Emma Cieslik is a queer, disabled writer and audio describer based in the Washington, DC area. Two months ago, she had the immense honour of audio describing the Disability Culture Cabaret, an event featuring queer and trans disabled artists hosted by the DC-based Disability Culture Lab.
In this article, Emma reflects on what this event meant for her, specifically one performance where a Black trans disabled dancer explored the sensuality of white canes. She also explores the wider connections between disability, sexuality, bodily autonomy and accessible sex education, and how disabled and queer people can challenge long-standing assumptions about who is allowed to be seen as sexual, sensual and autonomous.
Black trans professional dancer and teacher Devin Hill unfolded their white cane. Devin is blind and uses the cane regularly to navigate the world, but tonight, they run their hand against it methodically, pulling up between the legs as if it were a pole. Their performance is pointedly erotic, using the cane as a tool to accentuate and play with their body on stage. It is the first time that I’ve seen a performer explore intimacy with and sensuality of accessibility tools–from communication boards to mobility devices–as a way to reclaim the sexiness of our disabled bodies.
Devin Hill headlined the Disability Culture Cabaret in Washington, DC, organised by Disability Culture Lab (DCL) and co-hosted with Crushing Colonialism and the Transform Gender Collective. Featuring an all disabled, queer, and trans cast of performers, the two-hour cabaret hosted on Friday, July 31st realised the transformative power of art to reclaim bodily autonomy and fight for disability liberation.
Fighting histories of exploitative performance
This is partly because the history of disabled people’s performance and display on stages is largely exploitative. “Disabled people were in the past and still currently are not just art, but they were spectacle. We were seen as literal circus acts to parade around on tour, in extremely traumatising and literal dehumanising conditions,” cabaret producer Ynika Yuag explained. “I think for me what is empowering about art as social change is the reclamation of body and autonomy, and the reclamation of how you’re presented on stage.”
DCL was intentional in foregrounding cabaret because it was an art form where performers could embrace and explore their gender and sexuality. Without access to accessible sex education and with the infantilisation, institutionalisation, and past forced sterilisation of disabled people, sexuality often feels disconnected from disabled people’s personhood.
Cabaret, performer Devin Hill explained, was a way to reclaim a long-denied bodily autonomy and a facet of their identity that they had not had a chance to previously explore.
“I felt so compelled by the opportunity to be seen as sensual and sexy in this way that disabled people are not usually perceived”, Devin explained. “Being given the chance to step into that in such a supportive way was something that I knew I had to be a part of because it’s part of my message to the world that disabled people are sensual, we’re sexy, we’re attractive.”
Read: Reimagining Accessible Sex Education For People With Learning Disabilities
Exploring intimacy with a mobility device
Devin’s performance explored their relationship with their white cane, a mobility device used by blind and low vision individuals to navigate spaces and identify physical obstacles.
“I had just been having a conversation with my childhood best friend who is almost completely blind,” said Devin, “and we were talking about sensuality and the use of the cane. How does it intersect with how we feel sexy about ourselves and how we present in public?”
“Being able to bring our canes into intimacy and sexuality is something that exists within the blind community, but it’s something that is not very deeply known, so I really felt like this was a chance to showcase that… It was also a moment of play for me.”
Devin shared that for them, their relationship to their cane is deeply intimate. “It is a part of who I am. It feels like an appendage of my body. What is more intimate than something that is there to help you, to carry you, to be with you, something that tells people things about you that keeps you safe. It’s a relationship in a way.”
“I have this intimacy, this closeness with this object, because it gives me an element of freedom,” Devin continued, explaining that for people who use wheelchairs or other mobility devices, these objects are part of how they talk about intimacy and sexuality.
This is something I witnessed for the first time when I watched The Ride Ahead (2024), a documentary about a 21-year-old Samuel Habib, who has GNAO1 Neurodevelopmental Disorder, a genetic disease that causes cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and speech challenges.
I had the chance to meet Samuel, along with scholar-activist and attorney Ly Xīnzhèn M. Zhǎngsūn Brown, who appears in the film, when I moderated a panel following a screening of the movie in Washington, DC, in 2025. In the film, Samuel meets with Keith Jones, a Black community activist and advocate with cerebral palsy.
Keith Jones is a long-time advocate for disabled people living independently in the community and, in the film, talks with Samuel about having sex as a disabled person. It’s a big part of the coming-of-age film where Habib navigates moving out, going to college, establishing his career, dating, and yes, as a 21-year-old, having sex. Keith’s honest, genuine conversation about open communication, consent, and how mobility devices are part of sex was and is transformative, just like Devin’s performance.
Read: Sex And Disability: Reclaiming Intimacy With Cerebral Palsy
Starting a conversation about intimacy and accessibility
Devin hopes that their performance will start a conversation about the intersections of sexuality and accessibility. They explained that this was the first time they had ever been part of a burlesque show, something that I and the other performers and audience members, and I could not tell. Their initial hesitancy to perform burlesque came from growing up without understanding sensuality and intimacy, without the words or space to describe themselves as sexy. Part of this was because they felt that they would never fit social standards for what being sexy was.
Devin said: “I am not sexy by the standards of able-bodied people or by a broken system. My sensuality is all my own, and I deserve to be able to show that in such a loud and proud and public way.”
Devin admits that they elected to perform in this cabaret for many reasons, not the least of which was “to start that process of healing around my own sexuality and around my connection with intimacy.”
Disabled people’s sexualities are also overlooked in the medical field, at least partially due to histories of forcibly sterilising disabled individuals. “When we start to look at reproductive care, disabled people tend to be put on the back burner or just altogether not seen or acknowledged or recognised,” Devin said
“And there are so many times that I’ve heard people [say] ‘oh, there are disabled sex workers, what do you mean?’ Like, it’s not a thing. We’re human beings. We’re existing in all of these facets of life, including sexuality.”
Devin even asserts that disabled people, who are in constant dialogue about their own bodily sensation, comfort, and consent, can teach non-disabled people valuable things about sexuality. “Disabled people are existing within sex and sensuality just like everybody else, and in a way, I feel like we tend to find the most creative, fun, and really exploratory ways because I’m like, I have issues with my back, or I have chronic illness or whatever, so let’s explore this and figure out how we are going to share in this intimacy just like everybody else.”
It’s a complex dynamic because, as artist Panteha Abareshi shared with me in an interview this past year, disabled bodies are both infantilised and fetishised, targets of attention, abuse, and exploitation in the Medical Industrial Complex, but also denied access to information about our own bodies, information that is critical to preventing sexual assault.
Devin’s performance flips this narrative–reclaiming the agency and autonomy to feel sexy in a space that is inherently created by and for disabled, queer people. In this space, created by the Disability Culture Lab, Hill is not a sexualized object but rather the arbiter of their own sexiness and how they share that with others.
You can find out more about Emma Cieslik by visiting her website and following her on Instagram.
What are your thoughts on the relationship between accessibility and sexuality? Do you think disabled people are given enough opportunities to explore intimacy, consent and their sexuality on their own terms? We’d love to hear your experiences and perspectives. Let us know in the comments box, on social media or contact us to share your personal story.
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