You don’t have to watch Wicked to know its famous line—“No one mourns the Wicked”—which basically means that some people aren’t worth grieving. This kept echoing in my head when I heard that both lead actresses of the Wicked: For Good film recently tested positive for COVID.
According to a recent Guardian article, “Both Grande and Cynthia Erivo tested positive for Covid during the filming of the first movie, temporarily delaying production. Erivo reportedly contracted the virus days before shooting the climactic first-act number Defying Gravity, while Grande tested positive before filming the song “Popular.”
The same article notes that during the current press tour Ariana Grande again tested positive, forcing her to miss several events.
That news made me think of Mia Mingus. In her blog “You Are Not Entitled to Our Deaths”, Mingus challenges the idea that disabled or sick bodies are disposable and that those lives aren’t worth protecting or grieving. After reading this blog and our discussion in class, it made me remember hearing about the Wicked news. It made me realize we’re acting like COVID is just a production hiccup, an inconvenience to filming or press tours, rather than the ongoing threat which is killing and disabling countless people. The fact that both leads got sick, during filming and promotion, yet the media and public reaction centers on delays, missed appearances, and disappointed fans speaks volumes.
There’s something horrifyingly Wicked-like about how illness is framed now. If someone masks, they’re “paranoid.” If they don’t appear for a photoshoot or premiere, fans complain. When someone gets COVID, the conversation is about wasted money on promotion, fan backlash over missed premieres, or travel delays , but rarely about health, recovery, or the toll illness takes. The framing treats sickness as a hiccup, not as human suffering. It treats the sick body as a burden to the show, not as a person in need of care.
“Grande’s positive test was the latest hiccup for the full-court Wicked press blitz that has seen the cast hop continents by the day. Due to flight delays, Grande was unable to make the premiere in Brazil, triggering fan backlash she also addressed on her Instagram.”
That is exactly the kind of abled entitlement Mingus warns about: a culture that assumes certain bodies can and should be sacrificed for convenience. Under this logic, “the show must go on,” regardless of who gets hurt. The Wicked cast situation isn’t just celebrity news, but it’s a reflection of a larger societal pattern where health, disability, and our shared vulnerability are minimized, ignored, or erased entirely.
What’s even worse is how normalized this erasure has become. COVID has become “another thing,” something to power through so cameras and promotions stay on schedule. Workplaces expect people to show up sick. Students are told to push through fevers. Long-term effects are brushed off as “just fatigue.” Public health infrastructure? Largely forgotten. Masks, ventilation, testing are all optional. People who get sick frequently or live with chronic conditions are expected to adapt or be pushed aside.
Mingus doesn’t just name this as negligence, she instead frames it as violence. When we treat care as optional, when we prioritize productivity over people, when we mourn canceled premieres more than lost lives, we are making a statement about whose lives matter. We’re deciding who gets protection, who gets grief, and who doesn’t.
We shouldn’t act like the pandemic is over. We need to stop shrugging when someone gets sick, framing illness as inconvenience, or acting like the only thing that matters is the show going on. Production, entertainment, or convenience is not more important than actual human lives. Because if we care at all about disability justice, about valuing every life, then we can’t pretend the pandemic is done. We have to mourn the sick. We have to fight for care. And we have to stop believing the myth that pushing on by ignoring risk, ignoring illness is normal or acceptable.
“If you don’t respect yourself and you don’t demand what you believe in for yourself, you’re not gonna get it.” -Judy Heumann
A photo taken at camp Jened. In the foreground to the right are two people, one of which supports the other via an arm slung around the neck. In the background are four figures sitting in wheelchairs.
An accepting environment is the backbone to an unfractured society. For marginalized communities, the opportunity to exist wholly – to present as you wish to without masking, trying to fit in, to just be without fear of discrimination or worse – is few and far between. Camp Jened was a safe space to meet other people who knew the struggle of living in a world that is majorly inaccessible; some campers even stated that it felt like a second home to them. For Woodyard, it was one of exposure, a different way of living than he’d known in Alabama. LeBrecht explained feeling as though he had to fit into a world that wasn’t made for him. O’Toole told about how she would pretend to be able-bodied, hiding her cane under the couch. The weight of masking’s burden remains unknown until you no longer have to pretend. Only once that weight is removed do you realize the damage its done, yet how freeing it feels to live without it.
