Ableist Misogynoir: The Intersections of Disability, Gender, and Blackness
Identity Politics will always matter.
July is Disability Pride Month. It marks the anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which was passed on July 26th, 1990. That means that, until the late 20th century, there were no concrete federal protections for disabled people in the United States. Disabled folks had no avenues for pursuing litigation against workplace discrimination and were virtually beholden to employers who terminated them due to their disabilities or treated them unfairly. There were no guarantees of accessibility for disabled people until then. And, disabled people had to advocate for themselves in hospital rooms, courtrooms, and restrooms.
I am only 40 years old. These rights have been secure for less than my lifetime and are currently under threat by this presidential administration. There are so many subtle ways these threats show up in daily life. This month, I have been reflecting on my experiences with ableism and misogynoir and how those daily harms make my life complicated each day.
The simplest definition of ableism is the discrimination and prejudice against people with disabilities in favor of people who are able-bodied. Ableism shows up in hiring practices and dating behaviors. It shows up when people make “jokes” about disabled people, moving their bodies to mimic physically disabled folks. Or, when they use words that have been historically used to diminish and belittle people with disabilities. Ableism is everywhere. It is ever-present. It is so regular that many able-bodied people don’t even notice it.
The strange thing about ableism is that everyone has been or will be disabled at some point in their lives. For some of us, these disabilities exist from birth. For others, they may experience disabling events or periods when they have less mobility, diminished mental capacity, or changes in their physiology. Aging is one of the primary ways that people experience disability as the body’s core processes simply wear down after many decades. This is probably why people are so unkind to the elderly and often treat them with such disdain and resentment.
The thing about disability is that it also intersects with other aspects of our identities. Just like race, gender, sexuality, and class, ability wraps around and intersects with our ways of showing up in the world that shape our access to resources and likelihood to survive. For many of us Black disabled folks in the United States, our experiences with ableism are uniquely shaped both by larger societal disregard for disabled people and also by deep-seated racial hatred and anti-Blackness which seeps into every institution in this country.
There is obviously a history to this. As I share in my book Black Women Taught Us, Black women have long had to fight against medical apartheid in the form of forced gynecological procedures without anesthesia. J. Marion Sims, often called the “Father of Gynecology,” perfected his reconstructive vaginal procedures and practices on unwilling enslaved Black women who were not allowed to consent in or out of surgeries. Because he believed Black women didn’t feel pain, he conducted most of these experimental procedures without any pain medication.
To be clear: slavery itself was a mass disabling event for Black Americans. Many enslaved Black people were punished with whippings, cutting off of limbs, fingers, or toes, gauging out eyes, removing teeth, and other vulgarities that left many enslaved Black Americans disfigured and without the full function of their bodies. Western medicine has only continued to exploit Black Americans in the form of unlawful exposure to syphilis which was left untreated during the Tuskegee trials between 1932 and 1972. Even after a cure was developed, these men were still left to suffer from the effects of the disease as the U.S. Public Health Service “studied” the evolution of the infection.
These violent and disgusting disabling experiences at the hands of medical doctors and the US government have cultivated generations of distrust in modern medicine within Black communities. It has also resulted in the stigmatizing of disability in Black communities causing shame and isolation among Black people who, rather than hiding, should be seeking support.
These histories and systems are made even more complex when they intersect with gender. For many women and gender expansive individuals, the expectation that we endure more pain (especially those with uteruses) results in ineffective medical care and undiagnosed ailments like fibroids, endometriosis, and other painful health concerns. In some respects, our pain goes so unrecognized and under-addressed that we frequently fail to acknowledge it ourselves.
I have been referring to these experiences at the intersections of disability and Blackness as ableist misogynoir. There is something inherently different about being Black, non-male, and disabled. We are often ignored when we seek help and undermined when we advocate for our wellness. Not only that, Black women are rarely encouraged to center our health and wellness needs. Our disabilities often go unaddressed because we give so much of ourselves to everyone else.
We have to be honest about that.
I say all of this from experience. A few years ago, I began experiencing nonstop bleeding. When I asked my gynecologist about treatment options, she first had to order a panel of blood tests and x-rays to confirm that I even had a treatable concern. She discovered that I had fibroids. When I asked about a hysterectomy, she dissuaded me and encouraged me instead to insert a third IUD (intrauterine device). I had already tried an IUD twice before. Since I was no longer sleeping with people who could get me pregnant, I didn’t want to use any form of birth control anymore but I agreed to the treatment plan hoping that it would stop the bleeding.
It didn’t. Instead, the new IUD made the pain and bleeding worse. I was often unable to work due to the pain and I struggled with sleeping. It took me two years to finally get a hysterectomy after doing my own independent research about my options. In December 2024, I had a partial hysterectomy, receiving full relief from my fibroids which had grown over time. The bleeding was over and I was finally able to get on with my life.
After sharing my experience with my community, I have found that this story is all too common. Black women everywhere are being told that their bleeding, fainting, and persistent pain are normal. For some people, the symptoms have resulted in multiple hospitalizations and changes to their sex life. Many of us have had to reshape our lives around these disabilities in ways that have been exacerbated because of how doctors and community members perceive our race and gender.
This is not normal.
It isn’t normal that Black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth when compared to white women.
It isn’t normal that 47% of Black women have heart disease and have “the highest rates of hypertension, stroke, heart failure, and coronary artery disease observed among women in the United States.”
It isn’t normal for disability to be a death sentence or for Black women and gender expansive people to carry a disproportionate burden with respect to everyone else.
This Disability Pride Month, let’s stop treating these harms like business as usual. Instead, let's be honest so we can start making a change.