Tag Archives: womens march

disability, public speaking, Women's Rights

Disability Justice: 2020 Sacramento Women’s March

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I spoke at the 2020 Sacramento Women’s March about disability justice.

Below is video (by Denice Ristau) and the transcript.

Disability Justice

Transcript:

Is there power in standing up?

That was a trick question.

Is there power in sitting down?

I’m disabled whether I’m standing or sitting. And I’m powerful both ways!

So, let’s change this phrasing: is there power in showing up?

Let me tell you about Rosa.

Rosa May Billinghurst would ram her wheelchair into police during protests in the early 1900s. She continued using her wheelchair to make a path for herself even after being violently thrown out of her chair intentionally damaged by police.

Rosa was called “the cripple suffragette.”

Rosa claimed her space and she made it known she would be counted as a disabled woman and nothing less.

So I’m here to tell you:

Continue reading Disability Justice: 2020 Sacramento Women’s March →

disability, Women's Rights

Women’s March: Make Universal Accessibility a Cornerstone

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Millions, possibly billions, of people were devastated on election night in 2016.

I was one of them. I feared for my life.

I graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree, but I now try to survive on under $1,000 per month on Social Security Disability (SSDI) because of a disease I was born with. As a result of this incurable disease’s progression, I am fully disabled and impoverished. I am a living, breathing, pre-existing condition.

After the election sunk in, I desperately sought hope. I clung to the gleam of The Women’s March, craving for throngs of women to somehow save me from this new hell. I had dreams of attending the 2017 march in D.C. but wasn’t sure how I’d survive it. My inflammatory disease, Ankylosing Spondylitis, causes debilitating pain and fatigue if I exert too much energy or stand longer than a few minutes. I would have to rely on my cane, pain medications, and a slim chance of places to sit and rest during a march where I wouldn’t know many people. In the end I settled for attending my local march in Sacramento, CA.

I borrowed a huge, clunky wheelchair from my church and asked friends to push me in it. I noticed people’s kindness – those who made room when I asked for it – and I called it accessibility, when in reality the march’s overarching inaccessibility made it such that I had to rely on the kindness of strangers in order to participate (I remain grateful for the kindness). I had to do what many with disabilities must do in order to survive: ask for help; rely on others; and say, ‘Thank you,’ for not being trampled.

If I could make it to the front, I was told, there was an area for people with disabilities, but I learned of it a hundred yards away – and about two thousand ambulatory people swarmed in a pink pussy-hatted mass between it and me. So, I settled for less and pretended it was sort of OK that my primary view was of people’s butts and shoulder bags. Continue reading Women’s March: Make Universal Accessibility a Cornerstone →

Advocacy, disability

I Told My Story at the 2018 Women’s March in Sacramento

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Below is a video and transcript of the speech I gave at the 2018 Women’s March in Sacramento. The current video may be updated with an official rally video after it is released.

(Video courtesy of Darcy Totten, Activism Articulated)

Sacramento!!!

My name is Charis.

Five years ago I was asked to testify on a bill and I said to the person, “I am nobody, how can you expect me to say anything to convince these lawmakers to choose the right thing?”

She said, “Charis, all you have to do is share your story. Nobody can tell your story for you.”

Sacramento! Can you share your stories? That’s all you have to do.

I’m a former college athlete. I graduated magna cum laude from a women’s college and I paid off my college loans in 6 years. I could do anything!

But.

Then I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis. You can’t tell because I’m hiding the pain, but Ankylosing Spondylitis hurts like hell and my body’s working overtime just to survive. I also live with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, and Anxiety.

In 2016, I made the hardest decision of my life. I applied for Social Security Disability. Now, two years later, I am still waiting for a decision on my case. For two years I’ve been surviving on savings and occasional financial help. But with Sacramento’s rent rising astronomically and my savings and health in decline, my future is uncertain at best. Continue reading I Told My Story at the 2018 Women’s March in Sacramento →

#sickbody, Advocacy, ankylosing spondylitis, Arthritis, Charis, chronic disease, chronic pain, Current Events, disability, Equality, Gender, health, Inequality, Invisible disease, Politics, sickness, spondyloarthritis, Women, Women's Rights

A New Wheelchair User’s Experience at the Women’s March

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The first time I used a wheelchair was after tearing my ACL during a college soccer match in Washington, D.C. in 2005. My teammates convinced me to use one when we visited the Holocaust Museum, instead of crutches. I remember feeling invisible. I remember being trapped in the middle of congested hallways and exhibit rooms, seeing nothing but the backs of people scooting around and in front of me like I was a planter box in their way. I remember feeling empathy for people who spend a majority of their lives in a wheelchair. I hardly remember anything about the museum from that visit. And I became terrified of ever needing to use a wheelchair again.

On January 21st, 2017, I rolled in the Women’s March on Sacramento alongside some 30,000 people. I have only recently, very reluctantly, decided to begin using a wheelchair because of deteriorating health. My experience from college still haunts me, but I am learning to embrace how much more fully I can participate in life by using assistive devices that reduce pain and fatigue caused by Ankylosing Spondylitis. It’s the difference between staying home and showing up.

However, I was nervous about navigating the march, even with friends to help push me. I expected that I would spend all my energy advocating for space just to be able to proceed in a straight line. I thought I might regret the decision to use the chair, even though not using it could result in being bedridden for days or weeks.

Would I return home wishing I had not gone? Continue reading A New Wheelchair User’s Experience at the Women’s March →