Embodying Disability Justice This Disability Pride Month

written by Paula Lang, elder victim advocate

Every July, we observe Disability Pride Month—a time to celebrate the diversity, resilience, and achievements of disabled people. It’s also a time to reflect on how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. In 2025, as we honor the 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), we must ask ourselves:

Are we merely complying with the law, or are we building a world that’s truly inclusive?

For many, the ADA represents progress—a hard-won civil rights victory that challenged ableist systems and secured essential legal protections. But for others, especially marginalized disabled people—disabled people of color, immigrants, deaf and hard of hearing individuals —the reality is that the ADA has never gone far enough. Despite legal mandates, disabled people are still fighting for accessible healthcare, education, employment, and basic dignity.

This is where disability justice steps in.

Coined by disabled activists like Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, and Stacey Milbern, disability justice is a framework that goes beyond access and rights. It centers intersectionality, collective care, and liberation. It asks us not just to make room at the table—but to redesign the table entirely.

What Is Disability Justice?

Disability justice isn’t just about ramps, captions, or compliance checklists. It’s about recognizing the interconnected systems of oppression that marginalize disabled people, especially those who are also part of other underserved communities. It challenges the very notion of "normalcy" and uplifts interdependence over individualism.

It also requires us to confront ableism—a system of discrimination and prejudice that treats disabled people as inferior. Ableism shows up in many forms: inaccessible public spaces and websites, assumptions that disability needs to be "fixed," and even the use of disability as a punchline. It shows up when students are segregated, when reasonable accommodations are denied, or when disabled people are excluded from decision-making spaces.

Moving Beyond Access

So how do we embody disability justice?

• Listen to and focus on disabled voices, especially those most often silenced.

• Rethink inclusion: Are we inviting people in just to meet a quota—or are we changing systems to work for everyone?

• Value interdependence as strength—not weakness. None of us thrive alone.

• Design with everyone in mind from the start—not as an afterthought.

• Educate ourselves and our communities about ableism and dismantle it in every form.

This year’s Disability Pride Month themes —“We Belong Here,” “Disability Justice for All,” and “Breaking Down Barriers”— remind us that pride isn’t just about celebration. It’s also about resistance, visibility, and transformation.

Let’s move beyond access. Let’s build a world that isn’t just technically compliant, but radically inclusive—one that embraces disability not as a problem to be solved, but as a vital part of our collective humanity.