Heumann, explaining how she took special education classes that were in the basement of her school, stated that “in some way, even when we were that young, we knew that we were all being sidelined”. Similarly to Heumann, I also took special education classes in high school. My experience with them was quite frankly horrible and my teacher brought students to tears multiple times due to a short temper with questions regarding the material. Jened was empowering: an environment curated specifically with those cast to the sidelines in mind, encouraging them to raise up their bat and knock able-bodied expectations out of the park. A topic discussed amongst the campers in the film was parents. One camper expressed distaste for her parents’ overprotectiveness, and another raised that many parents often wish to conceal the disabledness of their child out of fear. The coddling you face as a disabled person is endlessly frustrating, and when you speak out about it, you’re likely to be told that “well, it’s coming from a place of love, so you can’t be mad”. A parent should of course protect their children, but there is a line between protection and infantilization, and too often does it cross the line into the latter.
Within the strictly imposed, purposeful, and artificially manufactured hierarchy of our society, the term ‘power’ consists of numerous meanings. The first definition that most think of is how, in many settings, power is about dominance, control, authority, and oppression. It is a matter of commanding people how to act, what to look like, and where to place one’s body. This is presumably the type of power that most incites the oppressor or the privileged to fear any semblance of gain from oppressed groups, as one’s acquisition of power is identified as something that only happens at the detriment of another’s. It is as though some are terrified that they will be unable to impart shame, terror, disdain, or indifference if those they subject to such tools of oppression and control have enough power to refute their efforts. When someone places themselves wherever they choose, exists in a body that defies social norms, or performs actions that are implicitly or explicitly forbidden without politely carrying the emotional or cognitive burdens for others’ comfort, the power dynamic experiences a significant shift.
Perhaps this view of power, as if it is a finite resource, is why our society so carefully enforces arbitrary rules and prioritizes those who can embody them. One can see this when Roxanne Gay is shouted at by a stranger who feels entitled to comment on her body, when civil rights protesters are subjected to horrific violence for challenging atrocious laws and attitudes, when the demands of disabled protestors to attend the activities of everyday life are ignored, and when incarcerated people are forced into appalling conditions. The same message applies: if we cannot control every aspect of your physical being, we will at least attempt to control our view or knowledge of your presence.
In parallel, power can be regained by the supposedly powerless in many ways, such as when one reclaims one’s autonomy and refuses to accept, either internally or externally, the disrespect one has been bestowed. What is power, if not the presence of respect? What is power, if not autonomy over oneself, and even over others? Power is in the ability to go on with one’s day without being harassed and criticized; it is in the circumstances that allow one to move about the world freely, without social or physical barriers; and it is wholly anchored in the presumedly simple concept of peacefully living one’s life however one chooses. Why should one not have the opportunity and ability to determine one’s own life as much as possible in one’s circumstances, with as few barriers as possible? One should further ask oneself, why is seeking oppressive power over others normative and incentivized, yet the simple request of wanting to be seen and treated as human is consistently dismissed as grossly idealistic?
I’d like to know the who, what, when, where, and why behind the time in human history where it became a concept to have an ‘ideal’ type of person within society. Who’s judgement of another person decided that having a thinner body type is ‘normal,’ while having a bigger one is not. Or, are these judgements just an innate human nature, that was always bound to be unavoidable? I truthfully wonder why people’s judgements and opinions towards certain types of bodies became so prominent/trendy. These bounds within society seem nearly unbreakable, as in, can we ever really alter these narratives? This goes hand in hand with the question of: who decided what a ‘normal, nondisabled body’ looks like within society? Why was it never initially concluded that there can be multiple versions of ‘normal,’ and why isn’t being simply human, normal enough? Insecurities are oh so prominent amongst humans, particularly due to the crafted narrative that’s come to be, surrounding what the ‘preferred body’ is within society. It’s all too common for people in today’s age to feel the need to ‘fix’ something about themselves. Whether it be thinking that you’re too big, you’re too small, your nose is too big, your lips are too small, etc., it seems that hardly anyone is ever fully satisfied with how they look, and I believe that this didn’t always have to be the case. Obviously, society has always been excluding and hateful towards differing groups of people, so the current global dynamic full of insecurities and judgement is anything but surprising. The film Crimp Camp strongly supports these concerns as a sense of normalcy was experienced by the campers when they existed together in nature, away from society’s restricting expectations. The film emphasizes that ‘normalcy’ is not a simple definition, but a spectrum of human experience.
