“This IDPwD, let’s not ‘look beyond’ disability”

Disability advocate and writer Laura Pettenuzzo loves International Day of People with Disability, but this year, takes issue with Australia’s theme.

December 3 is International Day of People with Disability (IDPwD). Or, as I think of it, Disability Day. It’s one of my favourite days of the year – one of the few times when the wider world is more aware of and ready to celebrate the disability community. But this year my feelings are a little different.

The Australian theme for International Day of People with Disability 2022 is “Look Beyond”. I know I’m only one of many people who are disappointed and, frankly, angry, at this thematic choice.

For over two decades, I looked beyond my own disability and it left me with shame and pain and internalised ableism that will probably take me a lifetime to untangle. I navigated a world where other people looked beyond my disabilities: they didn’t understand my fatigue or my emotional dysregulation or my gait. When I tried to look beyond my disability, I couldn’t see myself clearly, and neither could anyone else.

The disability community has fought long and hard to make sure the non-disabled community can look straight at our disabilities, not away from them. I know the intentions of the IDPwD theme are good, that the theme suggests that we are more than our disability, and we are. I am a disabled woman, and I am a writer and a friend and a granddaughter and a colleague and a cousin. Those are all aspects of me that deserve celebration. But the very purpose of IDPwD is to centre and celebrate disability. There’s a time and a place to centre the other aspects of ourselves and IDPwD is not it.

IDPwD is about pride, about embracing our disabilities and inviting society to do the same. By looking beyond disability, the non-disabled community gets a pass. They can also look beyond all the ways society is inaccessible and needs to shift to accommodate us. That’s not acceptable. Unless we do the work – disabled people and our allies together – to recognise and eradicate stigma and prejudice, nothing will change.  

If you want to be a genuine ally to the disability community this IDPwD, the most important thing you can do is to look straight at our disabilities. You can – and should – reflect on your own attitudes towards disability, particularly in light of negative media around the NDIS.

If a disabled person points out ableism in an individual or a system, listen and make an ongoing commitment to learn and address that ableism when and how you can. Seek out the work of disabled artists and writers and filmmakers not just today or this week, but always.

Disabled people exist every day and week of the year and I want you to see us – all of us – because we can’t change the world without you.