Disability Pride Month has been celebrated starting in 1990 because of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) legislation passed on July 26th of the same year. As you know, this legislation prohibits the discrimination of people with disabilities yet, discrimination and misunderstanding of disabilities still exists.
What Does Having 'Disability Pride' Mean? Having a disability is an identity like all other groups. There is a culture that people with disabilities share as a whole, and there are subcultures within each disability that someone identifies with. Meaning, one can take pride in their strength as someone with a disability and also participate in that culture along with those who have varying disabilities. They come together in unity, understanding the complexities of the world they have to move around in and how they can be referred to or treated. They can also acknowledge the subculture they participate in as someone who’s deaf or utilizes a wheelchair, for example. These individuals share deeper nuances of their world, how people respond to them, or don’t respond at all.