Stella Young
Stella Young
Stella Jane Youngwas an Australian comedian, journalist and disability rights activist...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth24 February 1982
CountryAustralia
family felt member valued
I have always felt like a loved, valued and equal member of my family.
included
I have a condition that is included among the 200 or so classified as Dwarfism.
affected bone condition experience generally lifetime people strength
I have a condition called Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI), which has affected my growth and bone strength. In short, people with the kind of OI I have generally experience hundreds of fractures in their lifetime and use wheelchairs for mobility.
best days entertainment gone labelled owned people stupid
In days gone by, short-statured people were not only labelled as ugly, stupid and freakish, they were often owned by aristocrats and treated, at best, as entertainment and, at worst, as pets.
incredibly means
In many ways, I'm incredibly lucky to have been born with my impairment and that it's visible. It means my path has been predictable.
beauty buy carefully choose clothes dye house leave outside rarely standards wear women
I, like many women, buy into patriarchal standards of beauty every day. I very rarely leave the house without make-up. I dye my hair. I wear clothes that I choose carefully for how they make me look to the outside world.
apologise disabled identify
I do not identify as a person with a disability. I'm a disabled person. And I'll be a monkey's disabled uncle if I'm going to apologise for that.
boxes chunk disabled fair filling forms given life love people quite recording spent ticking time
I really love filling out forms - quite fortuitous, really, given that as one of Australia's 4 million-ish disabled people, ticking boxes and recording my life for other people is what I've spent a fair chunk of my time doing.
If everyone's looking at me, I might as well say something interesting.
beauty conform imposed painful
I do sometimes painful things to my body in an effort to conform to culturally imposed beauty ideals.
create disabled environment hardly home obviously works
In my own home, where I've been able to create an environment that works for me, I'm hardly disabled at all. I still have an impairment, and there are obviously some very restrictive things about that, but the impact of disability is less.
accessible against asking bad discussion either employer gave immediate interview learned mark potential quickly straight wheelchair work
I quickly learned that asking if an interview space was wheelchair accessible was a bad idea; it gave a potential employer an immediate bad impression. It was either a black mark against my name, or a straight up discussion of why I wouldn't be able to work there because they had no wheelchair access.
birthday chip choked home sent seven
I once choked on a chip at a friend's birthday when I was seven and had to be sent home, as I'd broken my collarbone coughing.
dictates life
By far, the most disabling thing in my life is the physical environment. It dictates what I can and can't do every day.