From "An Unquiet Mind," s.e. smith's excellent monthly column at Catapult.co which explores disability identity and its interaction with the world at large.
“This was fine for someone else,” someone frustrated at being asked to accommodate me says, as though I am not an expert on my own self, as though all disabled people have the same needs. Why isn’t this thing that someone who isn’t you found perfectly acceptable enough? We spent all this money on it. As though being disabled does not in itself confer a literal body of knowledge, an expertise, a skill, an awareness of precisely what I need—because I have spent a lifetime fighting for it. I have a mastery of myself, a master’s degree in myself, yet I am followed, everywhere, by reminders that myself is too much.
https://catapult.co/stories/what-if-accessibility-was-also-inclusive-column-unquiet-mind-s-e-smith
I adore s.e. smith’s viewpoint and way with words! Two other essays introduced me to myself.
OMG! It’s not just me who finds death sex so highly charged.
There is a thing that happens with those adjacent to death that many people seem to be afraid to speak of, perhaps because it feels startling and shameful when it happens to them for the first time. Perhaps because no one speaks of it, they assume they are alone in this, perverse, broken. But those of us in the know are well aware that funerals—memorials, celebrations of life, transition ceremonies, Passages (always with a capital P)—are absolutely the best places for hooking up.
https://catapult.co/stories/the-small-beauty-of-funeral-sex-essay-s-e-smith
s.e. smith nails the concept of "debility," something I struggled to understand last year at the SDS conference. When impairment is the result of trauma — whether that’s state or personal violence, especially due to marginalized status — the social model of disability isn’t enough.
Talking about how environmental disparities can contribute to disability becomes complicated as a disabled person who is proud and confident in my identity.
https://catapult.co/stories/when-disability-is-a-toxic-legacy-se-smith
I met s.e. smith through FWD: Feminists With Disabilities, an excellent group blog that’s further proof that longevity is not equal to value. Later I had the good fortune to meet s.e. in person. I’ve always admired smith’s ways with words, and I was delighted but not surprised to learn that three of smith’s monthly columns at Catapult won a 2020 US National Magazine Award.
Explore s.e. smith’s stuff at https://www.realsesmith.com/
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