There is a lot of hate towards the term
is an ambulatory wheelchair user,
so someone who is in a wheelchair that is not paralyzed.
And there should not be any fear to move your legs
in a wheelchair.
Because no one knows my story when they first see me,
and the second they see me move my legs,
they instantly think I'm faking it.
And I shouldn't have to live in fear about moving my legs
in a comfortable position while I'm sitting in a chair.
As a woman in a wheelchair who was not paralyzed,
I have tethered cord syndrome.
So I was born with a tumor in my spinal cord.
And over the years, scar tissue has grown
around my spinal cord and made it excruciating to walk.
I've had over 13 operations for it.
I have so much hardware in my body.
I have a pain medication pump in my stomach.
I went from having a chronic condition
to a disabling condition.
(upbeat music)
I found myself doing dance videos,
but terrified to move my legs because I was dancing
with women who were paralyzed.
And I thought that it would invalidate my disability
if people could see that my legs can move.
So I did a clap back, I did a video where I crossed my legs
in it, and I said, "Not everybody who uses a wheelchair
is paralyzed.
Don't question somebody's disability, their mobility."
Through the big uproar that video caused,
I've continued to show my body for the first time
and show my scars and my pride.
And I have other women sending me pictures,
"I have the same scar and I've never met anyone
that had this.
And seeing you be sitting in your backyard,
confident being wearing a bikini, wearing a lingerie set,
it's shown me that
And it's just something we have to learn,
and unteach ourselves that shame.
A lot of people, when they do become wheelchair users,
it is definitely through a trauma
and mobility is taken away.
But for me, in my experience,
I had to be carried everywhere or pushed
in a very, very heavy wheelchair.
So when I finally got my custom chair, this was my ticket.
I could dance, I could move,
I could return to doing all the things I loved
and people don't know that side of my story
when they first push on my page
and see the viral video of me moving my legs.
They don't take the time to just click on my page
and see one post of me talking about my condition.
All it takes is just investing your time
and just other people's stories, other people's experiences.
If you wanna learn about how to treat someone
with a disability, follow people with disabilities
on their social media, it needs to become a regular thing
to follow people who you didn't grow up
seeing in your lives.
People that are LGBTQ+, people of color,
people with disabilities.
All of these people have these huge narratives to tell.
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In terms of sexuality, I am a late bloomer gay person.
I figured that out towards the end of high school,
and I was definitely terrified.
I grew up in a conservative area, so for me,
I couldn't call myself gay for the longest time.
I am so confident in myself now that I'm able to do so.
And I'm like, that's not an insult,
like, please.
I definitely refer to myself as a queer woman
and a gay woman and I also am a disabled woman.
And that is something that I say with confidence.
I am not a person living with a disability,
I am a disabled woman, this is a huge part
of what makes me, me, this is part of how I live.
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If someone says like, "Wow, I see your journey,
and how much you've grown,
and how you've been able to take your story of trauma
and find positivity through it," that empowers me.
I'm all about empowerment with everybody, you know,
female empowerment, LGBTQ+ empowerment,
people of color empowerment, disability empowerment,
just, you know,
I definitely think going forward,
there needs to be more representation in the media
of people with disabilities.
Like for me, when I post a picture of my stomach
that has scars all over it,
and my back that has a giant scar,
someone should say that and be like,
"That's empowering."
I wanna use my story, I wanna use my platform,
I wanna use this body that I had to learn
and fight hard to love,
to help empower people out there who don't have that person
that looks like them,
who doesn't have someone in their life saying,
"Your scars are beautiful and you earned them
and you should rock them."
Now that I do have this platform I've built,
I wanna use it for good.
I wanna educate people, I want to empower people
and I want to make this world more accessible
for everybody with a disability.