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Earlier in my career, one of the big things that those who were working in the representation of disability was that a lot of directors used wheelchairs in media that did not look authentic.
The basis was that the wheelchairs look like they are from hospitals, and were not designed for disabled bodies. I've never corrected this before, but I should have because I have to disagree with this, and I have to point out the very privileged way wheelchairs are spoken about.
I should have talked about my own personal experience of having a wheelchair that was not fit for my body. The big criticism is that the wheelchairs look like hospital wheelchairs and that disabled people don't get hospital wheelchairs, but that's not true.
Before I started using power wheelchairs, I had a manual wheelchair for a few years. The wheelchair was given to me at the hospital, and they let me take it home because I had no way of walking. I couldn't be carried. Without this wheelchair, I would've had nothing.
We never talk about what happens when disabled people lose their ability to walk, but don't have access to medical equipment. When you are poor, you may have to get whatever wheelchair you can, and sometimes that means taking wheelchairs that don't necessarily fit your body.
It takes years to get a wheelchair that's modified for your body, but not everybody gets approved for wheelchairs. If you can stand up at all, insurance is not gonna buy you a wheelchair. If you qualify for a power chair, insurance is not gonna buy you a manual wheelchair.
So what do you do? You take whatever wheelchair you can get. It could be from a loan closet. It could be something you get through a newspaper ad.
Not everybody has the resources for a wheelchair that suits them, and it's ableist and classist to claim that the only wheelchairs that are authentic are the ones that are made for our bodies.
I used a hospital-style wheelchair for over a year.
Because it wasn't suited to my body I had to be pushed everywhere, and I had classmates that were assigned to take me from class to class and also pick me up at the door, when I arrived at school.
Because it wasn't suited to my body I had to be pushed everywhere, and I had classmates that were assigned to take me from class to class and also pick me up at the door, when I arrived at school.
When you don't have the ability to walk, you do what you gotta do.
So the next time you want to point out that a wheelchair is not authentic, remember that the most marginalized in our community may be using these wheelchairs because it's all I have.
So the next time you want to point out that a wheelchair is not authentic, remember that the most marginalized in our community may be using these wheelchairs because it's all I have.
Image Description: shows a teenage Dominick at Opera camp in a yellow T-shirt. There are other campers behind him, and one has their feet on his lap. He is sitting in a standard wheelchair
