The Beauty of Spaces Created For and By Disabled People

It is very rare, as a disabled person, that I have an intense sense of belonging, of being not just tolerated or included in a space, but actively owning it.

This is An Unquiet Mind, a monthly column by s.e. smith that explores disability identity and its interaction with the world at large.

The theater is dim and just warm enough that I don’t need my sweater, which I leave draped on the back of my creaky wooden seat. We are hushed, waiting for the lights to come up on the swooping ramp where the dance piece will be performed. This is one of my favorite parts of any theatrical production, the moment before, where anything might happen. Where all the barriers between us have fallen away.

One dancer and then the other rolls out, and they begin weaving intricate patterns with their bodies and wheelchairs while the music soars over them. The audio describer speaks in a low, rhythmic voice that broadcasts to the whole room, interplaying with the performance and the music.

There is something weighty and sacred here.

It is very rare, as a disabled person, that I have an intense sense of belonging, of being not just tolerated or included in a space, but actively owning it; this space, I whisper to myself, is for me. Next to me, I sense, my friend has the same electrified feeling. This space is for us.

I am spellbound. I am also overwhelmed, feeling something swell in my throat as I look out across the crowd, to the wheelchair and scooter users at the front of the raked seating, the ASL interpreter in crisp black next to the stage. Canes dangle from seat backs and a gilded prosthetic leg gleams under the safety lights. A blind woman in the row below me turns a tiny model of the stage over in her hands, tracing her fingers along with it in time to the audio description.

“I really wish I could have crammed all my disabled peeps in there,” I say later.

Members of many marginalized groups have this shared experiential touchstone, this sense of unexpected and vivid belonging and an ardent desire to be able to pass this experience along. Some can remember the precise moment when they were in a space inhabited entirely by people like them for the first time. For disabled people, those spaces are often hospitals, group therapy sessions, and other clinical settings. That is often by design; we are kept isolated from each other, as though more than two disabled people in the same room will start a riot or make everyone feel awkward.

The first social setting where you come to the giddy understanding that this is a place for disabled people is a momentous one, and one worth lingering over. I cannot remember the first time it happened to me; perhaps a house party in San Francisco, or an art show, or a meeting of friends at a café. The experiences blend together, creating a sense of cripspace, a communal belonging, a deep rightness that comes from not having to explain or justify your existence. They are resting points, even as they can be energizing and exhilarating.

Cripspace is unique: A place where disability is celebrated and embraced, something radical and taboo in many parts of the world, and sometimes even for people in those spaces. The idea that we need our own spaces, that we thrive in them, is particularly troubling for identities treated socially as a negative; why would you want to self-segregate with the other cripples? For those newly disabled, cripspace may seem intimidating or frightening, with expectations that don’t match the reality of experience—someone who has just experienced a tremendous life change is not always ready for disability pride or defiance, needs a kinder, gentler introduction.

Cripspace is unique: A place where disability is celebrated and embraced, something radical and taboo in many parts of the world, and sometimes even for people in those spaces. 

The creation of spaces explicitly for marginalized people and not for others has been fraught with controversy. Proponents insist they’re necessary for people to have intra-community conversations, and they create a safe environment for talking through complex issues. They also may say that people find them empowering; especially for people who have been cut off from their community.

It isn’t that non-disabled people are unwelcome at this dance performance. But the space has not been tailored to their needs and designed to seamlessly accommodate them, and they stand out. The experience pushes the boundaries of their understanding and expectations.

During the Q&A, the dancers roll forward and the ASL interpreter trails them.

“Any questions or comments?” one asks, the interpreter’s hands moving swiftly in time. The audience is momentarily frozen, as all audiences are at this question every time it is asked. The disabled people are still processing. We feel slightly giddy; this is a piece that speaks our common language, silently and beautifully, that reaches the deep parts of us we normally keep buttoned away and hidden. The non-disabled people are hesitant, nervous, unsure about what to say in response to the work-in-progress we’d all been invited to witness.

“I liked . . . the ramp,” one of the non-disabled people says, hesitantly, gesturing at the set.

It must have been an unsettling experience, to be invited into our space. To be on the other side of the access divide. To see disabled people spreading their wings and soaring. To see wheelchairs turned into powerful extensions of dancers’ bodies, enabling them to do things physically impossible for bipedal people.

Those in positions of power, evidently fearing that people are talking about them behind closed doors, persistently insist on barging into such spaces. They call these spaces divisive and their organizers are told that they aren’t valuing the contributions of allies. These bursts of petty outrage at stumbling upon one of the few places in the world that is not open to them inadvertently highlight exactly why such places are needed.

This is precisely why they are needed; as long as claiming our own ground is treated as an act of hostility, we need our ground. We need the sense of community for disabled people created in cripspace. Yet, like any ground, it comes with soft spots and pitfalls, a reminder that the landscape is not uniform, can even become treacherous.

Even as some of us find a sense of belonging within these corners of the world carved out for each other, not everyone feels welcome in them; disability is a broad sociocultural identity and experience, and not everyone thinks about disability in the same way. This can be the paradox of cripspace: When do we exclude others in our zeal to embrace ourselves, with our refusal to consider the diversity of human experience? How can we cultivate spaces where everyone has that soaring sense of inclusion, where we can have difficult and meaningful conversations?

When do we exclude others in our zeal to embrace ourselves, with our refusal to consider the diversity of human experience? 

Cripspace is akin to a fragile natural place: It must be protected in order to preserve the delicate things within, while remaining open to change with the seasons and the passage of time. That protection sometimes requires sacrifice or challenge, awkward questions, but that makes it no less vital. Because everyone deserves the shelter and embrace of cripspace, to find their people and set down their roots in a place they can call home.

After the dance, after the Q&A, after the drinks and snacks in the lobby, we must regretfully disperse back out into the chilly December night. The theater is in the Tenderloin, a community in transition, nudie cuties cheek-by-jowl with hipster bars, and as we fan out across the sidewalk—stained with bird shit and mysterious sticky substances that cling to wheels and canes—we must return once more into the outside world, beyond cripspace. The barriers begin to reappear.

A child across the street points at the phalanx of wheelchair users, “look, mommy!” Two adults stare, surprised when an adult wheelchair user unaccompanied by an attendant, braving the world alone, transfers into his car and slings his wheelchair into the backseat, pulls away from the curb with the quiet hum of an expensive German engine.

At the BART station around the corner, the elevators are inevitably out of order.