Disability Pride Month

July is Disability Pride Month, which commemorates the 1990 signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA is crucial for protecting the rights of people with disabilities.

According to Disabled World, “Disability is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions.” It’s “broadly defined as the consequence of an impairment that may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental, or some combination of these.”

AmeriDisability defines disability pride “as accepting and honoring each person’s uniqueness, and seeing it as a natural and beautiful part of human diversity.”

The ADA defines a disabled person as someone who “has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, has a history or record of such an impairment (such as cancer that is in remission), or is perceived by others as having such an impairment (such as a person who has scars from a severe burn).”

In the United States, more than 1/4 of adults “report having a functional disability.” That’s around 70 million Americans. The highest disability rates occur in adults over age 65. Around 10 percent of the world’s population (650 million people) have a disability.

In the past, many cities in the US had “ugly laws” which banned disabled people from the streets and forced them into prisons, poorhouses, or other institutions. Some cities even charged fines for violating ugly laws. One of the earliest of these laws was passed in 1867 in San Francisco. Many ugly laws, which were all a form of eugenics, remained in place until 1974. Many disabled people were also early victims of the Holocaust. These are some of the reasons that Disability Pride Month is so important.

In 1999, the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision, based on the ADA, determined that “that people with disabilities have a qualified right to receive state funded supports and services in the community rather than institutions” as long as certain conditions are met.

The Disability Pride Flag was designed by Ann Magill, a writer with cerebral palsy, in 2019 and updated to be more accessible to viewers in 2021. Each color represents a different group of disabilities.

Disabilities can be temporary or permanent. Living with a disability can be quite challenging, and many disabilities are considered invisible, meaning they are not necessarily obvious (such as amputations or mobility aid usage).