Full Transcript:

[00:00:00] Emily Race: Welcome to the Founding Mothers Podcast, where we're imagining new ways of living with one another and our planet. I'm your host, Emily Race. 

[00:00:21] Today we'll be speaking with Kristie Cabrera. Kristie is a queer and neurodivergent accessibility and inclusivity consultant utilizing a background in occupational therapy to guide organizations on improving their practices around accessibility and inclusivity.

[00:00:39] Kristie Cabrera: There's this quote, and I won't get exactly correct, but there's this quote that pretty much just that asks the reader, look around you, the door to your bedroom, the seat that you're sitting on, whose body was it designed for? The class that you're in. The transportation system that you use, whose mind was it designed for?

[00:01:04] And we could even go further; the hospitals that we have, or the healing centers, who are we holding space for? What emotional capacity are we expecting from them. And when we think about it that way, that everything is designed with a person in mind, who are we leaving out?

[00:01:26] Emily Race: She's particularly passionate about collaborating with spaces that aim to provide healing and growth. This includes gardens, farms, parks, health centers, and forward thinking schools and nonprofits. Her work focuses on unpacking ableism and views of the body/mind, understanding accessibility and inclusivity, and creating improvements to a site's physical design, educational programs and curriculums and work culture. 

[00:01:58] Welcome Kristie. It's so wonderful to be with you today. Thank you for joining us. 

[00:02:02] Kristie Cabrera: Thank you, Emily. 

[00:02:03] Emily Race: I'm really looking forward to hearing your perspective on accessibility and design and how that relates to spaces like nature spaces, but also anything else you'd love to share with our guests. So before we dive right in, I'd love to hear, in this moment, who are you today? 

[00:02:18] Kristie Cabrera: Oh, that's a great way to phrase that question. Who am I today? I'm Kirsty, I go by she/ her and they/ them pronouns. 

[00:02:25] And today I'm feeling really hopeful. I've been seeing a lot of conversations on the online space on accessibility and inclusivity, and I've been allowing myself to sit in that hopefulness. There seems to be bigger conversations and people doing more work around it. And that always gets me really excited. So, today I'm hopeful. 

[00:02:49] I live in New York City, and I've been living here all my life besides having to go to graduate school and things like that. The weather is changing here today too; it's getting pretty chilly. So today I'm also very cozy and ready to embrace fall. 

[00:03:03] Emily Race: Thank you for sharing that. I kind of wanna dive into what you just said about being hopeful. What have you actually seen, through the lens of your own journey, have you always been hopeful or what's been the journey for you?

[00:03:14] Kristie Cabrera: No, I haven't always been hopeful and it's hard to always be hopeful when you are working towards social justice, any kind of justice. 

[00:03:25] My work really started once I was an occupational therapist. My role was to support people in participating in meaningful activities, but for some reason they weren't able to, maybe there was a physical, cognitive, or emotional difference or limitation that wasn't allowing them to participate. But quite often it wasn't that they needed to build physical, cognitive or emotional skills; is that the activity or environment actually needed to shift so that they could participate.

[00:03:58] As an occupational therapist where, within the four or five years of working and working with hundreds of different people, and seeing how a lack of participation in meaningful things impacts people, I started thinking about things a little bit more broader. And I've always been really into exploring nature and finding nature places in the city and finding those places as my safe spaces. And when I started going to more parks and all these areas, because I was struggling with burnout from work, I started realizing none of this was accessible or inclusive.

[00:04:35] It really took me back because having access to land should be a human right. Even in a space like New York City where there's so much concrete and buildings, even more, those nature spaces should be accessible, and even more than that inclusive of everyone.

[00:04:54] So I started doing as much work as I could in this area, which is where I am today, doing consultation work, education, and trying to move forward. 

[00:05:02] Emily Race: Mm-hmm. I'm really grateful that you agreed to be on this podcast and to share your perspective, 'cause I hope that you're one of many that we get to feature here around this topic.

