Thread by @DisInHigherEd

Let's kick the day off with a discussion about disability identity in higher education. Whether someone's condition is congenital, acquired, progressive, etc..., coming into one's disability identity can be a process--particularly in the context of higher ed. (Polls below!)

I consider Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome sort of the "grand unifying theory" of my many conditions because the rest commonly co-occur with EDS. Because EDS is genetic, I have technically had it my entire life, and in retrospect, I've been affected by it for my entire life, however...

It wasn't until my second year of my PhD that I started to suspect my bodymind was unusual in... let's say, a clinically relevant way. That was also around the time when I started to really struggle to contort my bodymind to fit the structures of academia.

(It was several more years before I got any sort of definitive diagnosis... more on that in a second!) My initial response was to internalize ableist academic expectations. I knew I was struggling, but I didn't feel like I could ask for help.

Which was worse, I asked myself, being "incompetent" or "incapable"? Both possibilities terrified me, and I knew that for most professors and administrators, any sign of struggle was evidence that a student simply couldn't "hack it" and should quietly excuse themselves from uni.

Poll 1. Have you felt pressured to quit higher ed due to the institution's attitudes around disability? Comment below!

Three things made a difference for me: first, my supervisor @SundbergJuanita. In Juanita's courses, we never studied disability specifically, but we looked at how "social difference" is created and operates in Anglo/European contexts.

Juanita also emphasized "the politics of knowledge production". She was openly critical of higher ed as a space that reproduces violence against marginalized communities. This helped me to contextualize my experiences as a disabled person in academia.

In short, she gave me tools to conceptualize disabled identities and space to interrogate ableist marginalization in the academy. That gave me a foundation for/openness to the crip and critical disability literature that molded my emerging crip identity.

Juanita's teaching and supervisory style also "accommodated" me before I even knew that's what I needed. She has also continued to be interested in learning more about disability, including what she can do better. She regularly goes to bat for me in the institution.

My supervisor was, without meaning to be, an important disability mentor.

Poll 2. Have you had any instructors or other mentors within higher education who have facilitated coming into your disability identity? (Comment below!)

Poll 3. If you answered "yes" to Poll 2, were these instructors or mentors themselves disabled?

Second, when I outed myself as disabled, students, instructors, and staff began disclosing their own disabilities to me--in particular, the ways that they struggle, often silently, due to academic ableism. Being exposed to the systemic character of this very much radicalized me.

When I assert my disabled identity in academic spaces, it is an act of resistance. I am not just taking space for myself but demanding that disability have space in the academy--and that requires radically rethinking what higher ed is and how it operates.

Poll 4. Do you view claiming your disability identity in higher ed as a radical, political act? (Comment below!)

Poll 5. More generally, have experiences of academic ableism radicalized you? (Comment below!)

Third, I (FINALLY!) got a diagnosis. I spent many years without a one--but still very much disabled (see @bennessb's outstanding insight that disability often precedes diagnosis). W/o a diagnosis, it was incredibly difficult to access what limited institutional supports exist.

Bc universities continue to operate under the medical model of disability and use an accommodations approach, formal diagnosis is often crucial. There are, however, many barriers to diagnosis! Also, if mine had taken any longer, I might not have been able to continue in my degree

Much as I wish this wasn't the case: getting a diagnosis has been a part of my identity formation because without one I was invisible/illegible/illegitimate to the institution. Only through diagnosis have I "become disabled" (my identity recognized) in the eyes of the institution

Pre-diagnosis, I internalized this sense of "illegitimacy". I wish I could tell my undiagnosed self that I was "disabled enough" and that institutional gatekeeping harms un/underdiagnosed folks by excluding them from a powerful (political!)...

...identity that allows us to demand (individually and collectively) accessibility and institutional accountability.

Poll 6. If you are currently undiagnosed or were undiagnosed for any portion of your degree program: how did this impact your identity? (Comment below!)

Poll 7. If you are currently undiagnosed or were undiagnosed for any portion of your degree program: how did this impact your access to needed supports?

To finish up this thread, I was to talk about disability identity in the context of multiple identities: I have found that although my queer and disabled identities increase my "illegibility" in academic spaces, embracing multiple identities has been liberating.

I am not the idea academic "but for" disability or the ideal academic "but for" my queerness (in terms of both sexuality and gender). In order to exist in academic spaces, I have to throw out this figure of "the ideal academic" and radically rethinking what the academy is.

How do you relate to your identities in academic spaces? What would it mean for the academy to affirm and support your disabled identity together with your other identities?