Disability Pride Month starts today!

Disability Pride Month starts today (1 July), which is an important moment for disabled people to come together as a community.

It is an opportunity to share experiences and start conversations: it is a celebration of the creativity, resilience and achievements of disabled people.

It is for anyone who is disabled, or anyone who wishes to show their allyship by celebrating their disabled communities.

Having a dedicated month provides a focal point. It is a time for embracing disability identity positively, and challenging the negative attitudes that hold disabled people back.

Facts about Disability Pride Month

Scope UK included some interesting facts about Disability Pride Month. It:

• is a celebration of the UK's 16 million disabled people;
• wasn't created by a single organisation and began in Boston, USA in 1990 and has grown worldwide;
• is about celebrating disabled identity - it is not the same as LGBTQ+ Pride, though some people identify with both communities;
• is an opportunity to raise awareness and start positive conversations, and to celebrate the diversity and strength of the disabled community;
• rejects stereotypes and aims to change the conversation, as three in four disabled people have experienced negative attitudes.

The Disability Pride Flag

The Disability Pride flag has a rainbow of colours, but not the purple which is often associated with disability.

It is to represent the various experiences and needs within the disabled community, such as:

• non-visible;
• sensory;
• physical;
• developmental; and
• mental impairments and conditions.

The banded arrangement of the colours represents the barriers many disabled people face and have to navigate through:

• red - physical impairments and conditions;
• gold - neurodiversity;
• white - non-visible and undiagnosed impairments and conditions;
• blue - emotional and psychiatric conditions, including mental health, anxiety and depression;
• green - hearing impaired, vision impaired, audio processing, and all other sensory impairments and conditions;
• charcoal - to represent people in the community who have experienced ableism, and to protest against this.

Ways to celebrate Disability Pride Month at work

Disability Pride Month is not about performative gestures, it is a chance to make real progress on inclusion. Ways to do that include:

• make accessibility the standard - look at your tech and spaces and make sure they are usable for people with visual, auditory or cognitive disabilities;
• elevate disabled voices - host speaker events or fireside chats with disabled employees, leaders or external advocates, and give people space to share lived experiences, ask questions and drive understanding;
• improve inclusive communication - update your language guidelines, train your teams, and integrate inclusive language into all internal and external communications;
• support the disability economy - promote and partner with businesses owned by people with disabilities;
• recognise mental health as part of disability inclusion - offer mental health days and encourage leaders to use them too, as it sends a clear signal that psychological well-being matters.