[00:05:12] I listened to a talk that you had done, it's linked in your Instagram for anyone listening who's curious about that, it really struck me something you shared around if you look at the intersections of the environment and race, for example, like I feel like there's a lot more conversation happening around increasing access there; again, we have episodes on that, but when it came to the intersection of ableism, I've really felt like that conversation was missing in my own spaces and communities. It could be a product of my able bodiedness, but I am really eager to start normalizing this conversation and thinking about this.

[00:05:43] Maybe we start with some definitions. Occupational therapy; how would you define that and how that intersects with this work that you're doing? 

[00:05:50] Kristie Cabrera: Occupational therapy is a healthcare profession, and it's a holistic one that helps people either build the skills that are necessary to engage in an occupation, which is another word for activity, or we use our skills to modify things. Modify a space, a service, a product, an event to allow better participation. 

[00:06:14] We learn a lot of different skills in order to do that. Everything from human anatomy to neuroscience, to art, to activity analysis, to ergonomics, so that we're able to show up and be a facilitator and say, " we can change this, or hey, we can change that" and allow participation.

[00:06:36] A lot of people don't know what occupational therapists do because they're not as talked about as physical therapists or speech therapists. And quite often occupational therapy is a role that is molded based on the setting. An occupational therapist in a school might look very different than an occupational therapist in a mental health clinic or in a hospital.

[00:06:56] And then there's OTs, occupational therapists, like me who make their own path because they see there's a need there and that our framework and skills can be used in that area. 

[00:07:06] Emily Race: Mm-hmm. Okay. So I'm hearing, probably the same with a lot of different vocations, it is shaped by the context or the environment that you're working within. And what you're distinguishing for us here is that you're also going outside of the normative ways that we may look at occupational therapy and you're branching out into your own sector within that. 

[00:07:22] Kristie Cabrera: Yeah. I'm taking the skills I've learned and I'm using the same framework. I'm just applying it more broadly. 

And there's even occupational science, which is the science behind occupation, which is much more political in the sense that we are all occupational beings and there are structures and systems that shape whether or not we can engage in occupation.

That's our government, that's societal beliefs, that's geography, rules, laws, all those things. There's OTs who think about how do occupations show up for refugees, where they're in unfamiliar settings and now they have to bring forward their traditions and what occupations are meaningful for them.

[00:08:11] There's the study of occupation during quarantine, like how do our roles and routines get disrupted? How do black and people of color get judged while they're engaging in occupations outside? Same with disabled people, neurodivergent people. So it's a healthcare profession, but it can be so political if you allow it to be.

[00:08:31] Emily Race: Right.

[00:08:32] Kristie Cabrera: And then some OTs are just like, "I just work with hands and I make splints", or "I just do handwriting". And then there's other OTs who are very passionate and poetic and ready to save the world through this lens. 

[00:08:44] Emily Race: Wow. It feels like such critical work. And like you said, I personally didn't realize the breadth of this work within occupational therapy. So thanks for giving a little peek behind that curtain. 

[00:08:55] When you say occupation, is that actually synonymous with "work" or is it any activity? 

[00:09:00] Kristie Cabrera: It's any activity. It really should be called "meaningful activity therapists". It could be work if that's the activity a person wants to engage in, but an occupation could be grocery shopping, it could be laundry. It could be having a family dinner. 

[00:09:15] Emily Race: Hmm. Beautiful. I'm really feeling eager to jump straight into this vision part of the conversation. What do you have as a vision for the world?

[00:09:22] Kristie Cabrera: I would really love to see every single field, every single person look at their life and the decisions that they make and the influence they have through a disability justice lens and take the time to unpack how their lived experience is being influenced by what they're doing. 

If they could go back hundreds of years, how would they rework their work so that it's inclusive of everyone. I'm focusing on accessibility, inclusivity within nature spaces or organizations that have a healing agenda, but that work also needs to be unpacked in the technology space, in the school space, in product design, graphic design.

There's nothing that has been untouched by people discriminating against disabled and neurodivergent folk. 

[00:10:15] There's this quote, and I won't get it exactly correct, but there's this quote that asks the reader, "Look around you, the door to your bedroom, the seat that you're sitting on. Whose body was it designed for? The class that you're in, the transportation system that you use, whose mind was it designed for? And we can even go further, the hospitals that we have or the healing centers, who are we holding space for? What emotional capacity are we expecting from them? And when we think about it that way, that everything is designed with a person in mind, who are we leaving out? 

