Everyone Should Be Able to Use the Public Restroom: When ADA Is Not Enough

Kal Cobalt is a disabled trans man. Relying on accessibility devices when out in public means using accessible bathrooms...

Cryonics, Dakota the Dog, and the Hope of Forever

As pet deathcare providers, we assist families with the euthanasia process in their own homes...

What a hysterectomy at 31 is actually like — because the doctors won't tell you the details

In December of last year, when I was 31, I underwent a hysterectomy. Surgery was a hard choice...

My Anger Is My Kindness

My anger is a palpable thing.

It starts from my center, white-hot behind my ribcage, a supernova replacing my heart. It runs through my veins, fills my fingertips with fire...

Disabled People With Chronic Health Issues Face A World Of Inaccessibility

I visit my pain doctor on a monthly basis. Sometimes I get trigger point injections ― shots of lidocaine into my muscles to stop them from spasming, a frequent occurrence...

6 Things You Should Do Now to Prepare for Your Own Funeral

A former mortician explains what to do and why it’s so important.

Air Travel Is Often A Humiliating Nightmare For People With Disabilities

When I reached the front of the airport security line, I’d halfway composed a tweet about how much I was dreading the Transportation Security Administration pat-down...

When Medicine Is A Business, Rare Disease Patients Suffer

The doctor was kind with gentle eyes, an easy smile on his tan face and a tiny diamond sparkling in his right ear. His resident carefully drew by hand my family tree through three generations on both sides...

I Have An Invisible Illness. Here's How One Photoshoot Made Me Feel Seen

I’m nervous as I cross the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. I tap my hand to the beat of the music against the gear shift, , foot pushing down on the gas. I have extra outfits piled in the backseat...

This Year, Pride Returned to Its Radical Roots

It’s now been more than five decades since cops raided yet another gay bar in New York and a group of disabled, queer people of color...

(Un)safe Refuge: The Built-In Ableism in Queer Spaces

In June 2018, then-58-year-old Lynn Zelvin was refused entry at the Stonewall Inn, an iconic gay bar in Manhattan...

How Starting a Pet Euthanasia Business Saved My Life

I was devastated when I lost my dream job as a mortician. But I found a new sense of purpose guiding pet owners through the worst days of their lives.

I Needed A Hysterectomy At Age 31. Doctors Fought Me Every Step Of The Way.

“My disease has a 50 percent heritability rate, minimum,” I explained, cradling my phone between my ear and my shoulder as I talked with the man who would become my fiancé....

Tattoos, Pain, And Incurable Illness

When you live with chronic pain, choosing when and where to experience pain can be a gift, and an act of control.

Who Gets To Say #MeToo?

The #MeToo movement is about breaking the silence that builds up each time a man ignores your “no.” Unfortunately, the movement has been so...

Pet Euthanasia At Home: 6 Ways to Make Putting Down Your Pet Easier on Them — and You

Harper Laika Leeloo, DDS, was the best-worst dog that ever lived. She was 50 pounds of pure terror packed into a 10-pound body. She was more fluff than actual pup....

Disabled People (Might) Finally Get Emojis That Represent Us

There are currently 2,666 emojis in the dictionary we all have access to on our phones and computers. You know, those tiny, colorful symbols that we use to punctuate our texts and tweets. Of those 2,666 emojis, exactly one represents disability.

Already Whole: How Hollywood's Biggest Hits Shut Out Disability

Before I was disabled, I never thought twice about going to the movies. Whether it was opening night or a morning matinee, I'd slip into  the welcoming embrace of darkness at least once a week...

Overview: One Chair, Five Ways

The Paralympics—so called for the Greek prefix para, meaning "alongside"—give elite disabled athletes...

Disabled People Wrangle With Prospective Parenthood, Too

“Will I have children?” is a question often hedged on romantic compatibility with future partners...

As a Disabled Writer, I Know My Stories Are Worth Telling

These worlds I dearly love, with science-fiction that supersedes the science in our reality, deserve Smart Drives and automatic doors and disabled heroes, too.

Dear Restaurants, Your Inaccessibility Is The Opposite of Hospitality

For an industry built on hospitality, too many restaurants still pay lip service to — or flat-out ignore — the Americans with Disabilities Act.

America Needs More Doctors With Disabilities

I was in my almost-30s when I came home from an appointment with a new primary care doctor at a fancy concierge office ― the kind who has an app you download to schedule appointments and who takes conference ...

Staircases in Space: Why Are Places in Science Fiction Not Wheelchair-Accessible?

Space, as we all know, is the final frontier. It’s the star-spangled playground in which our imaginations run amok, and the setting for stories...

Disabled People Don't Belong in Music Venues, Apparently

The doctor was kind, with gentle eyes, an easy smile on his tan face and a tiny diamond sparkling in his right ear. His resident carefully drew by hand my family tree...

Stephen Hawking's Disability Wasn't Something To 'Overcome'

The official news alert announcing that world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking had died at age 76 popped up on my phone Wednesday, just a few minutes after I first heard...

Nihil De Nobis, Sine Nobis

I am 30 years old before I see myself—my disabled self—in any kind of science fiction. Nobody meant to write about me. It’s early 2017 and I’m reading The Expanse series.  Okay, I’m devouring The Expanse series, because my boyfriend and I watched the first episode of the television show so...