Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice

Summary, part 4

Care Work in Action: Toronto

“Toronto has a rich history of disabled organizing and community by making by and for sick, disabled, Crazy and Dear queer and trans Black, Indigenous, and people of color (QTBIPOC). That organizing has taken place in a million ways – from street protest to Facebook fights, from kitchen-table conversations to envisioning what accessible sex parties would look like” (p. 79).

Below is a timeline of some care work actions based in Toronto, Canada.

1990s: Psych Survivor Pride Day as a Space of Crazy, Femme of Color Leadership

In Toronto, Parkdale became known as “Canada’s biggest psychiatric ghetto” because it was filled with working-class and poor Black and brown people (p. 83). Psychiatric patients were put into community group homes and given their meds in daily allowances. This allowed for people to come together and share their experiences and challenge the diagnosis received in psychiatric facilities. This community came together to put on a Psych Survivor Pride Day, demonstrating the importance of organizing. These disabled individuals were able to come together for and by themselves to stand up on matters that concern them and celebrates themselves.

1996-2000: Bulldozer Community News Service

Piepzna-Samarasinha moved to Toronto for the accessibility, the identity visibility, a liveable income, and the discussions surrounding disabilities. While in Toronto, she worked with Bulldozer Community News Service. The Bulldozer, “was a radical newspaper that defined its constituencies as prisoners and former prisoners, psychiatric survivors, First Nations people, people of color, and poor people” (p. 81-82). The paper analyzed what prisons and psychiatric facilities have in common: how to survive as a sex worker and how to live with a disability. 

1997: Edmond Yu Murdered by Toronto Police

Inspired by the police shooting of an Asian disabled individual during a mental health crisis, “People involved in the struggles against police brutality, prisons, psychiatric survivor issues like forced treatment and forced committals [...] were coming together and naming [their issues] as connected” (p. 88).

2012: Sins Invalid Comes to Toronto, Some SDQTBIPOC Talk

Sins Invalid, a disability justice performance project centering sick, disabled, queer, and trans BIPOC (SDQTBIPOC), was founded in 2006 and brings performances performed by disabled individuals to college campuses and venues throughout North America. There are also workshops that centers around people of color, queer, trans folk involving disability justice work. When Sins Invalid brought a show to Toronto, however, the show’s organizers did not center the attendance, feelings, comfort of QTBIPOC people. However, the show was not all bad as “SINS artists and Toronto QTBIPOC artists ditched [the after party for the show] and hung out together” (p. 91). When putting on a show to bring representation to a group of individuals it is important that those people are thought of when coming to the show, saving the front seats for them or/and ensuring there is a translator who has the script beforehand.

2013: Elisha Lim and Loree Erickson Start the “Why Would I Come to a Party if My Friends are Barred?” Action

Elisha Lim felt bad for not telling her wheelchair-bound friend Loree Erickson what she would do on the weekends because Erickson wouldn’t be able to go, so Elisha said she would only go to accessible parties Erickson could go to for a year. Elisha turned this into a Facebook event that people began to join. The page became “an action -- a place where disabled QTBIPOC, non-disabled QTBIPOC, and white sick and disabled queers came together to argue and debate and learn” (p. 93). This created a culture shift towards making events accessible regardless of the organizers’ background. However, classism affects QTBIPOC event planners who may not have the money to offer accessible spaces.

2013-15: Crip Your World/PDA: Performance/Disability/Art

The Great Disability Arts Retreat created space for queer BIPOC artists who are often forgotten about or ignored. There is still work to be done on creating space for these artists that may need to go a little slower for their health and wellness, and art movement/spaces need to accommodate for that.