We're in the Tower of London.
Ooh.
And there's Ruthanne
and there's Clara
Yay!!
And we're doing a disability -
oh, my God, this brace is so bad, I'm really lisping. Right. -
and we're doing a disability inclusion event
and they asked me yesterday to do a speech
that's like fifteen minutes long
so I wrote that on the train this morning, we'll see how that goes.
Hopefully well!
Guys, neither of you are looking at me and like, "Yeah, it's gonna go well!"
Clara and [?]: Yay! Fine! Perfect! Great! You always great.
Jessica: Yeah, thank you. Thank you! Jesus.
Tough crowd! Tough crowd. See how this goes.
[music]
J: Hi, Clara!
C: Hi!
J: We are in a London taxi. And where are we going?
C: The Tower of London.
J: And where specifically?
J: Yeah, I'm gonna make you say it.
C: The Royal.... Armoire?
C: No, what was that...?
Ruthanne: Armouries.
C: Armouries. That's what it is.
[music]
J: So we're done. Did you enjoy that?
C: Very much. Very much so.
J: And now you get to look around the Tower of London. Which, by the way, was built in 1066.
J: It's a Royal residence, but it was also used as a prison.
C: There you go.
J: Which I find a bit weird.
Like you're a member of the Royal family, and then you're just living next door to prisoners
Ruthanne: I presume they were locked--locked away. Very safe.
J: Well, yeah, one would hope. One would hope.
C: All right, it went amazing. She literally wrote it on the train.
C: I dunno. I would say I was impressed, but I'm not surprised.
J: Aww, thank you. I was so nervous.
J: I was standing there like...
Ruthanne: But I think you were perfectly complimentary, though, because she was all facts and figures
and you were like, "This is life experience." You made it really human.
Ruthanne: That was really good.
C: And funny. People were laughing.
Ruthanne: They were laughing when they were supposed to laugh
which is always good!
C: It landed. The jokes landed.
J: They were not just laughing at me?!
Ruthanne: No.
J: Excellent.
J: I love the Tower of London, by the way.
J: I'm having so much fun.
J: I'm going to go to the gift shop. I ruddy love a gift shop.
C: It's like going in Disneyland with a kid.
C: Jessica's as excited.
J: And I saw a female Beefeater
She's the first ever female Beefeater
and I got my photo taken with her
J: It's basically like if I had seen Mickey Mouse.
J: Right, let's go see some jewellery.
C: All right.
J: Sparkly stuff.
J: Let's steal some! No, let's not.
J: We're in the restaurant.
J: At the Tower of London.
Oh, my God, everything they have is beautiful and smells amazing.
Look at that.
It's amazing.
J: We just got very confused by the map.
C: Slightly.
J: But now we're gonna go see some sparkly stuff!
J: In here!
Ooo.
J: There we go, how did you find that?
C: I was very impressed, thank you.
J: I was sad we couldn't take pictures.
J: It's so beautiful.
C: It's pretty.
J: I'm actually in love.
I'm in love with crowns and jewels. They are so sparkly and pretty--and history, oh, my God!
It's mainly the history, I think, that excites me.
How things move from one generation to the next.
J: Clara was making fun of me, that these could go on the Christmas tree.
J: But, er...I'm deadly serious, actually.
I'm deadly serious.
J: What shall I get, Clara? I'm conflicted.
C: I think you should go for the crown.
C: That is an ornament.
J: [Gasping in delight]
[Man] Welcome to the stage, Jessica!
Hello!
I'm here on behalf of Enhance the UK, which is a charity that helps raise disabled awareness around the UK
and I'm here to talk to you about things that you might not be able to see.
There are a number of things that you can probably assume by looking at me:
"She likes vintage clothes; spends a long time on her hair."
"She's vaguely nervous."
But there are some things you don't know when you first see me
and I'm a YouTuber with a rather active comments section,
and I can tell you that these are the things I hear the most:
"You don't look like a lesbian."
"You're too pretty to be disabled."
"You don't sound deaf."
Now, all of these seem pretty harmless, but what they're actually saying is, "You're not OTHER enough."
"You look like me."
Now, you might think that passing for an able-bodied person is a good thing.
I can go where I want, do what I want, get the job I want.
Mm, no, no.
It actually just means constantly explaining myself.
Coming out over and over again.
Then there's the gate-keeping.
When I need a seat on the bus, but, look at me - is someone going to give a seat up for me? No.
Generally not.
