Disability Pride Month

July is Disability Pride Month! Disability justice has become really important to me in recent years. I encourage everyone to learn more about it and to challenge ableism in our personal lives and in the systems around us.

I had the idea to add a theme banner on my site for the month. I chose the Disability Pride flag and used some CSS linear gradients with this color palette to set it up. It should be visible if you’re viewing this post on my site during July, or see the screenshot below.

In my searching, I learned about the meaning of the colors:

“The diagonal bands are intended to signify ‘cutting across barriers that disabled people face.’

• Charcoal Grey: Mourning for people who have died due to ableist violence, abuse, suicide, and illness
• Red Stripe: Physical disabilities
• Gold Stripe: Neurodiversity
• Blue Stripe: Emotional and psychiatric disabilities
• Green Stripe: Sensory disabilities
• White Stripe: Undiagnosed and invisible disabilities”

Edit: the original text I quoted from Wikipedia used the phrase “committed suicide.” My friend Laurie pointed me to recommendations to use more neutral language like “died by suicide.” I’ve updated it on Wikipedia and in the quoted text. Source: CAMH: Words Matter. Learning how to talk about suicide in a hopeful, respectful way has the power to save lives (PDF).