“I have been told countless times that I should talk more about how I became paralysed and the traumatic details of that event in order to educate people. Like my trauma isn’t a personal experience – I’m just a textbook for someone else to learn from.”
Sophie Butler – Instagram, December 2022
Sophie Butler posts about fashion, wellness and fitness and disability as @sophjbutler on Instagram and TikTok. She was Cosmopolitan Health / Wellbeing Influencer of 2021, and the first wheelchair user to appear on the cover of the UK magazine.
The Instagram video her quote comes from is here and just below.
“’Educating yourself’, ‘doing better’ and ‘learning’ have become common phrases in our mainstream culture… with the rise of educational posts and infographics on Instagram… I’ve been part of that…
“…over time it has become more and more apparent to me that marginalised people are often just being used to provide the emotionally taxing ‘education’. I have been told countless times that I should talk more about how I became paralysed, and the traumatic details of that event, in order to educate people. Like my trauma is not a personal experience, I’m just a textbook for someone else learn from… but I’ve found that the more I open myself up to education, the more boundaries were being crossed and the more people were expecting things like this of me. And yes I do often share educational posts…
“…that does not mean however, that every disabled or queer person wants to be an educator… that doesn’t mean I want to spend every day of my life educating other people… Sometimes I want to simply exist as a human being… we shouldn’t have to rely on the emotional labour of individuals… ”
Sophie Butler – Instagram video (left), December 2022
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