You don’t have to look disabled, to be disabled.
Thirty-three-year-old Sam Cleasby has a colostomy bag because she has no bowel.
The bag requires emptying often and also requires sometimes panicked trips to the bathroom. So when she endured a public shaming for using disabled facilities she not only had a right to use but also desperately needed, she was understandably perturbed.
Cleasby wrote a thought-provoking open letter on her blog So Bad Ass: ‘To the woman who tutted at me using the disabled toilets’.
The letter has quickly gone viral due to it’s simple but important message- you don’t need to look disabled, to be disabled.
Sam writes…
It’s really is a simple reminder to us all, disability isn’t always visual. Sometimes someone who looks young and perfectly able has chronic pain and needs that seat on the bus. Sometimes someone has Irritable Bowel Disease and needs to run to the disabled toilets. Sometimes someone is post surgery and needs to use that disabled car park. Disability isn’t discriminate and it isn’t always visible.
Let’s talk openly about disability and #stoppoobeingtaboo.
Top Comments
My mother has IBS and my stepmother has MS - neither of them LOOK disabled, but I would lay a verbal smackdown on anyone chastising their use of disabled facilities. Although I'd have to be quick, as they're not averse to doling out the odd verbal smackdown themselves.
This IS an important conversation to have, and it's one of those things that are harder to become aware of. Prior to knowing non-visibly disabled people, I'd probably be judgemental, because it's easily done. Challenging your misconceptions is near impossible if no one points them out.
I might be shamed for this... I use the disabled toilets when I'm by myself with my two little people in the double pram. I refuse to leave them outside the cubicle alone, and majority of the time there is no parents and kids toilet available..otherwise I try to use them first... Also, there is no way in hell I'm going to let my 3 year old go to the toilet by himself... I have been told off by the cleaners at Southland for using one.. When there was an older woman waiting to use it... She ended the argument for me... She also w my and complained to centre management about the cleaner and completely understood my need to use it... In saying that I felt horrible that I made her wait in anyway for the loo and kept apologising to her... She wouldn't have any of it and kept reiterating she completely understood my predicament... It's s tougg world... I don't know why some people need to make it tougher on others...
I did this all the time when my twins were little. Having a double pram permanently attached to you in public is a considerable disability when using bathrooms, getting through doorways, using public transport etc (no disrespect intended to those who are actually physically disabled).
I use the disabled toilet for the same reason, plus I have been to many places where the only baby change table is in the disabled toilet as its the only area big enough to have the change table hang off the wall. I never knew I was doing anything wrong?
No Patrick, having children is not a disability.
You're exactly right - a lot of the time the disabled toilet is the only place to put a change table. Plus, both mums and dads can go in there. Putting it in the women's toilet is just a bad idea all around.
If the disabled toilet is the only place I can change my son, then so be it. #sorrynotsorry