So What Was It All For?
I have always been an activist, (even before I knew I was). When I was young, people who knew me affectionately referred to me as a rebel but as a lifelong disabled person I have always had to 'fight my corner' against commerce, individuals and the Health and Social professionals who have sought to restrict or control my life and to either lock me out or lock me in. Now as an older disabled person these pressures are greater, (almost like being a child again!).
When at so called 'special school', I was subjected to medical examinations without notice and because I was born intersex and had received, [in my case inappropriate], 'Gender Corrective Surgery' these examinations were extremely intimate and usually performed in front of large groups of students. Always a very shy child these intrusions horrified me and I promised myself that when I grew up I would never again allow anyone to have control over my body or of my life. This is a promise I have kept up to now but at the age of 82 it is increasingly to the chagrin of the Medical Proffession and Social Services!
After I left school I discovered that with my friends scattered around the Country, nobody in my home town understood what this segregated person was about. This would soon change!
I suffered taunts from the local kids; tolerated well intentioned but patronising remarks; Outstared the starers. I loudly resisted the attempts of shopkeepers and café owners to keep me off their premises. The stubborn streak I had inherited from my parents and surviving 11 of my formatve years away from my family was beginning to pay off, as it has done ever since! So began my life of activism.
Disabled people wanted the rights that were being granted to other minority groups and during the 1980s some disabled intellectuals formulated the Social Modal of Disability to replace the Medical Modal that was in use by official organisations. At around the same time Disabled People's Direct Action Network, (DAN), was emerging from a number of other groups. 'Rights Now' was a mainstream disability uumbrella campaigning organisations that held mass rallies. DAN always held an action on the same day and Rights Now's presence ensured DAN had press coverage.
I went out with DAN a few times. I loved the comradeship, hated the high adrenaline levels and the fact that, as a claustrophobic, I might get arrested and shut in a cell but it had to be done. Eventuality the Disability Discrimination Bill was passed and then extended but that's not the end of the story!
After years of austerity governments many rights and services have been withdrawn or restricted.
After the Bill was passed some of us took Trainer Training and became Disability Equally Trainers, delivering DET courses to Companies, Charities and Local Authority and Medical Professionals. Explaining why the Social Model was more appropriate than the Medical Model. I went on to deliver DET courses for around 20 years. There were some outstanding participants who really 'got it', some were resentful or disruptive because they had been told to attend by their boss and many others were just paying 'lip-service'. There was another element however that is only visible in retrospect.
Many Local Authorities now claim to be 'Social Model Councils' but I am categorically telling you now, there is no such thing as a Social Model Counci!
At the Heart of the Social Model is the 'Definition of Disability' that says "People are disabled by the physical and attitudenal barriers that society puts in their way and not by their impairments", (In a nutshell; You can have multiple impairments but if the barriers are not there, you are not disabled!). Ask the Chief Social Worker of your Borough or City what the definition of disability is; If (s)he mentions impairments, medical conditions, etc. then they are Medical Model and definitely not Social Model. It is not possible to be of the Social Model without talking on board the Social Model Definition of Disability and not one Local Authority in the Country has done so.
Just as the big international record companies in my introduction took the name and face of the roots music but discarded it's soul and turned something relevant and gritty into a load of 'shmuck' so Local Authorities have taken the name and face of our Social Model but discarded it's heart and turned something relevant and gritty into a load of reconstituted Medical Model Tripe!
I hear even disability activists using Medical Model Social Services speke in conversations but for me the old stubborn streak, [plus the trainer in me], is always there and I don't only correct officials on their bad terminology Ialso deliver a lecture as the why it is wrong, (busy social workers soon learn the lesson!).
They have taken our Social Model and turned it against us and once more the establishment wins! So I ask again, What was it all for? I sometimes think that all those hours developing and delivering courses would have been better spent gardening!
