#hotpersoninawheelchair may sound like a niche side-effect of Britain’s sweltering weather, but it is actually a campaign fighting disablism on Twitter.
YouTube star and wheelchair user Annie Segarra started the hashtag after seeing a four-year-old tweet from author Ken Jennings that said: “Nothing sadder than a hot person in a wheelchair.”
Segarra responded with the hashtag, adding: “Cry about it, babe,” and including a photo of herself in knee-high socks and red lipstick. Other Twitter users with disabilities promptly shared their own photos, including Australian para-athlete Robyn Lambird.
Jennings’ remark embodies a stubbornly negative cultural attitude towards disability – one that too often equates wheelchairs as prisons and disabled people as abnormal, ugly and sexless. Expressing pity that a hot person is using a wheelchair achieves two insulting feats: it suggests that being disabled somehow ruins an otherwise attractive person while perpetuating the idea people with disabilities exist, not as fully formed humans, but as objects to please the non-disabled public. The “nothing sadder” is even more patronising, simultaneously offering (unwanted) pity for the disabled person while expressing a sense the non-disabled person has somehow been inconvenienced in all this. “I’m so sorry my disability ruined your ability to find me attractive!” is the apology that never was.
Segarra’s hashtag is gender neutral, but there’s a clear sexist element. In his original tweet, Jennings, best known in the US for winning the classic TV gameshow Jeopardy! 74 times in a row, embodied an attitude particularly imposed on disabled women, whether that is the “gentlemen” gallantly informing us they would “date you anyway” or strangers asking disabled women on dating sites if they are able to have sex.
The latest hashtag is not the first to poke fun at the idea disabled people aren’t attractive, with #babewithamobilityaid and #disabledandcute showcasing positive humour and gorgeous photography, including YouTuber Annika Victoria living out her “Mario Kart dreams”.
Others tackle disability generally. When one Twitter user stated that disabled parking should only be valid between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday – “because I cannot see why people with genuine disabilities would be out beyond these times” – it went viral. “We’re disabled, not werewolves,” replied one disabled woman.
Perhaps the most telling thing is how some young women using the #hotpersoninawheelchair hashtag admitted they almost couldn’t join in: they had few photos to choose from that showed their wheelchair because they had for so long felt self-conscious about using one. Jennings’ old tweet is an ill thought out, offensive comment that should swiftly be ignored. But the response to it – largely young, disabled women proudly showcasing their bodies, style and lives for their own enjoyment – is worth all our attention.
