Quotes from Stella Young

We think we know what it's all about; we think that disability is a really simple thing, and we don't expect to see disabled people in our daily lives.

Disability informs almost every part of my life. It's as important, if not more so, than my gender and sexuality. It's certainly a great deal more important to me than my religion or whether or not I caught a tram, ferry or bus to work.

I've got the best job in the world; I love it. I get to meet so many interesting people, and I get to make sure that other people with disabilities can tell their own stories as well.

In Australia, a deaf person attending an interview must take their own interpreter at their own expense, or ask the employer to provide one. Believe me, nothing says 'I'm the best person for this job' quite like asking an employer to pay to interview you.

It's undeniable that what we are taught as a culture to believe about disability is at odds with traditional notions of masculinity.

From time to time, people pat me on the head. It happens on public transport, in the supermarket, in bars. It's a common enough occurrence that it very rarely takes me completely by surprise.

As disabled people, we are taught from a young age that those who are attracted to us are to be regarded with suspicion.

Too often, we fall into the trap of thinking 'equal' means 'the same' and that we achieve equality by treating everyone identically.

Death is not treatment, even if it's medically facilitated.

I grew up in a very small country town in Victoria. I had a very normal, low-key kind of upbringing. I went to school, I hung out with my friends, I fought with my younger sisters. It was all very normal.

Even those among us who are lucky enough to love our jobs would have to admit that at least part of the reason we work is to earn money. In between all this work, we like to eat out at restaurants, go on trips, buy nice things, not to mention pay rent and meet the cost of living.

My mother loves to remind me that about the age of four, I made a somewhat formal announcement that I was going to be a plumber when I grew up.

I have a condition called Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI), which has affected my growth and bone strength. In short, people with the kind of OI I have generally experience hundreds of fractures in their lifetime and use wheelchairs for mobility.

In days gone by, short-statured people were not only labelled as ugly, stupid and freakish, they were often owned by aristocrats and treated, at best, as entertainment and, at worst, as pets.

Disability is often framed, in medical terms, as the ultimate disaster and certainly as a deficit.

I do not identify as a person with a disability. I'm a disabled person. And I'll be a monkey's disabled uncle if I'm going to apologise for that.

People are uncomfortable about disability, and so interactions can become unintentionally uncomfortable.

The magnitude of discrimination and stigma faced by people with disability in Australia cannot be underestimated. People do not understand disability, and people fear what they don't understand.

The purpose of our justice system is to reflect the values of our society and to punish those who violate our standards.

I, like many women, buy into patriarchal standards of beauty every day. I very rarely leave the house without make-up. I dye my hair. I wear clothes that I choose carefully for how they make me look to the outside world.

Doctors are not fortune tellers, and neither am I. Having lived with disability since birth does not afford me immunity from illness.

From my first days in Washington D.C., where I rolled a whole four downtown blocks without seeing a single shop, cafe, bar or restaurant I could not access, to the beautifully accessible buses in New York City, I was in heaven.

For me, and for many other people with disabilities, our status as disabled people is one of which we are fiercely proud.

The problem for many people with disabilities is not that we are not able to work a certain number of hours a week. It's that no-one will let us.