July is Disability Pride Month, a time for disabled and neurodivergent people to celebrate their difference and raise awareness of the practical and social barriers they continue to face.
Here at Crip Life™, we give a brief overview of what Disability Pride is and suggest 9 in-person and virtual events you can enjoy across the UK.
What is Disability Pride Month?
Disability Pride originated in America when the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed into law on the 26th July 1990 and a large-scale parade took place in Boston to celebrate the milestone moment.
Then in 2015, July became Disability Pride Month, in which disabled communities globally come together to celebrate how diverse, unique and adaptable they can be. Some people also use this occasion as an opportunity to change the conversation around disability and change perceptions around disabled people’s lived experiences.
There are many ways to get involved such as attending parades, exhibitions, webinars and workshops.
9 Disability Pride 2023 Events
1. Reading Disability Pride – 8th July 2023
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Reading Council is celebrating the vibrant disabled community with its first-ever Disability Pride event.
Head on down to Broad Street on 8th July to enjoy a whole host of exciting entertainment on offer including musical performances from Rona Topaz (11:05am and 1:30pm) and Miles (12:35pm and 2:25pm), a comedy set from Helen Bryant (11:15am and 1:45pm) and a theatrical production from Rank & File (11:35am).
There will also be stalls offering information on their organisations and activities from Me2Club, Caroline Streatfield and Fab4all.
The Disability Pride Event in Reading welcomes all residents of all abilities, ages, and backgrounds. It is free to attend and no booking is required.
2. Kaleidoscope: Chester Disability Pride Parade – 10th July 2023
Chester’s Disability Pride Parade is launching this year’s Kaleidoscope Week and everyone is welcome!
The parade is your chance to dance, parade, move, sing and raise awareness of the 14.1 million disabled people living in the UK.
Arrive from around 10:30am to say hello to friends, before the parade starts to move at 11am from outside Chester Town Hall.
The parade will move down Watergate Street, underneath the Eastgate Clock and start parading towards Grosvenor Park.
Bring your banners, flags, whistles and drums to help make some noise! Music will be provided by Back Chat Brass an electrifying brass band from Leeds. There will also be poetry readings, choir performances and pop-up activities including a photography workshop, drumming, circus, bubbles and wheelchair basketball.
The parade kicks off Kaleidoscope at Storyhouse, a week celebrating neurodiversity and the talents of people living with a disability.
Book your place at the Chester Disability Pride Parade at storyhouse.com.
3. Mansfield Learning Disability Pride 2023 – 15th July 2023
This Learning Disability Pride event, which will happen at the Mansfield Market Place, will bring speeches, a Pride march and a day-long oasis of partying brought to you by a lineup of extraordinary artists. The fun starts at 10:30am!
The outdoor stage music lineup is MC’d by delicious Drag Divas Liv & Ms Classbergers Performances include:
- Deep Down Brass
- THePETEBOX
- The Harry Styles Experience (by Adam Ingles)
- Dua Lipa (tribute by Rachel Fuller)
- The OneFest House Band
As well as music and partying, there will also be protests and poetry. The Market Place will host artist Jason Wilsher-Mills’ gigantic inflatable ’Toilet Argonaut.’* This hard-to-ignore installation makes a bold statement about the lack of Changing Places toilets, and invites the public to be part of the campaign for greater toilet equality! (Toilet Argonaut and a portable Changing Places toilet have been sponsored by Mansfield District Council. The Changing Places toilet will be situated just behind the Old Town Hall.)
Spoken word artist Sophie Sparham will also be mingling with the crowd and collecting words, statements and feelings that will be collated into pieces of poetry by and about YOU that will be read out at various points across the day from the stage.
Head to the Eventbrite website to find out more and book your free tickets.
4. Leeds Disability Pride 2023 – 28th July 2023
This event is open to the public for FREE and welcomes all disabled people and allies. The fun will start from 10am until 4pm and is on Friday 28th July, taking place at the Tetley in Leeds.