If I sit in the seat that I'm allowed, according to my disabled bus pass, I generally get a lot of bad looks.
"Really shouldn't be doing that. Really not allowed. That girl needs to stand up."
Now, for some, it actually means not getting the help we need and the adaptions that allow us to work and to live.
I have a condition called Hereditary Neuropathy with Liability to Pressure Palsies
which affects - it's long, I know -
which affects nerves and the myelin sheath, that is a protective coat around my nerves,
that effectively has holes in,
so I could paralyse myself
- any of my nerves at any time, to any degree, for any length of time, and they may or may not come back -
and I have a condition called mixed connective tissue disorder,
which affects all of my connective tissue and organs.
Now, despite being affected with these since birth, they weren't actually diagnosed until seventeen
so I know how it feels to not be recognised as having a disability.
Told that I'm lazy, because I am struggling with my energy.
Told that I'm dreamy, because I just can't hear what people are saying.
Told that I'm weak because my body physically can't lift things it looks like it should be able to
and...struggling just to do things anyway.
Then at seventeen, I paralysed both of my arms and then my left foot
for a year and a half.
I had to keep on going to school, and the school put what they thought were good adaptions in place.
They arranged for me to have a sign language interpreter,
despite the fact I had just become deaf and did not know sign language.
They put a lift in the school
for my wheelchair.
They didn't turn the lift on.
Apparently that's not required by law - just having the lift.
I fought to be called disabled.
I fought for that recognition.
Calling myself disabled is a way to tell the word that I'm a fighter.
That I struggle, but I'm trying; I'm going to keep on trying
but please excuse me if I drop something on your foot.
"Disabled" opens doors, so please, use all of the disabled terminology you want;
feel free to ask me questions - polite ones, obviously -
and please, please, please ask about my accessibility needs
It might not look like it when you first see me,
but I only actually manage to leave the house three days a week
so it's kind of a big deal!
And I'm going to need a little help with that.
But people are scared to talk about disabilities. They're scared even to use the word, "disabled."
So much so that I find myself coming out about being disabled far more than being gay.
Fortunately, I had wonderful parents who raised me to know that being gay is always OK.
I have a gay aunt. She has a wife, they have children; it's very cute.
When I was four, I declared I was going to marry Rogue from the X-Men.
We were going to be together forever; my parents were very supportive
even though she was a cartoon character.
But, you know, they believed in me and that belief was important.
So, being gay is not a big deal to me.
I'm pretty used to correcting people when they see my ring and ask about my husband.
I'm also used to the uncomfortable feeling
when people ask if my dark-haired, tanned, half-Malaysian wife and I are sisters.
Yeah. We actually once got through Customs on each other's passports.
I don't know how, but it's mainly old ladies and they're so proud to have worked out why
these two girls are so kind of holding hands and quite cute and intimate.
So I don't really want to say no, because they're so happy with themselves.
We all make assumptions - but some of these guesses are harmful.
If we assume that everyone in the office can stand for a long meeting,
then we're forgetting that someone who, might be able, yes, to stand for that meeting,
but they're not going to be doing anything else for the rest of the afternoon because now they're exhausted.
If we try to make our workplace "disabled-friendly,"
by putting in just a ramp,
we're forgetting those who can spring up some stairs, but have sensory issues or problems with their arms
or they're blind.
We can't know what a person needs unless we ask.
We can't help someone unless they tell us what they need
but no one is going to do that unless we offer them a place of safety and openness.
Two thirds of people who develop a disability lose their job within two years.
So who is going to tell their boss?
This is despite disabled people being proven to be the most loyal employees.
Sadly, I cannot, off the top of my head, think of a disabled person I know who doesn't have a tale
of routine harassment or able-ism.
Most people I explain this to, who have no experience of disability,
seem surprised, since, if you don't personally know someone who has a disability
or have an experience of the benefits system, it must seem very easy to you -
rather than the complex and draining process it is.
Disabled people need to know that they can come to you.
I'm going to leave you with an exercise, before we do our questions, but:
What would happen if you were in an accident tomorrow and became disabled?
Picture your home.
Picture the journey into work.
Picture getting into your office.
Picture how you would communicate with everyone else there.
Picture how you would talk to your clients;
where you'd meet.
Think about all of these things, because this is what you need to do.
When you know you have a disabled person either in your office,
or a client, you need to think of things through their perspective.
Through their eyes. Up to the minute
as they come up and get to you.
That's all you need to do: just think about it and ask.
Thank you.