September/October 2022 cover

The Disability Justice Issue

Our special 56-page Disability Justice issue features writing and art from disability justice activists across Canada. Inside, you'll find an article about drug use and the criminalization of disabled life, an interview about war and debility, a roundtable on long COVID, food reviews from inside institutions, a discussion about disabled sex, reflections on the future of the movement, kids' reviews of a childrens' book about accessibility, and more.

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  • The cover of Briarpatch's Disability Justice Issue on a light blue background. On the cover, someone with light brown skin, who is wearing a mask and a black hoodie, is seated and looks ahead into the distance. On their right arm, just above the elbow, is a tourniquet. A person with light brown skin, curly brown hair, and a mask stands over them, inserting a needle into their arm.
    Magazine

    Disabled leadership and wisdom

    by The Disability Justice Issue editorial collective   Sep 7, 2022   7 min read

    When we say we want disability justice, we don’t just mean wheelchair-accessible buildings and sign-language interpretation. We mean an end to the systems and structures that disable and debilitate us and a future where there is enough care, community, and support for everyone to thrive. 

  • Circular photos of each of the five members of DJNO's Youth Action Council – all of them young, disabled, Black or brown people – against a brown background.
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    What is disability justice?

    by Briarpatch Staff   Sep 7, 2022   12 min read

    Members of the Disability Justice Network of Ontario’s Youth Action Council discuss the present and future of the disability justice movement.

  • An array of military weapons fan out to create a Rorschach test, including artillery shells, bullets, guns, planes, and surveillance cameras. Smoke billows behind them on an orange background.
    Magazine

    Disability and war

    by Destiny Pitters   Sep 7, 2022   10 min read

    Across the world, people are disabled in vast numbers by war, occupation, and imperial violence. How can disability justice confront the U.S. and Canadian war machines?

  • A woman in a wheelchair with dark skin and curly black hair is in the foreground, wearing dark clothes and holding a sign that reads
    Magazine

    Terry Fox, the Freedom Convoy, and disability politics

    by Danielle Peers and Kelly Fritsch   Sep 7, 2022   11 min read

    Terry Fox is the most famous disabled person in Canadian history, a figure who “united the country” during his cross-country marathon. Now, Fox’s iconography is being used to support the Freedom Convoy’s anti-vaccine, anti-mask agenda. What kind of unity does Fox really represent?

  • Dark purple and black ombre background with white stars. In the foreground are yellow pills and red and blue capsules across the length of the image. A range of objects are floating around the page which include (from left to right); a mask, a prescription bottle of pills, a handheld nebulizer, two cannabis buds, a joint, nasal spray, an asthma inhaler, and a needle.
    Magazine

    What we need to be well

    by Carlyn Zwarenstein   Sep 7, 2022   12 min read

    There’s a big overlap between communities of disabled people and illicit drug users. A safe supply of drugs should be considered a fundamental part of disability justice.

  • A digital illustration of an older Black woman crossing the street. She wears a purple dress and is looking off into the distance. Close behind her, two bright yellow car headlights loom. In the background, city skyscrapers and smog crowd the sky.
    Magazine

    Walking with my mother

    by Amina Yasin   Sep 7, 2022   12 min read

    In 2017, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The city she once navigated with ease became dangerous and confusing, and I learned that it was worsening her symptoms. As a daughter and an urban planner, I wondered: what would a city built for disabled people’s safety and ease look like?

  • An illustration of a brown skinned woman standing with crutches on either arm, looking at the viewer sadly. Black text at the bottom says,
    Magazine

    Migration has always been a disability justice issue

    by Ameil Joseph and Briarpatch Staff   Sep 7, 2022   7 min read

    An interview with Ameil Joseph about the history and present of Canada’s discriminatory treatment of disabled migrants

  • A vase holding many long stems sits on top of a decorative pedestal. Some stems have bright green inked leaves at their ends while others have hot pink inked anti-depressants at their ends. The anti-depressants are printed with the letters “VX” to represent their name, Venlafaxine.
    Magazine

    The pressure to be cured

    by Kendra J. McLaughlin   Sep 7, 2022   7 min read

    Both professional and popular psychology are focused on “curing” individuals of distress. But without looking at a person’s social and political context, the pursuit of a cure can do more harm than good.

  • A digital illustration showing assistive devices – a wheelchair, a cane, and a blood glucose monitor – floating against a light blue background.
    Magazine

    Care without institutions

    by seeley quest and Briarpatch Staff   Sep 7, 2022   7 min read

    Four case studies of projects that are meeting disabled people’s needs through community care.

  • Digital illustration of a hospital room with the focus on a pornographic scene playing on a wall-mounted television, from the perspective of a viewer next to the hospital bed. Also shown is the lower half of a person's body covered in blankets on the bed, a window with lowered curtain, a closed door, and a vital signs monitor.
    Magazine

    Fighting for the right to fuck

    by Vicky Levack and Megan Linton   Sep 7, 2022   10 min read

    For more than a century, eugenicists have tried to eliminate disabled people through sexual sterilization. Today, disabled people’s sex lives are still surveilled, suppressed, and punished in institutions.

  • Three photos of unappetizing-looking food: a cheese sandwich made from untoasted bread and unmelted cheese; petrified scrambled eggs and a pale hash brown; and unidentifiable green and brown gruel.
    Magazine

    “We are fed the same way caged animals are”

    by Megan Linton   Sep 7, 2022   9 min read

    To understand what life is like along the “continuum of confinement,” three people living in prisons and long-term care homes share the food they have eaten and eat every day.

  • Two brown hands draw on a zine with a yellow pencil on a busy desk that is strewn with craft materials. Handwritten text on yellow blocks in the centre spread of the zine says:
    Magazine

    “There are disabled people in the future”

    by Rachel Jobson   Sep 7, 2022   11 min read

    An interview with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha about “crip doulaing,” the future of the disability justice movement, and understanding access and care as joyful.

  • Three black-and-white illustrations, done in pen and ink, of the three roundtable participants. Each participant is shown from the shoulders up and is slightly smiling at the camera.
    Magazine

    Roundtable on long COVID in Canada

    by Yasmine Simone Gray   Sep 7, 2022   14 min read

    Three people living with long COVID discuss government responses to the pandemic, what doctors need to know, and how people can support long haulers.

  • An abstract red line drawing of two figures. The first figure is crouching, reaching its arms out in front. The second figure is in the same pose, facing the opposite direction, and is partially overlapping the first figure, on the same level.
    Magazine

    The ghostwriter

    by Bára Hladík   Sep 7, 2022   9 min read

    A short story about a mysterious ailment

  • The cover of the book
    Magazine

    Kids review “We Move Together”

    by Jayde Jarvis   Sep 7, 2022   6 min read

    Five kids, from ages 6 to 13, review “We Move Together”, a children’s book about disabled people navigating their neighbourhoods and making friends along the way.