I wanted to include Science Fiction as a subject for this blog because it is my favorite genre and has been since I was very young. It’s also always been something I’ve wanted to see more and better disability representation in. Everyone wants to see themselves in media portrayals, including disabled people. Unfortunately the quality of disability portrayals is often lacking, Science Fiction for example, favors the idea of curing everything. It’s not that cures are always bad but often it ends up seeming like it’s more about convenience more than need. Take Geordi La Forge on Star Trek The Next Generation for example. He was Blind and used a VISOR to see. In one episode he visits Doctor Pulaski to find out there was a way to update his VISOR because it was causing headaches. It starts off reasonable – he’s having pain so he should see if there’s a solution. But Doctor Pulaski seemed to just jump to the idea of giving him “real” eyes instead of fixing the VISOR. There’s some additional details and it could have been something Gordie was interested in but it ended up feeling like she cared more about giving him “real” eyes instead of improving his quality of life. There’s a difference between someone choosing something for themselves and having it encouraged by a doctor for convenience. There’s many other examples if disability in Star Trek that are just as frustrating. Its annoying have my favorite TV show franchise do things so badly when it comes to disability. Even when the get some things right they ultimately fail at it.
But I don’t want to spend this entire post talking about Star Trek and it’s issues. I’d rather talk about some books I’ve read that had good portrayals of disability, written by disabled people. Here’s the thing about disabled people – we figure a lot of things out on our own because often no one will do it for us, or only focuses on what they think is important. So of course we’ll write our own stories and when we write our own stories they’re not all doom and gloom or about pity. They can be angry and scared and painful but there’s also hope and fighting for what we need. And survival, because that’s what we’ve always done.
Fiction
“On the Edge of Gone” by Corinne Duyvis – an apocalyptic science fiction story with an autistic main character (written by an author who is also autistic), set in 2035 and it begins with a comet about to hit Earth. The main character, Denise, is trying to deal with the fact that her sister is currently missing and a mother who doesn’t seem to understand or care about the urgency of the situation. Once they do reach safety it’s all about Denise trying to find her sister while also dealing with the assumptions of everyone around her.
Note: I’ve used the author’s stated language preferences. The author has a few other science fiction novels that I haven’t yet read and co-founder and editor of Disability in Kidlit. Check out the author’s website here: https://www.corinneduyvis.net/
“Accessing the Future: A Disability-Themed Anthology of Speculative Fiction” edited by Kathryn Allan and Djibril al-Ayad. The book contains stories by fifteen disabled authors and nine artists. There are a lot of different types of stories in the book with a lot of different ideas about how to do things. Be sure to read both the preface and introduction for some good information about the intent of the book.
“Defying Doomsday” and the follow up “Rebuilding Tomorrow,” anthologies edited by Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench – In a lot of media about the end of the world disabled people are usually left behind die or end up sacrificing themselves to save others. It’s usually seen as noble because the disabled person would slow everyone down or be a burden. In these stories the disabled characters save themselves and keep on going. Again there are a lot of different kinds of stories here. The follow up book has both sequels to stories in the previous book and new stories.
Non-Fiction
“Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism” by Elsa Sjunneson. Written mostly during the pandemic and released late last year. She mixes personal stories with deafblind history and criticisms of portrayals of disability in various mediums.Note: deafblind or DeafBlind is intentionally written without the space and is the preferred way for many in the deafblind community.
“Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space” by Amanda Leduc – this one is about fantasy portrayals of disability more than science fiction but the point is still the same. Disfigured is a collection of essays that Amanda has written detailing several different types of disability portrayals in media and the stereotypes and assumptions that often go with them.