Dusty Wentworth

  Different governments are using different language, but the machinery underneath is becoming remarkably familiar. In Britain, we are told the disability benefits system must become more “affordable”. In America, work requirements are described as “community engagement”. In Australia, tighter control of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is presented as “securing” it for future generations. Different countries. Different slogans. Much the same machinery. Eligibility is narrowed. Assessments become more frequent. Claimants must provide more evidence. Payments are reduced, capped or frozen. Disabled people are divided between a protected minority considered sufficiently severe and everybody else, who must repeatedly prove that their limitations are real. When the same pattern appears across several countries at roughly the same time, dismissing it as coincidence is inadequate. Calling it a single secret global conspiracy would go beyond the evidence. Pretending that these poli...

  There is a contradiction developing around disability. On social media, diagnoses are increasingly displayed as identities. They appear in usernames, biographies, clothing, tattoos and carefully constructed online personas. Some people describe themselves through a medical condition before telling us anything else about who they are. At the same time, those of us living with serious disability repeatedly have to insist that we are more than our diagnoses. We are told not to let disability define us. We are encouraged to work, contribute, remain independent and participate fully in society. Yet the same society places barriers in front of almost every one of those ambitions. That contradiction deserves examination. A diagnosis should explain something, not become everything I understand marking a difficult period of life with a tattoo. I understand wanting something that represents survival, adaptation or personal strength. Illness and disability can divide a life into b...