Then and Now: Disability Across Generations

A conversation between an "elder" and "younger" Millennial about disability identity.

Hey there! So glad you found your way here. Words I Wheel By is my little space to try to add some nuance to disability discussions and make the disability experience more accessible. If that resonates, I hope you’ll join the conversation and subscribe to get future posts rolling straight to your inbox. I know that resources are scarce right now, but if you’d like to read this full post and have the capacity to support, please consider a paid subscription. Either way, I’m grateful for you!

Kim Knackstedt

and I are bringing you into our conversation today!

As we celebrate Disability Pride Month throughout July, we’re reflecting on disability identity, history, and leadership. Recently, we were chatting about how disability identity has evolved across generations and where things stand today.

What does it really mean to identify as disabled? For some, it’s an identifier and a source of pride. For others, it’s a label embraced later in life—or never at all. As disabled people from different generations and backgrounds, we’ve witnessed and experienced how disability identity is shaped by time, culture, visibility, and community. Join us as we explore how disability identity has evolved across generations, and how both visible and invisible disabilities influence the way people connect—or disconnect—with the disability community.

But, before we start, we want to name where we are coming from in this conversation. We are both white women who are based in the United States. We are also both millennials, although Kim is an “elder” millennial while I am a younger millennial (we will discuss that more!). We are both disabled—I have both apparent and nonapparent disabilities and Kim has primarily invisible disabilities (also to be discussed more!). We exist at a nexus point of both privilege and marginalization, and we recognize that this influences our experiences with disability identity. So, we can’t speak for anyone but ourselves, and our conversation is rooted in our own perspectives.

Read on and be sure to share your perspectives in the comments!

From Boomers to Gen Alpha: An Evolution of Disability Identity

Emily: While I’m not a professional historian, I think it’s fair to say that disability history is about as old as human history, since disabled minds and bodies have pretty much always existed, even if there wasn’t a conceptual understanding of disability in the same way we think about it today. That said, this is Substack and not a dissertation, so we’re going to reign in our timeline just a bit and focus on the U.S. beginning in the mid-20th century.