The day will include workshops led by disabled people, a community picnic, music, and more. This event will be celebrating disability pride and joy, so come join the community!
You can book your free place at Leeds Disability Pride on Eventbrite.
5. Disability Pride Month Exhibition Launch – 14th July 2023
The University of Greenwich is launching the Disability Pride Month Exhibition – Histories of Disability: The Good and the Great, the Bad and the Ugly on Friday 14th July from 6pm to 8pm.
It will have 20+ exhibits profiling various aspects of disability. The exhibits are joyful, confronting, celebratory and a whole range of other outcomes.
The exhibition is a joint initiative between STAART, the University of Greenwich Disabled Staff Community (DSC) and the National Association of Disabled Staff Networks (NADSN). The University of Greenwich Vice Chancellor, Professor Jane Harrington will be providing the welcome.
Please note – the minimum age of attendees is 16 due to some of the content of the exhibition.
Register for this free event on the University of Greenwich website.
6. Disability Pride Life Drawing And Talk From Disabled Blogger Pippa Stacey – 17th July 2023
Yates Leisure Centre is hosting a hybrid event to celebrate Disability Pride Month, which will include a life drawing class and a talk with a disabled blogger.
The in-person event will be in a studio space at the Yate Leisure Centre. This is fully accessible and there is plenty of parking at the centre. Tea, coffee, squash and biscuits will be provided. There are only 25 spaces for the in-person event so please only register for an in-person ticket if you are definitely able to attend. The Zoom link for the online live stream will be sent the week before the event.
The evening will start with a talk from disabled blogger and influencer Pippa Stacey (AKA Life of Pippa). Pippa Stacey is a writer, speaker and communication consultant from Yorkshire. She blogs about life with a chronic illness at Life Of Pippa and on Instagram at @lifeofpippa, and for the past two years has been named one of the most influential disabled people in the UK.
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She has a particular interest in inclusive education and employment, and her debut non-fiction book, University And Chronic Illness: A Survival Guide was published in 2020. In her free time, Pippa enjoys theatre and books, and can most often be found in novelty pyjamas with a cup of tea in hand.
Pippa’s talk will be followed by a tutored life drawing class with a disabled model, led by Beth Kirby.
Beth Kirby is an artist living and working in Bristol, UK. Her work discusses issues of the female body and the female experience through drawing, painting, murals and 3D mediums.
With a background in conceptual art and illustration, Beth’s work has appeared in several group shows and solo shows in the UK and has appeared in numerous spaces, print and online publications, from drawing publications to feminist zines to murals.
Her love of drawing and the human figure has led to running a weekly life drawing class since 2020 in Stokes Croft.
You can find out more about this hybrid event and get tickets at allevents.in.
7. Mental Health & Disability Equality in the Creative Industries – 19th July 2023
This is an in-person and hybrid event being hosted at De Montfort University, Leicester, in association with the Journal of Media Practice and Education, the MeCCSA Disability, and MeCCSA Practice Networks & Evolution Film.
This event aims to examine the current and future role of mental health and disability equality across the global creative sector.
Speakers from the UK, Asia, America and Europe will analyse the stresses and the challenges faced by those with mental health or visible and non-visible physical disabilities within these career paths and for anyone managing the circumstances that would help such colleagues reach their full creative potential.
The programme will include:
- Deep Down Brass
- THePETEBOX
- The Harry Styles Experience (by Adam Ingles)
- Dua Lipa (tribute by Rachel Fuller)
- The OneFest House Band
- A keynote speech from actor, writer, director and consultant David Proud
- Researching gender, popular music, and mental ill-health: the experience and representations of female popular musicians and bipolar disorder – Sarah Sharp (University of East Anglia)
- Advancing Neurodiversity in the Creative Industries: Fostering Inclusion and Leveraging the Unique Talents of Neurodivergent Individuals – Ahmed Alduais (University of Verona)
- Enhancing Health Discourse in The Creative Industry: A Study Of Media Representations Of Child Sexual Abuse In Nigerian Online Media Platforms – Lydia Onuegbu (De Montfort University)
- “Celebrate Us”: Disability Pride in the Australian Screen Industry – Dr Radha O’Meara, Anna Debinski (University of Melbourne)
- Liminal Disabled Tweens’ Identification with Disney Animations in Algeria – Selma Aitsaid (Leicester University)
- Observation vs Categorization – a case study of neurodivergence in film – Rhys Davies (De Montfort University)
- Let the mind see: The operation of cinemas for the blind in China and blind people’s encounter with film – Yutian Ren (Hongkong Baptist University)A full programme is available to view online.