When I first watched Me Before You, I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest. The story follows Louisa “Lou” Clark who becomes the caregiver of Will Traynor, a man who was adventurous before becoming paralyzed after an accident. Will unfortunately faces many challenges both physically and mentally, leading him to choose assisted suicide despite falling in love, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this movie ever since. Recently I started to question, if it was romantic, or was it reinforcing the idea that a disabled life isn’t worth living? After reading Nicole Schroeder’s “Dying a ‘Good’ Death: Disability and the Assisted Suicide Debate” from the Disability Visibility Project, I started to see the story through a completely different lens.
Before I fully dive in, I want to fully paint the picture of this movie. Firstly, Will’s parents hire Lou to care for him after his accident two years in an attempt to raise his spirits. Lou’s unapologetic, positive personality slowly breaks through his bitterness, and they form a deep connection. After finding out he plans to go to Swtizerland for assisted suicide, Lou tries her best to change his mind by trying everything from taking him to concerts and a trip out of the country. But in the end, Will does not change his mind even after falling for Lou. The movie paints his choice as noble as a way of reclaiming control over his life and giving Lou a chance to live hers. The final scene shows Lou reading Will’s farewell letter in Paris, smiling through her tears. It’s meant to be bittersweet, but it also raises difficult questions about what “a good death” really means, and whether society offers disabled people real choices about living.
Nicole Schroeder’s essay completely reframes this debate. She argues that the real issue isn’t about whether people have the right to die, but it’s about why so many disabled people feel they need to. She writes, “those of us protesting do not want people to be in needless pain; instead we want resources other than death to alleviate suffering while people are still alive.” That line stuck with me because it exposes how the conversation around assisted suicide often ignores the failures that lead people to that point: lack of access to care, isolation, and social neglect.
In the film, Will isn’t shown receiving much support beyond Lou’s companionship and his personal caretaker, Nathan. Even with wealth, he seems completely alone in a world not built to include him. Schroeder highlights that in a “hyper-capitalist world,” assisted suicide can become a cheaper alternative to improving care and accessibility. It’s haunting to think about how Will’s decision might have been shaped not by genuine choice, but by a culture that sees disability as tragedy especially after losing the hyper-active life he once had.
One of Schroeder’s most important points is that assisted suicide is often presented as a form of autonomy, when in reality, many disabled people are making choices under pressure. She shares that in Canada, nearly half of those choosing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) cite feeling like a burden or experiencing loneliness. That statistic immediately reminded me of Will telling Lou he didn’t want her to give up her life for him. What sounds selfless in a romantic story becomes more complicated when you realize how society teaches disabled people to internalize guilt for simply existing.
The movie’s emotional framing makes Will’s death feel inevitable, even “beautiful,” but Schroeder challenges that idea. She calls out how assisted suicide has “eugenics-centered roots,” meaning that the very systems allowing it have historically viewed disabled lives as less valuable. When I look back at Me Before You now, I can’t unsee this unfortunate pattern that tangles up love, care, and death into a message that equates disability with hopelessness.
When I first watched Me Before You, I can still remember myself tearing up during the beach scene when Will tells Lou that he is still going to Switzerland after she pours her heart out to him. Me and many fans of this movie are still heartbroken over what could’ve blossomed between Will and Lou. But now, I think the real heartbreak isn’t Will’s death….it’s that the story never gives him another option. Schroeder’s essay reminded me that true dignity doesn’t come from the “freedom” to die; it comes from having the support and resources to live fully. The film romanticizes Will’s choice, but if it reflected the realities Schroeder describes like underfunded care systems, social isolation, and ableist messaging, it might look less like empowerment and more like surrender to a world that failed him.
I still love Me Before You for its intensity and emotional honesty, but I see it differently now. It’s not just a love story; it’s also a mirror of how our society defines whose lives are worth fighting for.
I have been chronically ill since I was 16. It started with POTS. Then came the classic Fibromyalgia. Chronic Lyme Disease. You name it. But I didn’t label myself as disabled back then. “Chronically ill” was the phrasing I used. Back then I didn’t know much about the disability community. I was just a sick teenager and young adult.
Then in 2020 I was diagnosed with an degenerative autoimmune disease- Ankylosing Spondilitis. I had to be put on immunosuppressant medication; the only thing that would stop the progression of my disease. It was scary to be immunocomprimised during the pandemic. I had to be really careful, and I basically couldn’t do anything or leave my house.
