Disability Pride Meets Disability Rage
Disability Culture Lab Presents... Disability Culture Cabaret: Pride Edition. Co-hosted by New Disabled South and Crushing Colonialism. July 30, 2025, 6 to 9 p.m ET. Hook Hall D.C. + Livesteamed on YouTube. Featuring: Lilith Le’Queer + Ricky Rosé. 18+ Event. Sponsored by Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Ignite by Keri Grey, J. Bob Alotta + Toshi Reagon, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Mozilla’s Disability@Mozilla + Pridezilla, National Disabled Legal Professionals Association, and The Autistic People of Color Fund. Produced by estrellita beatriz, BOINEXTDOOR Drag, and Bmore Dyke Drag.
The past few weeks have transformed this Disability Pride Month into what many have called Disability Rage Month. While our advocates continue to fight for our basic rights, our historical protections and supports are under attack more than ever before. The policy news at the federal level is devastating, and our communities are grieving. We are here in it with you. In addition to our work, we have been focusing our efforts on caring for our immediate circles, resting, and imagining ways for our communities to come together.
This is the last newsletter before our upcoming Disability Culture Cabaret: Pride Edition, an accessible night of unbridled Queer Disabled joy and imagination, filled with disabled drag, burlesque, poetry, music, and art. This is our signature event of the year, and we are so excited to once again create this space for conversation, laughter, and memory-making. Check out more info below and on our social media accounts.
We hope to be in community with you there!
What We’re Reading This Week
Defined by Disability: 40 Years After the Proclamation, What’s Next?
by Lawrence Carter-Long
Reflecting on the progress made since the first National Disability in Entertainment Week, which was declared in 1985 (even before the passage of the ADA!), this piece affirms the necessity of disabled cultural work. Carter-Long attests to how disability-led media projects can shift widely held beliefs: “Whether on screen or in society, disability stories—told with imagination and honesty—have the power to surprise and disrupt, change thinking, shift culture. That’s the work and the opportunity.” (H/T AbleNews)
“An Absolute Moral Failure”: Disability Advocates React to GOP Medicaid Cuts
by Julia Métraux
Métraux centers those most impacted by the recent passage of “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” interviewing several activists and disability rights professionals. She writes, “For the disability advocates I spoke with, Thursday was a difficult day without a clear plan for tomorrow.” (H/T Mother Jones)
Trump Just Made It OK to Continue Paying Disabled Workers Peanuts
by Julia Métraux
Despite recent progress pushed forward by the work of disabled advocates across the country, last week the United States Department of Labor took back its plan to end subminimum wage for disabled Americans.
“‘It’s a cruel irony for disabled people that the Trump administration announced they are rolling back this rule almost the same day as Congress voted for the [One Big Beautiful Bill] Act,’ said Mia Ives-Rublee, the senior director for the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress. ‘Now, not only will disabled people’s health care be ripped away, [but] many will have fewer opportunities to earn a fair wage.’”
Organizations around the country — including Disability Culture Lab — have come together to demand that “Secretary Chavez-DeRemer to make good on her commitment to protect all working people by ensuring disabled people can live and thrive in our communities with jobs that pay living wages.”
Universities Get an F on Long COVID. Here’s How They Can Support Their Students and Reduce COVID-19 Cases
by Stephanie Casteneda Perez
Across the country, higher education institutions have largely abandoned precautions they took at the beginning of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This piece uses the author’s experiences at Stanford University to argue that “if colleges and universities like Stanford want to claim they nurture young adults, it is imperative that they work to prevent and treat Long COVID.” Amidst mask bans falsely advertised as protective measures and rapidly increasing barriers for disabled students, Perez urges these institutions to support and defend students’ access to the classroom. “All students should have the right to mask. All students should have the right to clean classroom air. All students should have a right to participate in college without risking Long COVID.” (H/T The Sick Times)
Find Joy And Community
Life After Screening with Panel Featuring DCL’s Keidra Chaney
On July 27, 2025 at 3 p.m. CT, the Siskel Film Center in Chicago will host Reid Davenport for a screening of his documentary Life After, followed by a Q&A panel moderated by Cassidy Dimon and featuring our very own Keidra Chaney. The screening will have open captions and be followed by two virtual screenings.
Sunday, July 27, 2025
3 p.m. CT | In Person | Open Captions + Hearing-Loop Equipped | Tickets | $10.50 to $14.50
Thursday, July 31, 2025
7 p.m. CT | Virtual | Closed Captions + Audio Description | Tickets | $9.99
Saturday, August 2, 2025
3 p.m. CT | Virtual | Closed Captions + Audio Description | Tickets | $9.99
Navigating Autism in Communities of Color Screening
On August 1 at 6 p.m. ET, nonprofit Supernova Parenting will offer a virtual screening of a documentary called Navigating Autism in Communities of Color. The film promises a “first-hand account of the challenges and hopes for a future that embraces autism in Black communities.”
Friday, August 1, 2025
6 p.m. ET | Virtual | Zoom Captions | Register | Free
Disability Dally from Parallel Play
Parallel Play, an organization based in Chicago, is launching Disability Dally—a virtual marketplace—on Discord on July 19, from 5:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. CT. The launch will feature a screening of documentary “Connection | Isolation” introduced by filmmaker G Chesler, an open mic, tarot readings, dance party, care web workshop, and more! The channel will stay open after the launch as a permanent space where “disabled makers and artists can share their wares, products, services, and other offerings.”
Saturday, July 19, 2025
5 p.m. CT | Virtual | Access Info | Register | $0 – $25
Disability Culture Cabaret: Pride Edition
Our annual signature event, hosted in person in the garden at Hook Hall in Washington D.C.! This 18+ event will be from 6:00 p.m. – 9 p.m. ET with a YouTube livestream of the show from 7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. EST. It will feature COVID testing and masking, ASL interpretation, CART, visual descriptions, gender-neutral facilities, food and drink for purchase, a touch tour, and more. We’re excited to celebrate Queer Disability community and joy with you. Let's imagine liberation together.
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
6 p.m. ET | Hybrid | Access Info | Tickets | $0 – $50
Plug In, Take Action, and Support Mutual Aid
Share Your Medicaid Story TODAY
In support of its upcoming 60-hour vigil on July 23, Justice in Aging asks community members to submit stories and anecdotes about “how these cuts to Medicaid and other programs will harm older adults.” Stories can be shared anonymously. They will be read aloud on the National Mall during a 60-hour vigil starting July 23. The deadline to submit your story is tonight, July 18, 2025.
Contact Representatives Regarding SB258
California state senator Dr. Aisha Wahab has put forth SB 258: Justice for Disabled Spouses, a bill that seeks to close a loophole in state law that allows people to rape their spouses if their disability makes them unable to consent to sexual activity. If this bill is passed, all rape, no matter the relationship or ability of the people involved, will be made illegal in California, enshrining the safety of disabled communities.
>> Contact Your Representative
Support Mo During Financial Instability and Moving
We are sharing a fundraising ask for a disabled community member, Mo Viviane, who is working to get caught up on bills and move to a safer place. Click to learn more and support their GoFundMe.
Have news, tips, joy, or actions to share? Drop us a line at Hello@DisabilityCultureLab.org. We’d love to hear from you!
Want to support DCL’s work to shift the narrative on disability from fear and pity to solidarity and liberation? Donate here!
