Disability Pride Month Celebration

Cinderpaw: "Wow! Impressive. What's it like?"

Jaypaw: "What's what like?"

Cinderpaw: "Being blind."

Jaypaw: "What does it feel like being able to see?"

Cinderpaw: "I don't know, I guess it feels normal."

Jaypaw: "Well, being blind feels normal to me."

Cinderpaw: "But isn't it hard not being able to tell where everything is?"

Jaypaw: "But I can tell. Everything smells or makes a sound, and sometimes I get a- a sense of things."

Cinderpaw: "So you never get frustrated?"

Jaypaw: "Only when I get treated like I'm different. I don't feel any different, so it's really annoying when anyone makes a fuss about my blindness. It's like they feel sorry for me when there's nothing to feel sorry about."

—Jaypaw and Cinderpaw^{Dark River, pages 149-150}

With it now being July 1st on the Warriors Wiki, happy disability pride month!

33 years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in the United States, and the Warriors Wiki is happy to celebrate it with its readers and editors! This month celebrates the history, struggles, achievements, and experiences of the disability community. As the month is all about celebrating the diversity amongst humans and ridding of the stigma that disabled people experience, we've highlighted some disabled characters that appear in the series here on our main page! We couldn't list them all as we didn't want to bloat the page, but there are several more such as Domino, Wildfur, Halftail, etc that we couldn't list. However, we'll be featuring a rotating list of featured characters throughout the month, so keep an eye out! We've love to hear about some of your favorite disabled characters, stories, or aspirations for the series to include more representation.

While the series has been rightfully criticized for its treatment of disabled characters (the status quo of sending them to the medicine cat's den, such as Cinderpelt and Jayfeather, into early retirement, such as Longtail and Lilywhisker, or even early death, such as Featherkit and Snowkit) - I've always been personally inspired by the struggles and accomplishments of others. Brightheart's and Briarlight's triumphant victories as they became warriors in their own right, Crookedstar and Deadfoot holding leadership positions within their Clans, and Jayfeather is one of the Clans' best medicine cats.

On a personal level, I've always been drawn to Gray Wing and Nightstar dealing with asthma, and Crookedstar with his physical disability. Asthma is something that plagued me as a child and prevented me from socializing in school sports frequently growing up. I had to be mindful of how hard I pushed myself during gym class, I had to decline from participating in certain activities because I knew I would overexert myself, etc. To those who have joined me in voice calls on Discord, you might have realized that I have a stutter as well. It has always negatively impacted me throughout my life, both from bullying and lack of self confidence, and I've always been hesitant to participate in social situations because of it. But reading about how cats like Gray Wing, Nightstar, and Crookedstar struggled with their disabilities as well and still became leaders of their group/Clan inspired me as a kid. And still to this day.

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Tallstar's Revenge, where Talltail is asking Heatherstar to train Hopkit (Deadfoot) as a warrior:

"We all have our flaws, but we overcome them. And sometimes, it's our flaws that make us who we are."

―Talltail explaining why he wants to mentor Hopkit ^{Tallstar's Revenge, page 487}

Yes, our disabilities are a part of us. We can't escape that. It can sometimes be our kryptonite, but it doesn't have to be. It can be our strength as well. We just have to choose it.

Similar with my previous blog, the fandom has long asked for better representation for disabled characters. The pieces are there, but I wish things could be better. But that's where speaking about disabled characters' unfair treatment and celebrating their accomplishments and histories in the series comes into play. So we can one day get better representation in the series. So continue on with the headcanons, fanfictions, OCs, and more! It's something I know this fandom excels at.

Take a look at our main page for our highlight of some select disabled characters. To avoid bloating the main page, we'll only be showcasing a few at a time, but we'll be rotating the featured characters throughout the month! Have any recommendations? We'd love to hear them! Do you have any favorites? Oddfoot has always been one of mine, that random background character. What are some of your aspirations for the series about disabled characters in the future?

Also, shout out to Rosia for creating the updated wiki logo, and to all the others for helping me brainstorm the main page ^^ Vec ^{I am Iron Man!} ^{^👾} 01:49, 1 July 2023 (UTC)