This is when I started learning about the disability community. I began to identify as disabled. I started educating myself about disability rights, and quickly became an advocate online. And of course some people decided this was too much for them. My (ex lol) best friend broke up with me (via text) spouting some nonsense about talking about my disability too much. She also claimed I was faking my autism (I had recently begun to self diagnose, and would later go on to recieve an official diagnosis) for attention. My own parents constantly questioned me about my referral of myself as disabled. It caused me so much pain and imposter syndrome.
Thankfully, I was able to work through this and come out on the other side, proud to call myself disabled. I am greatful for my friends and family that support me, help me, and care for me. They don’t dismiss me. I know I am disabled enough.
A sticker of a computer pop-up with a water bottle reading “IT’S HOT!!! Go drink some Liquid IV” by the artist disablelovely on redbubble.
When I was younger, I knew something wasn’t exactly right with my body. It wasn’t necessarily hard to see, but one of the biggest issues always had to do with water.
Learning the experiences of fellow gender-nonconforming people through reading Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity allowed me to reflect on my own journey of self-discovery. During a time in which transgender voices are facing such prevalent suppression, essays like these encourage their audience to resonate with the writer. I feel grateful to participate in a class that enables me to share my authentic voice.
When I first heard my birth name, I looked over my shoulder expecting to see somebody else entirely, as there was simply no possibility that alien name belonged to me. My first spoken desire post-speech therapy graduation was to please refer to me with a combination of my first and middle name, granting myself some authority in what I’d be called.
Born with panhypopituitarism, a condition in which the pituitary gland is malfunctional, proved disadvantageous in many regards. I never hit standard female puberty: my menstrual cycle never triggered, my breast tissue is scarce, my voice remains neutral. Upon learning this, people aware of my transgender identity revel in how lucky I must feel that I never underwent these changes to cause an onslaught of dysphoria. And, while it could be considered a gift, their ignorance to the daily burdens that it imposes upon me feels like a punch in the gut. Referred to as the master gland due to its major role in regulating the endocrine system, my underactive thyroid gland has affected me in more ways than simply substituting as an English teacher for those unaware of the condition. Chronic fatigue clouds my daily performance, my immune system is weaker than average, perseverant body fat and a stubborn double chin combined with reduced muscle mass has been a source of contention amongst my body image, abnormalities in the lipids and heart rate affect my long-term health, and even unstable moods have always cast a shadow over the outsider’s perceived “but no boobies!” light for me. (Plus, I do still kind of have boobies: see “weight regulation”, or lack thereof.)
Panhypopituitarism paired with Chiari malformation has earned me the ever-affectionate title of medical anomaly by my primary care providers. Years of doctor’s visits and symptoms being reduced to minor inconveniences blamed on my weight or diet meant that it took a frustratingly long time to discover what was “wrong” with me. Underactive thyroid requires hormone treatment, and at the time, my only option was a daily growth hormone shot. Needles were nothing new to me: all the sweet ladies at LabCorp and I were on a first-name basis, and I was all too familiar with intravenous therapy. I was not afraid of needles, so a daily shot was simply a subtraction to my time. The first time I self-administered my injection, I experienced a pain like nothing I’d felt before. The medication stung; I wailed, describing to my parents the searing pain akin to a red-hot poker piercing through my skin into the tissue below. Burning pain continued to ring through the injection site for hours and left me sore. Repeating this nightly, I grew fearful and tense in the face of the pesky green injector. My parents sought advice from a nurse in my neighborhood who advised to hold me down. Of course, when a child is crying out in anguish, physical restraint only worsens the trauma of a nonconsensual invasion of the body. Progressing to the point that I couldn’t be conscious for my injection, my parents would enter my room as a team in the dead of night to administer it – yet I’d awaken alone, a burning feeling in my helpless body, left with no comfort when I wiped the blood away.
While my parents recognized my despair, it wasn’t until my mom decided that Hmm, maybe my kid who faces a lot of medical procedures with little reaction but begins to quake in fear when faced with an injection actually IS worth looking into, that I was listened to. Out of curiosity, she injected herself with the medication and was met with the same sensation I had described. She relayed to my father that if it was that painful for her, a woman who had been through childbirth twice, she couldn’t imagine the kind of fear and pain it arose in me, finally coming to understand my avoidance of the injection. I was given two choices by my doctor: buck up and continue growth hormone, supplemented with a long list of reasons and countless efforts to sway me or my parents into it, or to begin estrogen therapy in the form of a patch. The speed at which “patch” passed through my lips nearly gave me whiplash enough to re-open the sutures at the base of my neck.
