Yesterday I received one of the highest and most ancient honors in London, the Freedom of the City. But the celebration soured into an experience of indignity when upon arriving, I found that there was no ramp for me to access the stage.

🧵 It’s amazing how ableism can so quickly turn honor and celebration into insult and injury.

I was gutted by not getting to experience the true nature of the ceremony that was spoken about so highly. I spent most of the hour trying to hold back tears.

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Today, on the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, I’m thinking of unkept promises —

of buildings I still can’t enter, broken sidewalks I can’t traverse, and the hurtful stigma I’m faced with every day, 31 years later. We must do better. #ADA31 [image: A large group of wheelchair users and other disabled people lined up on a path with the Washington Monument visible behind them. Anna is closest to the camera, with Kings Floyd slightly behind her. The sky is a cloudless blue and they’re dressed for cold weather.]

.@BananaRepublic, I’m currently stuck on the third floor of your Georgetown DC store because of a faulty elevator which your staff says “breaks all the time.” Why the hell are you allowing disabled customers to unknowingly put themselves in danger like this? @BRCustServ

As a disabled woman & wheelchair user, I’ve been fending off my insurance company’s cuts for years. Today, they finally got a judge to side with them—and now I can’t go back to college next semester. The American healthcare system has just, quite literally, ruined my future. What does it say about our country when a for-profit insurance company can tell me, my doctors, and several independent medical experts that we’re all wrong about my care needs, thereby preventing me from ever living independently? #CripTheVote