Our Disability and Intersectionality Fall 2021 Speaker Series is intended to provide a platform for the underrepresented voices within the disability community. This series will address the intersection of disability and race, sexuality, sexual orientation, religion, and socio-economic status. This series is hosted by the WSU Access Center and the Disabled Students and Allies Club (DSAAC).
Request accommodations early at access.center@wsu.edu.
Dr. Joseph Stramondo
This talk will explore if or when one has an ethical duty to disclose their disability as a faculty member. It will explore such topics as: Who do you have a responsibility to disclose your disability to and why? Do faculty specifically have an ethical obligation to disclose their disability that is entailed by their role? How do you judge whether the ethical reasons you may have for disclosure are outweighed by your own self-interest to avoid the harms of disability stigma and discrimination by passing? Does one have an obligation to disclose all disabilities or is there reason to disclose some disabilities more than others?
September 15 | Noon–1:30 p.m.
Register here!
Dustin Reischman, MBA
There has been a lot of discussion of equality and inclusion in the workplace over the past few years and some may be asking, “how diverse is the workforce?” or “is my potential employer open to my disability?” to name a few concerns those with disabilities may have. Over the past 10 years, being disabled and finding adequate employment has been a struggle at times due to being placed into a preconceived category or concern of workplace accommodation as disability is a delicate territory for the employer and employee alike. How a disabled and non-disabled person handles themselves is critical in attempting to overcome these obstacles and having the right guidance in your field is paramount in finding careers that allow all to contribute fully, without bias or perceived ability.
September 22 | 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Register here!
Virtual Book Club
Sick: A Memoir by Porochista Khakpour
Sick is Khakpour’s grueling, emotional journey—as a woman, an Iranian-American, a writer, and a lifelong sufferer of undiagnosed health problems—in which she examines her subsequent struggles with mental illness and her addiction to doctor prescribed benzodiazepines, that both aided and eroded her ever-deteriorating physical health. Divided by settings, Khakpour guides the reader through her illness by way of the locations that changed her course—New York, LA, Santa Fe, and a college town in Germany—as she meditates on the physiological and psychological impacts of uncertainty, and the eventual challenge of accepting the diagnosis she had searched for over the course of her adult life.
September 9 | 4:00–5:00 p.m.
Register here for book club!
Sophie Poost
Through the use of storytelling, this presentation will address common myths about bisexuality and disability while addressing passing privilege from a disabled and queer perspective. Sophie will take the audience through her journey of self-identifying, coming out (and coming out, and coming out) and ongoing acceptance, as she elaborates on the battle against systemic and internalized ableism and biphobia. Sophie invites audience members to join her in questioning their preconceived notions of identity expression and community acceptance.
October 6 | 12:30–2:00 p.m.
Register here!
Kelsey Ellison
This talk will explore how disability is represented in media, especially in the film industry on screen and behind the screen, and why it is so important for disabled people, but also for non disabled people to see. And not just through the stories that are told, but also by who tells them. Kelsey will show examples of representation she loves and where there needs to be change. As an actor herself she has personal experience with the film industry and will tell her stories and what she has experienced. However, we won’t just focus on the facts and what has happened, but how we can also actively change this whether you are involved in the film industry or not.
October 20 | 10:00–11:30 a.m.
Register here!
Rain Dove & Kelsey Ellison
Kelsey Ellison and Rain Dove are an intersectional couple on many levels. Kelsey is disabled, Rain has no gender and they both identify as Queer. Both of them living proof that these intersectionalities are desirable and relationships like this exist. They will share their experiences on what it’s been like to love, live and learn with all of these aspects and how they’ve helped to support each other as a couple. This talk will include performance re-enactments and sketches from Kelsey and Rain, and will encourage questions and conversations from the audience. The aim is to show, educate, inspire, comfort anyone who attends.
October 20 | Noon–1:30 p.m.
Register here!
Reyma McCoy McDeid
Oftentimes in the disability community, racially marginalized leaders are expected- either implicitly or explicitly- to maintain a level of affability and decorum that can feel constricting to the point of oppressive. Referencing the unprecedented interest in openly discussing race-based inequity in professional environments- including the nonprofit sector, academia, and other so-called “safe” work spaces- that has recently emerged, this talk invites both racially marginalized and white participants to critically examine how social mores must also be included in such conversations in order to truly facilitate just and equitable work environments for all.
November 3 | Noon–1:30 p.m.
Register here!
Mia Ives-Rublee
Disability intersects every facet of human life. But many organizations continue to struggle with how disability affects the issues they care about and how to be inclusive of the disability community. This workshop provides participants the opportunity to understand the basics of Disability Justice and learn how to make their own organizations and businesses more inclusive of the disability community.
November 17 | 1:00–2:30 p.m.
Register here!
Dr. Joseph Stramondo & Leah Smith
This talk will lay out and help the audience interpret some of the key conceptual themes of the documentary film Far From the Tree and the book of the same name by Andrew Solomon. Solomon wrote the book and made the film to reconcile the tensions that existed in his own family between his gay identity and his parents’ very different values and experiences. The fundamental question he set out to explore was: how do the members of a family create durable, loving relationships across vastly different social identities and correspondingly divergent experiences of the world? The speakers, Joseph Stramondo and Leah Smith, feature heavily in the film as Little People that have both average size parents and average size kids of their own.
December 1 | 10:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Register here!