Disability pride month

July is Disability Pride Month. The first Disability Pride started in Boston, MA in 1990 but it has since become an international celebration. The aim of Disability Pride is described by the founders of Disability Pride NYC to “promote inclusion, awareness, and visibility of people with disabilities, and redefine public perception of disability”.

The disability pride flag

The Disability Pride flag has some very interesting symbolism interpreted by the artist which include:

The Black Field: this field is to represent the disabled people who have lost their lives due to not only their illness, but also negligence, suicide, and eugenics.

The Lightning Bolt: the shape of the lightning bold represent the non-lateral lives that many disabled people live, often having to adapt themselves or their physical routes to get around an inaccessible society.

The Colours: each colour on this flag represents a different aspect of disability or impairment:

Blue: mental illness

Yellow: cognitive and intellectual disabilities

Green: sensory perception disabilities

Red: physical disabilities

thebibliosphere

The white stripe stands for invisible and undiagnosed disabilities. So even if you are struggling to get a diagnosis or worry your lack of diagnosis means you don’t belong, you absolutely do.

You are part of our history, our community and our fight.

Happy Disability Pride Month.

queerspacepunk

(anyone aware of a version that's a little less eyestrain-y? aesthetically me and the colours aren't best friends, but symbolically it's fucking sick (complimentary) esp the lightning bolts but the narrowness makes it rly hard for me to look at)

thebibliosphere

There's a yellow stripe version, that I think the UN uses?

But you know what? Nothing is stopping us from making the above flag more accessible to those of us with visual processing issues. Maybe widen the stripes?

Adaptability is key to disability thriving and there is no reason we cant adapt it to accommodate a wider set of needs.

Also I’m going to add this because I wrote it in my original tags and people keep adding it in:

The parallel lines also represent unity and solidarity between disabilities. We fight together, for each other.

toetagsandbowties

Found in the notes:

@queerspacepunk This one by @ari-juniper is great at not giving me vertigo from having lots of thin stripes and zigzags in next to each other. I love the idea of the lightning bolt one too, but yeah it definitely hurts my brain to try and process.

Ari also did this one: