feelings or making them angry.

I learned in putting together this series, that I was also afraid of being called out, of doing something wrong. That fear gave me some blindspots into the presentation of this series.

When Kendra and I first worked on this series, I asked her to find images to go with the submissions because I tried for a bit, and have you Googled “disability” images? We either found inspiration porn or images full of anguish and despair. We wanted real life examples.

Kendra was able to find a bunch, but as I started to load them to the website, I realized the images were too small and looked blurry on the blog.

Not wanting to ask her to do even more work (I am still amazed that a first semester law student was able to put this together so completely and professionally), I went to my usual spots for public domain high-resolution images, and she also continued to look for images we could use.

And, I found some lovely scenes that I thought would be nice accompaniments to the pieces. But, as I uploaded them to Google Drive, I had a feeling that they weren’t the right ones.

Then, Kendra showed me her’s…She has a friend who also noticed this problem and did a Creative Commons site for the kind of images we wanted. But, mostly, she got pictures of the authors.

And that’s when I realized where my discomfort lay. I had avoided using images of physically-disabled people. I had erased their images from this series when I thought I was doing everything to amplify their voices.

I am grateful for the words of each of our authors, who have shown me how to navigate the world with a disability. This series has made me feel a little braver in embracing my mental illness.

I see Megan’s face full of joy, Mette’s proud and reflective body stance, and Kendra and Topher’s wedding photo as they gaze into each other’s eyes, and I remember the purpose of intersectional feminism and Exponent II. We provide a safe environment where we practice being vulnerable, saying what we need, and giving ourselves emotional self and communal care.

Like our #HearLDSWomen series, we intend for this series to be ongoing, though no longer on a scheduled basis. If you have felt inspired to write about what you need as a disabled person, please consider submitting to the blog ([email protected]) or magazine (exponentiihttps://exponentii.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/[email protected]).

EmilyCC lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her spouse and three children. She currently serves as a stake Just Serve specialists, and she recently returned to school to become a nurse. She is a former editor of Exponent II and a founding blogger at The Exponent.

One Response

  1. Thanks for being willing to share this, Emily. I’m always hesitant to share my learning experiences, preferring to hide out and hope that I can learn everything so I can say and do everything right before I have to actually say or do anything.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Our Comment Policy

  • No ads or plugs.
  • No four-letter words that wouldn’t be allowed on television.
  • No mudslinging: Stating disagreement is fine — even strong disagreement, but no personal attacks or name calling. No personal insults.
  • Try to stick with your personal experiences, ideas, and interpretations. This is not the place to question another’s personal righteousness, to call people to repentance, or to disrespectfully refute people’s personal religious beliefs.
  • No sockpuppetry. You may not post a variety of comments under different monikers.

Note: Comments that include hyperlinks will be held in the moderation queue for approval (to filter out obvious spam). Comments with email addresses may also be held in the moderation queue.

Write for Us

We want to hear your perspective! Write for Exponent II Blog by submitting a post here.

Support Mormon Feminism

Our blog content is always free, but our hosting fees are not. Please support us.

related Blog posts

For Family Caregivers Month, blogger Nicole Sbitani writes about the crucial, often unpaid and unrecognized labor of family caregivers: a role that often falls to women worldwide.
In honor of Disability Employment Awareness Month, blogger Nicole Sbitani writes how it's so frustrating to see people with disabilities in the church continually framed as needing a cure or only needing to be ministered to, when in fact people with disabilities have always and will always be an important part of the community whose contributions are essential. Here are just a few of their stories - do you know any more?

Never miss A blog post

Sign up and be the first to be alerted when new blog posts go live!

Loading

* We will never sell your email address, and you can unsubscribe at any time (not that you’ll want to).​