Being put on estrogen therapy almost felt worse than the burning sensation in my subcutaneous tissue post-injection. I had never been a feminine girl, resisting dresses whenever possible, but my role in uniformed private schools made me grow complacent. If I were assigned to be a female figure in a game of house on the playground, I’d opt instead to be the family dog. By this point in time, I was in my young pre-teens and exploring my identity however I could, often limited to the safety blanket that a screen granted me. Donning the e-wardrobe of a masculine figure and inviting girls back to my igloo on Club Penguin was my elementary version of gender exploration. My experimentations with my identity triggered a realization: under the guise of a boy, I felt at peace with myself.
Each visit to the doctor yielded an update. Spikes in my growth chart ran parallel to my anxiety, and as I grew, I realized no future of mine had capacity for estrogen therapy in it. My hormone treatment was a catalyst to expressing my true identity, and I came out as transgender at the age of thirteen to my mother. I was so mortified of this conversation that I spent the majority of it with my back turned to her out of fear that I’d read an expression of disgust on her face, or that making eye contact with her would cause me to burst into tears. I felt newborn; my steps were hesitant, nervous, and ultimately unsteady. Upon my coming out, I’d chosen a new name devoid of gender association: Crow. Relatively unassuming, the placeholder name allowed me to distance myself from my birth name without the immediate pressure of coming out as transgender to my extended family.
My mom helped me to come out to my dad and brother. Although they were as supportive as presumably possible, it took a painstakingly long time for my family to get my identity right – my name was easier to accommodate than my pronouns. My identity has been theorized about, too; though indirectly, I’ve overheard discussions wondering if my misalignment with my assigned gender at birth had anything to do with my lack of estrogen production. To this, I argue that the source of my dysphoria does not matter in the slightest, and I really don’t care to entertain the question anyways. My brother once asked why I didn’t use they/them pronouns, to which I responded those set of pronouns just does not fit me. Reading CK Combs’ What Am I? in Nonbinary, I came across the passage;
“She asked me how I knew I wasn’t female and why I couldn’t be female in a way that matched how I felt. I responded with “Well, how do you know you’re female? You just know, right?” I was defensive and frustrated that I didn’t have any other way to explain myself. How do you convince someone of something they can’t see with their own eyes or understand through their own experience?”
This question is one that bores through me often: how do you make someone understand what they don’t experience?
My dad helped me come out to my extended family rather informally during Thanksgiving dinner later that year. While it wasn’t particularly something I wanted to kick off the night with, it ultimately felt nice having such an immense weight heaved off of my little shoulders and carried instead atop my father’s, who made it explicitly known that any sort of oppression would not be tolerated and the opposer would have to finish their Thanksgiving meal at Golden Corral.
Over the years since my initial coming out, I’ve grown more into myself. Overly anxious and sheltered in my homeschooled state, I yearned to escape the social isolation I felt at home and told my parents that I wanted to go to public school for my high school education. Attending public school was a first for me. I wanted to reduce the possibility of being called my birth name or misgendered as much as possible. The experience of Nino Cipri, author of Kitchen Sink Gender in Nonbinary, resonated with me deeply; “I was misgendered on the phone before I even got there, and then again once class started, despite my customary polite “heads up, I’m trans” email…”. I would email my teachers before the semester began with a blurb about “hi, I’m Crow and I use he/him/his pronouns” with some extra cushy padding in there to bring home the idea that yes, I’m still human, and no, my transgenderness will not affect the quality of my homework. On the first day of classes, I’d shuffle anxiously to my teacher prior to any god-forsaken icebreaker activities or roll call, introducing myself in person and inquiring if they’d gotten my email, hoping that they had already received and read it so that I wouldn’t have to have that conversation face-to-face.
Pleasantly enough, the vast majority of my teachers made an effort to note this change – the outlier being the school’s football coach slash health teacher. I noticed the heaping pile of unread messages in his school inbox on the first day of class as he shared his screen, followed by him taking attendance in which he went through everyone’s profile on our school website to mark them present, boldly displaying my full birth name to the entire class. Afterwards, I waded through my dread and approached him to politely inform him that actually, I use a different name and he/him pronouns, to which he upturned his nose and dismissively told me to remind him again tomorrow. Tomorrow rolled around, I let him know once again, yet he never did call me by anything other than my birthname. To add insult to injury, the vacant lot three doors down from my house miraculously became occupied by none other than him and his family.
