Disability Pride Month
A new regular column by disability activist, PENNY PEPPER
Penny Pepper is an award-winning author and poet whose stories explore the disability narrative through provocation, humour and wisdom. Her memoir, First in The World Somewhere, was published in 2017; her poetry collection, Come Home Alive, in 2019. Her stories are featured in Hemingway Shorts anthology 2021, as an award winner, Lumpen and Mslexia. Her genre-breaking novel, Nancy Jones and the Show of Wonders, awaits a brave publisher while she works on her next, The Widow of Rock-o-Nore. She lives in Hastings with her cat Pixie.
As Hastings prepares for the final outcome of the General Election, I wonder how many readers know that July is Disability Pride Month? Official statistics state there are 14 million disabled people in the UK, so for my first piece for HIP, I am highlighting pride in a community I am proud to be part of – one that has grown and matured through my life, from my earliest activism as a first-generation punk.
Hastings has its own rich history of dissent and collectivism, descriptive words I’ve often heard alongside creative, quirky and dirty, so it’s a place that’s always a pleasure to belong to. Disability Pride Month is, as the BBC summarises, “an opportunity to raise awareness of disabilities, start positive conversations and celebrate the diversity and differences of the disabled community”. They go on to say: “Disability Pride Month has its origins in the US, where in 1990… the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed to prevent people with disabilities being discriminated against.”
The disability rights movement in the UK has been a global leader – something I’m proud to say has been part of my life since the ‘80s. Yet when the Disability Discrimination Act finally arrived in 1995, it was a diluted disappointment to many campaigners, who remain disenchanted with its replacement, the relatively (disability) weak Equality Act 2010.
Yet I am proud to say every change that improves the lives of disabled people is predominantly led by disabled people themselves, whose stories are often overlooked or misappropriated. This happens in Hastings too, yet with my comrades, I remain staunchly committed to what we try to do.
It’s important to note that the last census showed that “20.3% of East Sussex residents were living with a long-term physical or mental health condition or impairment” and that “34.8% of households in East Sussex had at least one member identifying as disabled under the Equality Act in 2021”.
This is not a tiny number, and it saddens me that we remain last in the Hastings queue. I and other activists from the local group HAVE (Hastings Access to Venues and Events), formed in 2015, recently featured on BBC local news, highlighting the atrocious lack of accessible toilets in our town. A majority of the most loved music and arts venues are not truly accessible. With my colleagues, I’ve fought for improvement for as long as I’ve lived here, now over 10 years.
We are not a homogenised lump and come from diverse and intersectional communities. We crave the basics of equality: not pity, not magical cures, but the removal and moderation of barriers that affect us all, from the lack of toilets to the smallest step at a shop, and the absence of large print menus, etc. – which at least some local independent businesses have resolved without any fuss.
We are a force to celebrate – our strength, our unity and our refusal to ever give up. This Disability Pride Month, inclusion allies, please join us!
Learn more about Penny at pennypepper.co.uk
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