Every year, when LGBTQ+ history month rolls around, I revel in the magnificence of our history and lament the repeated erasure of disabled people’s contributions.
Our work is frequently sidelined in favour of celebrating the broader contributions of the queer community. However, we are far more active in queer history than you may realise.
Queer, disabled people have always existed – yes, even when historic civilisations were determined to stamp us out – yet our achievements and passions are regularly written out of history. Sometimes this takes the form of ignoring us completely and at others, it means excluding a disability or illness when profiling important figures.
Whether this is motivated by ignorance or a willful dismissal of the value of disabled people’s contributions is hard to quantify. To rectify some of these omissions, we’ve gathered a list of LGBTQ+ icons with disabilities history tried to forget about.