To find out more about this hybrid event and book your free place, visit Eventbrite.
8. CRIPtic Arts Networking Session for deaf and disabled people – 17th July 2023
CRIPtic Arts Networking Sessions are an open and inclusive space for deaf and disabled creatives and people working in the arts to engage in discussion, knowledge sharing and networking.
If you are new to these events and thinking of joining – this is a very relaxed event with no pressure: just a great way to meet new people, make connections and grow your network.
These sessions will run every other month, with thoughtful and thought-provoking discussions on working in creative industries.
This virtual workshop will take place on Monday 17th July at 6:30pm and last for two hours. BSL Interpreters, auto-captions and self descriptions will all be available.
Get creative this Disability Pride Month at this CRIPtic Arts workshop and book your place on Eventbrite.
9. What’s it like to be Transgender AND Disabled? – 19th July 2023
Difference Training and Campaigns Coordinator, Bea Groves McDaniel, was born with a very rare variant of the condition, symbrachydactyly (short/webbed/fused fingers), which is hard enough to say, let alone spell, and an embarrassment to live with (from the strongly traditional view of the world in which she was born).
Then, in later life, she came out as transgender. As a person, she has had the double-whammy effect of both a disabling condition and a non-standard gender expression. It has, at times, not been an easy life. Most folk don’t even consider this combination of affairs when they think about disability.
This webinar examines the issues coming out of such intersectionalities, based on her personal experiences, both early and later in life. It reflects on how the worldview of disability might be reconsidered in light of contemporary reality.
It also allows us to think about how we might move on from not just being aware of differences but changing our active responses to them.
Register for this free virtual Zoom event on Eventbrite.
Other ways to celebrate Disability Pride Month
As well as attending in-person and virtual events, you can also enjoy a whole host of creative and inclusive content such as TV shows, films, books and online platforms that feature disabled people.
Here is a list of articles and blog posts that suggest programmes and films you should watch, books you should read and disabled influencers you should follow:
TV shows and films
- Jack Carroll: Disabled Comedian Brings ‘Mobility’ To Life In New TV Show
- Blind Comedian Chris McCausland Visits Wonders Of The World In New Travelogue Series
- Research Has Found More Than 50% Of Brits Have Never Heard Of The Condition Aphasia In New Documentary
- 8 TV shows to watch this Disability Pride Month
- Crip Camp: a documentary that celebrates the disability revolution
- Then Barbara Met Alan: a factual drama about the rise of the Disability Discrimination Act in Britain
- Rising Phoenix: a documentary about the Paralympic Games movement
- 10 films and documentaries with disabled characters played by disabled actors
- 8 Netflix Original shows and films with disabled actors and characters
- 7 Amazon Original shows and films with disabled actors and characters on Amazon Prime Video
- 10 disabled soap stars played by disabled actors and actresses
- Top Ten Disney+ Titles To Stream For Disability Pride Month
Books
Disabled influencers
- 29 Influential Disabled LGBTQ+ Activists – Pride 2023
- 8 disabled influencers to follow this Disability Pride Month
- 8 disabled influencers from different ethnic minority groups
- 8 influential black disabled men to follow
- 8 influential black women with disabilities to follow
How will you be celebrating Disability Pride Month? Can you suggest any other in-person or virtual events we haven’t mentioned? Share in the comments box or on social media.