To have your identity ignored outright hurts, but it is far more uncomfortable when your classmates know you as two separate-but-same people. My high school had shared locker spaces; mine just so happened to be underneath a MAGA-hat-wearing man-child, forcing me to interact with him in passing periods. He would try daily to debate with me concerning my identity, particularly as a political point, and upon defending myself I was met with every slur in the book. Unsurprisingly, nothing was done about the issue, being resolved only upon the removal of lockers post-lockdown.
It wasn’t until my junior year that I settled in nicely to a close-knit group of other queer kids. One day, I casually expressed a distaste for the name I’d chose for myself, explaining that I felt I’d simply grown out of it; while some people may want to clarify every introduction with “yes, like the bird” after meeting confused looks, I grew tired of being questioned. I was met with the question “well, why don’t you just change it?” and my friends said they would call me whatever felt right to me, no matter how many times it changed. Honestly, the idea of changing my name again never really occurred to me as a serious thought. I started experimenting with a solid masculine name around my close friends. It felt like when you finally find the puzzle piece that’s been missing under the table for years, and once clicked into place, I felt whole again. As a student in communication arts, we would rotate roles for the morning announcements and, when it came time for me to anchor on them, I introduced myself confidently to the school with my new name. To come out widely to my high school with a Guy Name was nerve-wracking, but the empowerment I felt washed away any doubts I’d had. Passing by school administrators and students alike in the halls, I was greeted with my new name, and I felt reborn once again. The wide-spread acceptance of my new name among my peers made me happy.
I came out once again to my dad and brother. My mom had passed away in my sophomore year of high school, leaving me with only men in my immediate family, and I could no longer turn to her for a guiding hand to hold through my transition. While my family questioned the change, I assured them my new name was here to stay, and they did make an effort to call me by it. I’d reached a level of maturity and comfort in which I could relay my name to everyone else by myself, taking action as soon as I could to initiate a legal name change. I needed to eliminate the possibility of my entire high school graduating class and their families to hear my girly-girl birth name mismatched with the visuals of a blue-gowned figure crossing the stage.
Winter of 2023, I received the glorious scripture that was Rx Testosterone: four pumps of gel each night, two on each shoulder. The sensory input of the overpowering hand sanitizer-esque stench was inescapable on my bare shoulders; the residue would stick to my hands, leaving the skin of my palms feeling rubbery and unclean no matter how much I scrubbed them. It was another strategic allotment of my time each night – I’d have to carve out a segment of my schedule so I could be alone without a shirt, waiting for the gel to dry with my neck protruded like a tortoise so no stray wisps of hair from my shoddy bun would touch the gel. I decided that, at my next check-up, I would discuss with my doctor about switching to injections instead.
Upon hearing my wish to switch to injections, my medical providers would react in shock; “Hadn’t you been so scared of your last injection to the point you had to stop taking it?” To quote Susan Stryker in Words to Viktor Frankenstein, “It shows so dramatically how much they simply don’t get what I’m doing with my body” – no, it was never the injection I feared, rather the medication itself that ached. So I sought out a new doctor, particularly a gender-affirming care technician, and for the first time in my extensive medical history, I felt comfortable being a patient. I was switched from gel to weekly subcutaneous injections. Sure, the first few doses did arise a bit of anxiety, but I quickly fell into the habit and the euphoria of being a self-made man was much greater than any fear.
I transferred to University of Maryland, Baltimore County this fall semester from Wor-Wic Community College. Immersing myself in a completely new environment where absolutely nobody knows anything about me aside from what I tell them has been a rejuvenating experience, considering I come from a small town where everybody and their mama knows my family. Prior to my transfer, I was a founding member in the resurgence of Wor-Wic’s Gender Sexuality Alliance club, which had begun to face censorship in the face of the political climate. Forced to change the club’s name to something more discreet and general, it feels as though queer spaces are being diminished. Let this pose as a reminder that efforts may be made to reduce our safe spaces, but no political ideologies can ever erase our identities.
