“I’ll be real, it’s an ongoing struggle to see myself as hot. We love ableist stereotypes of beauty! But here I am, anyways, because #DisabledPeopleAreHot.”
--tweet by “Caroline” @cripcaro
“Caroline” is participating in a twitter hashtag created in February 2019 by disability activist Andrew Gurza. #DisabledPeopleAreHot comes on the heels of the hashtags #HotInAWheelchair and #DisabledAndCute.1 As a woman, I relate to Caroline’s struggle to feel hot, and have certainly felt oppressed by the demand to fit into narrow concepts of beauty (to fit literally into narrow clothes, among other things). It has been a struggle even as I benefit from white privilege and economic privilege, which do or can help make me fit those narrow concepts more easily than some others.
