Why do you hate my voice?

Hello,

Deconstructing ableism, how it works and where it arises and how it affects us (individually and collectively), is perhaps a whole lifetime of work for those of us trying to change it. I am still constantly learning about it. But as I go about my activism and my life, one thing is becoming abundantly clear:

At least half of the day-to-day ableism I experience is because I have a speech impediment.

Being a wheelchair user (especially a powerchair user) is highly stigmatised. Needing care, more so. But the thing that makes people physically turn away from me? My voice.

(Whisper it: sometimes this is even true within the disability community. Lateral ableism is very real.)

This is how it goes: I’m at an event, looking for a way to mingle in a busy environment. Someone I know decides to help me out and introduce me to someone I don’t. As they come over, I see the stranger clock my physicality and then have a little argument with themselves in which they decide a wheelchair is nothing to worry about (it’s amazing how visible this internal monologue is on people’s faces). They smile a little too forcefully, and introduce themselves.

And then I open my mouth.

The smile wavers. A frown forms.

The ableism that follows from this moment divides into three broad categories, each progressively worse. The first and second (which mercifully make up the vast majority of situations) are not inherently malicious but are nevertheless problematic. Either the person concludes I am completely unintelligible but still capable of a conversation, which they then proceed to conduct through my friend, refusing to even try to tune in. Or (worse) they decide that I am not capable of said conversation and thus talk to me as if I am a small child, talk to my friend as if I am not there (“is she ok?”) or, simply, walk away. None of which feels great.

These are the sorts of ableist reactions mostly lead to me being left out - of opportunities, of conversations, of little bits of life. They’re infuriating and saddening, and leave me feeling like a constant outsider. But they’re not the real subject of this newsletter.

Because there is a third response that can arise when people hear me speak: revulsion.

This is not an exaggeration; ‘revulsion’ really is the right word. They literally flinch. Their face betrays a mixture of fear - they quite literally look around for someone to rescue them from me - and horror that this could be how anyone sounds. Sometimes, although rarely, there is anger in there too (I still, honestly, cannot explain this, but I think it boils down to this: people aren’t supposed to sound like me, apparently, and the people who do should definitely not have the temerity to be socialising and working and existing alongside those who do not.) They back away a little, eyes wide, battling what appears to be a strong impulse to run away.

It is genuinely hard to explain how this feels. All the metaphors for isolation and dehumanisation don’t really seem up to the task. So instead I thought I’d tell you some of the specific places this has happened to me, and let you imagine how it felt for yourself.

Outside my year 11 form room, when we’d been asked to take prospective parents and kids on a tour of the school. In a morning editorial meeting when I did work experience during the uni summer holidays. At the dentist. In so many pubs and bars and clubs they’ve all rolled into one. In a meeting at a very prestigious magazine, who’d invited me in to talk about writing for them (about disability no less). At the beginning of one of the two dates I ever went on with men (the less said, the better). At an event for disability activists. When I introduced myself to someone at a queer speed dating event. When interviewing a potential PA.

For all my hand-won confidence, these moments haunt me, make me wary of speaking. Because revulsion can be called another thing: hate. My voice is different, why do so many people hate it?

Until next week,
Lucy