Here I am now, at twenty-one years old, approximately eight years after my initial coming out and two months until the milestone that is three years on testosterone. My legal name change was processed in May of 2023, but my insurance card finally changed mere weeks ago at the end of September 2025. It’s a special kind of irony to pick up my testosterone at the pharmacy with my birthname still plastered on the prescription; even moreso when the pharmacist misgenders me whilst harboring the knowledge of my situation, asking me with each visit if my insurance had gotten fixed yet. Although the gender marker on my license has been changed along with my name, that holds no significance in the eyes of the general public I interact with.
As I write this, I recall standing in wait for my order at the Einstein’s Bagel Bros on campus this morning. The cashier had gotten my drink wrong, resulting in some milky blended concoction sitting on the counter; the barista, referring to me, asked the cashier “do you remember what she ordered?”, receiving a shake of the head, to which the cashier responded “well, did you ask her if she wanted the drink or not?”. I stood there awkwardly, listening to them discuss me in front of my face as if I wasn’t there, looking down at my backpack straps to ensure that – yes, indeed, my he/him/his pronoun pin was glaring them in the face. “Ma’am, are you okay with this drink?” the barista asked. Internally, I questioned what aspect of myself could have been interpreted as feminine. Regardless, I simply nodded and took the drink. I figured it would be easier to deal with whatever havoc the dairy would wreak on my lactose-intolerating ass than continuing to be humiliated, and I didn’t want to be late to class anyways.
My body, at its core and most efficient, is one of abnormality. It is a chimera in the principles of nature. I’ve undergone brain decompression surgery, innumerable medical procedures; I take medications daily to regulate my thyroid, weekly to affirm my gender; my current body is unnatural, a product of medical science. To reference Stryker one final time, I rise from the operating table of my rebirth as something beyond my initial design with the most prominent role in the creation of the body I inhabit: I am both the monster and the scientist.
The gym is such an interesting place from an academic’s point of view, as each person experiences it differently. So as a fem-presenting disabled person, I decided to do some field research in regards to the gym (aka I needed an excuse to suck it up and go) So off I went in my wheelchair, leg braces in tow to get some walking practice in. As I arrive at the RAC, I am greeted by the out of order door opener!! What a great start… way to encourage disabled people to be active. I got some (a lot of) stares, because disabled people being active is outside of the norm to which people perceive. Where I see opportunity, and things I can do and adapt, able-bodied people see what I can’t do, and get all surprised when I do something outside of their idea of what disabled people are capable of. To me, I was just minding my business working out, but to others, I may have been perceived as inspirational or extraordinary simply because of phenomenology. What I experience and the people around me experience are two totally different things. Going to the gym is normal for me, whereas its not “normal” to see a disabled person in the gym for many able bodied people, making it seem out of place in how they experience the world. I also experience gym equipment differently, and it is evident that those who designed the gym and it’s equipment designed it from their own experience. For starters, there was a hand cycle in the gym (think of a stationary bike, but with the pedals at about shoulder height, a photo will be attatched) At least the gym had one, but that is not without faults. A wheelchair user like myself needs to a) transfer onto the seat on the machine and b) have enough lower body and core strength to balance on the seat. As someone that is ambulatory, it is not an issue for my own lived experience, but to someone else it very well may be. The hand grips also require a LOT of hand strength to hold onto, and I found it to be quite difficult. There are hand cycles out there that a wheelchair user can roll up to, and I just wish that was the case at the RAC. There were also no tactile buttons, braille or a headphone jack for audio instructions on ANY of the machines throughout the gym, making it so someone that does not experience vision cannot use the machines unassisted. I think learning about the concept of phenomenology is something that a lot of people that design gyms and other spaces should learn about. How you experience things is not the same as others for so many reasons, whether that be race, trauma, upbringing and ability. Growing up I was told to “put myself into the shoes of others” and that is the very basics of phenomenology, which gets built upon by looking into factors that I mentioned previously. Understanding how another person may feel is great, but understanding how someone may experience your creation, words or actions is a great step to bettering the world. Rather than connecting to course materials in the form of articles, I decided to conduct some field research to apply the overarching concept of the course so far: phenomenology. It felt fitting considering phenomenology is all about experiencing the world, and I think that it was a success!
The body perceived as a ‘woman’ is the body assumed to contain a hysteric mind. While this concept is pervasive in every aspect of our society, one can especially see the ways in which past thoughts on the ‘gendering’ of bodies determine how one is treated when looking at medical settings. Looking at this from a phenomenological point of view, others’ perception of one’s body leads to a complete denial of one’s internal experiences.
Unruly Bodies 