Stella Young Quotes

We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect.

A week before shooting, they told me, You don't have the part, yet. We're still trying to find a handicapped kid who can act. Either that or we break your legs.

We think we know what it's all about; we think that disability is a really simple thing, and we don't expect to see disabled people in our daily lives.

People get all up in arms when I describe myself as a crip because what they hear is the word 'cripple,' and they hear a word you're not allowed to say anymore.

For lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We're not real people. We are there to inspire.

Britain's way of dealing with disability is just to try and pretend it's not happening. A swift sweep under the carpet.

I figure this current era of history is the one with the best chance of quality of life for a black, female, disabled, middle-aged, queer person who's most comfortable not fitting in. The odds still aren't great, mind you. But I'll take my chances with the 21st century.

The magnitude of discrimination and stigma faced by people with disability in Australia cannot be underestimated. People do not understand disability, and people fear what they don't understand.

It became very clear to me that Yooralla was not as interested in media coverage that explored issues faced by people with disability as it was in giving a pat on the back to journalists who maintained the status quo by giving readers the warm and fuzzies over their morning paper.

For me, disability is a physical experience, but it's also a cultural experience and a social experience, and for me, the word 'crip' is the one that best encapsulated all of that.

I use the term 'disabled people' quite deliberately, because I subscribe to what's called the social model of disability, which tells us that we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses.

People who are much too sensitive to demand of cripples that they run races ask of the poor that they get up and act just like everyone else in society.

I don't generally talk about medical terms when I discuss my position as a disabled person. I take a social rather than medical approach to disability, and so long Latin names for congenital conditions are not relevant.

I think a person who is disabled should be disabled by no act of their own. If you become disabled because of alcoholism, drugs, or things of that nature, I do not think those conditions qualify someone to be called disabled. I think those conditions result from personal decisions.

Lesbians and gays... they still have to fight, even inside. It's not that simple, even if they seem to be accepted.

I hate the words 'handicapped' and 'disabled'. They imply that you are less than whole. I don't see myself that way at all.

I'm not an advocate for disability issues. Human issues are what interest me.

A lot of roles for people with disabilities are quite patronising. It's a real pity when they are just used to give dull PC kudos to a drama, or when they're wheeled on in a tokenistic way without any real involvement in the plot.

People didn't always see a person with a disability who had to use a ramp or elevator as people who have been given unnecessary privileges. But I run into that often now. People are saying, 'Why do we have to go to great expense for these people?'

It's undeniable that what we are taught as a culture to believe about disability is at odds with traditional notions of masculinity.

I don't think of myself as being disabled, or able-bodied.

The world worries about disability more than disabled people do.

Congress acknowledged that society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as handicapping as are the physical limitations that flow from actual impairment.

I know what it's like to be growing up, called 'deaf and mute' and 'deaf and dumb.' They're words that are very degrading and demeaning to people who are deaf and hard of hearing. It's almost... it's almost libelous, if you want to say that.

Disability is often framed, in medical terms, as the ultimate disaster and certainly as a deficit.