“I’ve found that being inspirational is a lonely business and
unconnected to true efforts or achievements. Being a role model has the pleasure of an honor that’s earned.”
I was asked a few years ago about how I felt being called an “inspiration” based on my identity as a woman with a disability. This was my response, based on events over three decades in the workforce, the majority spent in progressive, community-based nonprofits in the Bay Area where the cross-disability community still remained invisible and therefore marginalized:
