“We’ve all had things happen to us. All our bodies carry stories. But are you asking strangers with no apparent disability ‘what happened to you?’ Then why are you asking me? It’s just as inappropriate.”

Rebekah Taussig – March 2023

“And when I say listen, I don’t mean approaching a stranger in the parking lot, figurative clipboard in hand, with a list of questions designed to make them explain their disability to you. ‘What’d you do to yourself?’ ‘What happened to you?’ When I suggest listening, I imagine a planet where people with disabilities are allowed to tell the world who they are and what they need, instead of the other way around. I imagine someone pausing long enough to see my strength before they jump at the sight of my wheelchair.

“I imagine sharing my experiences with ableism without someone telling me why I shouldn’t be bothered by them. I imagine more stories that include disability. And not just more in volume, but more variety – we don’t need more stories about the Tragedy or the Inspiration. I imagine my younger self, making up dances in my dress-up clothes. What would have happened if my culture – my community – had rallied around my vision of myself and listened?”

Rebekah Taussig – A Conversation About Ableism, The Connection Corner – 2019

Rebekah Taussig is an American teacher turned writer – of her widely acclaimed memoir  Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body.

She’s written powerful, personal pieces – on the complexities of kindness and disability, and becoming a parent in a pandemic – for TIME magazine. And the last chapter in We’ve Got This: Essays by Disabled Parents (Scribe 2023).

Rebekah also posts “mini memoirs” on Instagram. Find her there, and on her website.