[00:10:51] I'm starting to see more work and conversation, especially with covid and environmental issues, ongoing issues, but the amount of work that people have to do, it's like we needed to start yesterday. 

[00:11:05] And that work really starts internally by asking ourselves," What views do I have on my own body, immortality and illness and sickness and capacity?" And that goes right up with capitalism, right? 

[00:11:19] That's what I would love, for everyone to just slow down and unpack.

[00:11:23] Emily Race: Yeah. I'm hearing too, this investment in and a responsibility towards thinking about things in this more broadly inclusive way. 

[00:11:32] I wanna pair that vision with some strategy or access point to that vision. You may have listeners who, from a language perspective are even like, "well, what is neurodivergent?" Or " what is disabled inclusive of?" Language also changes over time and with different generations. Right. So that's part of what I'm thinking of here. 

[00:11:47] Kristie Cabrera: So everyone's brain and mind is different from one another. And there are differences in how we think, in our memory, in our ability to process information, to socialize. And when we are saying neurodivergent within the disability community, we're talking about people who process, experience, the world a little bit differently than the "neurotypical" people, people who process and memorize things or experience things similar enough to one another. 

[00:12:21] Autistic people, people who have ADHD, dyslexia, et cetera, et cetera, they can be considered neurodivergent if they feel aligned with that definition.

When we think about disability, that gets a little bit more complicated, because there are legal definitions for what is disabled. Then there's theoretical considerations; well, aren't we all pre- disabled? Aren't we all going there eventually? 

[00:12:49] For the sake of this conversation, I'll say that disability is a term that people can choose for themselves if they feel that they have a physical, cognitive, or emotional difference, then people who are considered "able bodied", and because of society, they may not be able to participate in the things that they want to do like everyone else. 

[00:13:14] That can also be unpacked. There are lots of disabled people who say that they don't have a limitation, it's not on them, it's on society. And that's where we could get into different models of disability. There's a social model, where, let's use an example of a staircase and a person who uses a wheelchair. With the social model, they will say the person with the wheelchair is not the issue. It's the fact that there's a staircase there. Versus the medical model, right, might say, well, the person is disabled because they can't use their legs to go up the stairs. The issue is the medical, it's the body. And then there's other models as well, the charity model. There's one other model that I'm forgetting.

[00:13:55] These words come with a lot of nuance. When we say neurodivergent, that might land differently for everyone and it's up to them to decide, does this sit with me or not? Right? 

[00:14:08] Emily Race: Mm. This is reminding me of something I heard you once share around the challenges that come with disability justice, correct me if I'm wrong, but perhaps it's because of the difference in the way that we define it or the broad range of who could fall within these terms and terminology. 

[00:14:23] Kristie Cabrera: When we have these conversations, some people might say, well, aren't we all neurodivergent, or aren't we all disabled? When we make those statements, we also don't wanna erase people's experiences. There are people who experience what it means to be isolated or struggle or discriminate against because of how society sees them as disabled. So, how you use these words and the context really matters.

[00:14:51] Emily Race: Mm mm. If this vision that you have for us all taking into account different points of ability in the way that we design spaces, what would the world actually look like? Or is it that you don't have that vision, you're saying, I want everyone else to be a part of co-creating that vision? 

[00:15:07] Kristie Cabrera: Everyone has to be a part of creating that vision because accessibility and inclusivity is an ongoing conversation. It's not like we're meeting a final destination, right?

We are creating systems in place that allow slowness and communication and respect and decisions that are made through informed, careful collective work. That's what it looks like.

It looks like through what I've done today, through the people I spoke to, through designing with people with different experiences, through the research, through unpacking my own biases, I'm making this decision to create, let's say, this building, or to create this service or this product, but I'm also creating a process where people can give me feedback and I know that I will have to revisit this. I know that I will also may have to provide accommodations or whatever the case is.

[00:16:08] That's what it means. Being open to the fact that people change, people have different needs, and if we are caring for our community, we are caring for our community through transitions too, or through their experiences. That's what it really looks like to me.

