Barely a week passes where I don’t experience some sort of ableist bullshit if I dare to venture outside of my house in one of my wheelchairs – especially my electric wheelchair.
Despite more awareness of disabilities, wheelchair use and ableism (mainly thanks to social media), it isn’t improving much across different sectors of society - not least inside undisabled people’s heads.
I have several theories as to why, but I’m not digging into the ‘why’ here and now.
I am, though, going to talk about a couple of my recent experience that have me asking how are we still here in 2026?
Heavy Duty
I’ve used wheelchairs for 20 years – manual and electric. Due to severe Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (HEDS) and my ongoing pelvic injury that never healed, I have to stick to using my electric wheels.
Pushing myself not only hurts my constantly subluxing and dislocating joints, but it also makes my pelvis worse because self-propelling engages muscles that attach to the pelvis. My electric wheelchair does neither of these things.
I know that electric wheelchairs look heavy duty. My most recent one is a serious bit of kit (see the video at the bottom of this page).
To buy, it would cost around £3500. The seat tilts backwards if you want it to, which is useful to get some weight off my pelvis, and the backrest reclines.
It’s big.
Its electric motor is also noisy, the sound of it drives my autistic brain insane.
There’s no missing it.
To most, electric wheelchairs signify serious medical conditions and disabilities.
It seems, though, they also make the more ignorant among us think you must be paralysed from the waist down and unable to move or use your legs, stand or walk at all to use one.
And that’s what I encountered a few days ago.
Just as my pelvis isn’t capable of walking, some people’s brains are incapable of computing that not every wheelchair user is paralysed.
Not walking or standing obviously leads to muscle wastage, something that is not great for many reasons.
So, if my pelvis isn’t too painful, when I can, I’ll get out of my wheelchair and walk a little.
By little, I mean 10-20 metres.
Sometimes, inaccessibility – be it because a building’s doorways aren’t wide enough to get through in my chair, there's a step or kerb, or accessible electric doors are broken in buildings that are legally obliged to have functioning electric doors – means I
have to get out of my chair, no matter how much it hurts to do so.
When my pelvis is bad, breathing and talking hurt, as do sitting, standing and moving my head, arms and legs.
To walk at all, I have to keep my legs straight and together, go up tip-toe and move only from the ankle down. Doing this might protect my pelvis from movement a little, but it’s murder on my infantile hypermobile ankles that, like my kneecaps, elbows, shoulders, fingers, ribs, hips and jaw, sublux and dislocate countless times a day.
Indeed, my kneecaps come out of place with every few footsteps (which you can hear at the start of the video on this page).
Then, of course, there are the negative effects standing has on my body due to my autonomic nervous system working correctly – not least what can become a dangerously fast heartbeat (as detailed in History).
But, if my pelvis isn’t agonising, I live in hope and do try walking around the small local shop to grab a few groceries. Doing this usually results in my pelvis kicking-off, and me learning that, even after twenty years of it first being injured, it still isn’t up to taking many steps.
Just as my pelvis isn’t capable of dealing with walking, some people’s brains are incapable of computing the fact that not every wheelchair user is paralysed from the waist down.
Miracle
Earlier this week, someone who knows nothing about me beyond I live in the village and use an electric wheelchair said something showing their ignorance and ableism.
I know I stand out where I live because of my wheelchair and also because it’s a small community where people end up recognising you. I think the fact that I generally keep to myself also gets tongues wagging as, in a village, doing that can mean you become a bit of a mystery, and locals don’t seem to like that.
They also, I have learned, gossip and share assumptions they create within their own bigoted little brains.
I tend to actively avoid mixing with people here for a number of reasons, not least because strangers want to know exactly why I need an electric wheelchair – which is intrusive and unwanted, as I cover in Don’t.
This particular someone saw me stand up out of my electric wheelchair and decided to try gossiping about it with one of the few people I do talk to and trust.
After raising the subject of me standing, they said “I thought it was a miracle from God.”
And herein lies the reason I’m asking, in 2026, how are we still here?
How are we still a society where so many think that using a wheelchair means you must be unable to stand or walk at all, and if you are able to stand or walk (even short distances), you must be faking or a fraud?
Maybe, just maybe, the person who spoke of a ‘miracle from God' is dumb.
My personal experiences of ableism, and also my three years of research into this form of discrimination, has made me realise how bad it truly is in the UK (if not in other countries too).
For decades, I’ve said there is no debating with dumb or discriminatory.
My research has included reading studies concluding bigoty (be it ableism, sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia or any other kind) is linked to lower levels of intelligence.
Maybe, just maybe, the person who spoke of a ‘miracle from God’ is dumb.
It’s not, though, the only time my wheelchair use while not being paralysed has been the subject of unintelligent locals' gossip as they down their daily doses of booze.
While walking a short distance to my electric wheelchair that I had been forced to get out of for safety reasons (dangerously sloped and uneven pavements), a blonde woman standing outside a pub said to her companion, “See! I told you she doesn’t need that thing!”.
I’ve also talked about this in another feature.
Her ‘I told you’ proves she had gossiped about my wheelchair use and come to the usual ignorant conclusion that I’m faking.
She’s too stupid to grasp that there is such a thing as ambulatory wheelchair users.
She was also lucky that her baseless and clueless opinion of my medical history, situation and disabilities doesn’t matter to me, because she doesn’t matter to me.
She’s lucky because I could have chosen to approach her and make her tiny brain feel even smaller by bombarding her with a long list of medical terms she’s likely never heard before and has no hope of understanding.
Did I log it in my memory?
Yes.
But what she thinks doesn’t matter, because I know the truth.
Rinse & Repeat
Such ignorant, negative assumptions, conclusions and opinions are not, in my experience, rare. They’re common.
If I can tolerate the pain of being upright and going over bumpy roads and pavement, I’ll take my tiny dog out for a walk.
It didn’t hit me deeply as I’m accustomed to hearing ableist bullshit and it came from
someone who doesn't matter to me.
Obviously, I have to use my electric wheelchair to do this.
Earlier this year, she saw a man sitting on a bench and decided she wanted to say hello to him.
He must have seen me on my feet at some point and made the incorrect assumption that I don’t need my wheelchair because he said I’m ‘lazy for using it to walk my dog', as it if it's a lifestyle choice, not a necessity.
Again, it didn’t hit me deeply because I’m accustomed to hearing ableist bullshit and it came from someone who doesn't matter to me.
But, like other comments, it was filed in my memory, mainly to write about as an example of how endemic ableism truly is.
I almost pity people like these, because they obviously lack intelligence and aware, and chances are, their bigotry spills over and includes other forms of it, like racism, homophobia and xenophobia.
Not being bright makes people easier to manipulate, and these such individuals are likely to have read ableist news stories or posts online, found they reinforce their bigotry and, without any idea of how news media operate, have no idea how manipulated they actually are.
This manipulation and the social damage it does it exactly why I dropped my childhood dream of becoming a news journalist to do good after qualifying at the UK’s first and most prestigious School of Journalism.
There, we were told many times that we were being trained to ‘manipulate the masses’ with words.
Having read about bigotry and how it comes with a lack of intelligence, when it comes to ableists and their derogatory comments and accusations, I almost pity them…
…Nearly, but not quite.
Video
The loud snapping sound at the start is my kneecap relocating (going back into place) after dislocating, as it does with every few footsteps.
Sorry the footage is so shaky. Speeding it up didn't help!
I couldn't stand or move long enough to reshoot it because of my pelvic pain.
