Disability Justice and Disability Rights

What is Disability Justice?

In 2011, one of the founding members of Sins Invalid and Disability Justice Movement, Mia Mingus, said, “Disability justice is an emerging political framework, rooted in the lived experiences of disabled people who have been largely excluded, silenced, and ignore by the mainstream disability rights movement. Led by disabled people of color, specifically disabled queer women, trans and gender non conforming people, disability justice demands a sharp and deep analysis of ableism”.

Disability justice was a framework developed in 2005 by the Disability Justice Collective. This group included notable disability activists like Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, Stacey Milern, Leroy Moore Jr, Sebastian Margaret, and Eli Clare. The framework is extensive and thoughtful, moving away from the previous disability rights movement. To learn more about disability justice and disability rights, visit Sins Invalid.

Disability Rights vs. Disability Justice

While these terms can often be used interchangeably, there is a difference between "disability rights" and "disability justice". As described by the World Institute on Disability, "disability justice builds on the disability rights movement, taking a more comprehensive approach to help secure rights for disabled people by recognizing the intersectionality of disabled people who belong to additional marginalized communities".

Sins Invalid

Sins Invalid is a disability justice based performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and LGBTQ / gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized.

Led by disabled people of color, Sins Invalid’s performance work explores the themes of sexuality, embodiment and the disabled body, developing provocative work where paradigms of “normal” and “sexy” are challenged, offering instead a vision of beauty and sexuality inclusive of all bodies and communities.