Hello,
I saw an Instagram post the other day that expressed something I’ve always felt but never even thought to articulate: how being disabled, particularly a wheelchair user, renders you both invisible and hyper-visible - sometimes at the same time.
Yes, I thought, that’s it.
I think nondisabled people think they can imagine the hyper-visibility, but I’m not sure that’s true. It isn’t just a case of being stared at, although that is definitely - and frequently - part of it. It’s also the queue that forms behind you as you wait for a portable ramp, everyone shifting around awkwardly. It’s the way someone watches to see if you know how to cross the road, or whether you can pay for the expensive suit you’ve taken to the till. It’s having to ask, all the time, for access, making you noticeable over and over again. It’s the middle aged man who steps dramatically aside to let you past, flattening himself against a wall despite there being plenty of room, and it’s the older woman who keeps asking if you’re ok, loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to look round and see what the fuss is about.
It makes you want to shrink yourself.
And yet, it’s the invisibility that is worse. So much worse, because it is often accompanied by a failure to see you as a person at all.
It’s the way strangers have whole conversations with the empty space above your head or, worse, with the person with you. It’s the way services, companies and everyday parts of life - from care to health to travel to events to jobs to housing to shops to tech to everything in between - are never quite designed for you. It’s the attractive person at the bar who quite literally looks through you, and the new PA who doesn’t listen to what you’ve asked for. It’s being physically excluded from so many spaces. It’s leaving before everyone else because there isn’t a disabled loo. It’s people denying how bad ableism is, or not challenging it when it happens in front of their faces. It’s being entirely desexualised, or even de-gendered, or simply treated like a child. For many, it’s being removed from society altogether by institutionalisation.
Sometimes, you just want to be seen.
I thought about this dichotomy last week as a very angry Southwestern Rail guard had a go at me because I hadn’t booked a ramp in advance. Or rather, had a go at my PA, because he resolutely ignored me for the entire conversation, even as I explained to him the exact regulations that enshrine my right to turn up and go. As this small-minded man tried to render me invisible by quite literally talking over my head, I could also feel the eyes of everyone else in the carriage watching the shenanigans. It didn’t bother me like it would have a few years ago, but I was very aware of how this man’s ableism was trying to make me invisible and hyper-visible all at once, and thus somehow to reduce me to less of a person.
For what it’s worth, I have decided to use my hyper-visibility to my advantage and to challenge the more insidious invisibility it so often obscures. If I’m going to be noticed when I’m forced to navigate bad access, I’m going to tell the people watching that I was lied to about it. I’m going to catch the eye of a person staring at me. I’m going to make a fuss and raise hell because, for better or worse, people pay attention when I do. Might as well use it, right?
Even when everything is going smoothly, I think there’s value in being a queer, disabled woman who purposefully makes myself noticeable. In a world that expects people like me to feel shame, it feels powerful to wander around in a bright pink pair of DMs, to dance when I want to, to sit in a pub and laugh with my friends, to have a wheelchair-shaped pride pin attached to my bag. It allows me to meet every unwanted look with a determined smile; it allows me to say: yes, look at me, and see me for real this time.
It allows me to free myself from hyper-visibility, shrug off invisibility, and just be visible, like everyone deserves to be.
Speak soon,
Lucy
Learn more about how ableism makes disabled women invisible with my book
Women's lives are shaped by sexism and expectations. Disabled people's lives are shaped by ableism and a complete lack of expectations. But what happens when you're subjected to both sets of rules?
This powerful, honest, hilarious and furious memoir from journalist and advocate Lucy Webster looks at life at the intersection; the struggles, the joys and the unseen realities of being a disabled woman. From navigating the worlds of education and work, dating and friendship; to managing care; contemplating motherhood; and learning to accept your body against a pervasive narrative that it is somehow broken and in need of fixing, The View From Down Here shines a light on what it really means to move through the world as a disabled woman.
It feels wonderful to be in conversation with you, Lucy :) Thank you for expanding on these musings!!