Hot, Wet, and Shaking by Kaleigh Trace

Hot, Wet, and Shaking by Kaleigh Trace

Author:Kaleigh Trace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Invisible Publishing
Published: 2014-08-01T00:00:00+00:00


“Disabled” is such a broad identifier, and having a disability can look so many different ways. If you see me sitting or in photographs you would not necessarily know it. Until you see me walk, you would probably not guess it. All of this means that I pass. I am sometimes assumed to be nondisabled. Riding my trike makes me more visibly disabled. When I am on my trike, I get the most commentary. When I am on “training wheels,” people take full liberty to yell at me, tease me, and ask me what’s wrong with me. When I let those comments go, left unnoticed, I am allowing them to proliferate. People with different disabilities than mine may experience this kind of verbal harassment more regularly than I do. And so because of my relative position of privilege, I want to make sure I am always using my voice. Having a voice is a right that so many of us are systemically denied access to. I want to make sure I use mine when I can.

The experience of that afternoon did not lead to some kind of seismic shift in the way people see me and my beautiful, red wheels. I still hear the taunts on my rides around town. I rarely respond—not because I don’t want to, but more often because it is unsafe. Often the catcaller is driving by and they are gone before I have registered what’s happening, or, I am alone and the streets are empty and shouting back seems dangerous. But I will do it again. I am just percolating on my future responses over here, waiting for the perfect moment.



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