[00:16:26] Emily Race: Mm-hmm. Moment by moment, rather than the end point, like you said. 

[00:16:30] Kristie Cabrera: Yeah. 

[00:16:30] Emily Race: Yeah. Amazing. Within the realm that you're focusing on at this moment, you mentioned nature spaces or healing spaces, what would be your vision there? 

[00:16:40] Kristie Cabrera: Anyone who is involved, either by a visitor, to a landscape designer, whoever is involved with the nature space, to spend the time and energy thinking about how they can make this more accessible and inclusive. 

[00:16:57] What I find is when I do these activities with people during workshops where I encourage them, "okay, I want you to design something or think of your favorite nature activity and think about how you would do it if you struggled with this specific thing". What happens is they step out of this box and they start thinking about all these creative solutions that are really exciting, that can benefit people who aren't disabled. That can bring a new perspective into the world. 

And that's what it is. It's saying, I have a role in society. I influence society, and I wanna see how things can be recreated or designed or experienced in new ways. Not just for one specific person, but because we all benefit when disabled people benefit.

[00:17:46] Emily Race: Right, right. Which is a paradigm shift in some ways from the way that we think now on this individualist way. 

[00:17:52] Kristie Cabrera: Yeah. Right. Exactly. I hope I'm being clear. It is a little hard to visualize unless you actually have seen it happen. 

Using the example of an elevator. When an elevator is provided, it's not only helpful for people who are disabled, but it's also helpful for a person who has a lot of things. It's helpful for a person who's tired. It's helpful for a person who doesn't wanna go up the staircase that's really crowded, a person who wants AC from the elevator.

[00:18:22] That's the excitement that I want people to have. How can we redo this? Because we can. 

[00:18:27] Emily Race: Mm mm. I love that analogy of the elevator, cause I think that's something we can all relate to on some level. 

[00:18:33] Are there examples that you have around some exciting innovations or designs that you've been seeing in nature spaces? 

[00:18:39] Kristie Cabrera: There's this really amazing organization called Bird Ability, and there's actually an occupational therapist who's on board there. I have been geeking over one of their pages that has accessible birding equipment. And we say birding because we don't wanna say bird watching, not everyone experiences appreciating birds through their vision, right? Birding is the act of appreciating a bird in its natural habitat through whatever senses that you have. 

[00:19:09] There's all these cool tools that I'm slowly starting to invest in. There's this one where there's speakers that you can put around your house so that you can listen to the birds outside while you're inside.

[00:19:21] Emily Race: Oh. 

[00:19:21] Kristie Cabrera: So that's perfect for someone who isn't able to leave their home, or someone like me who lives in the city and doesn't really get to look out the window and see a park. There's this other really cool device that is a binocular that you can attach an iPad to and you can aim the binoculars to a tree, and what you would see in the binoculars comes up on the iPad. How cool is that? 

[00:19:45] Emily Race: So cool. 

[00:19:46] Kristie Cabrera: It's so cool. That's what's exciting to me. And it doesn't always have to be about technology. It could be other things. There's people who study small insects or study "weeds" or invasive plants because that's what's accessible to them. It's right in front of their house or it's growing up their building wall. They learn so much about these things. And they don't need to go to a state park or the beach. I'm sure they want to, and there's this desire. But when we learn how other people experience the world, it's like, wow, I never thought about that. I never thought about putting things around my house so I can hear the birds inside. 

[00:20:28] Emily Race: Totally. 

[00:20:28] Kristie Cabrera: Right? 

[00:20:29] Emily Race: Yeah. 

[00:20:29] Kristie Cabrera: You never thought about studying or taking micro photos of insects because that's what's accessible to me right now. 

[00:20:36] Emily Race: Right. 

[00:20:36] Kristie Cabrera: I think that's fascinating.

[00:20:38] Emily Race: It's so inspiring. I get chills as you share these examples. What do you think is possible by opening the aperture, so to speak, around how we can engage with nature, regardless of our ability? What does that offer? 

[00:20:51] Kristie Cabrera: I started this project called Growing Food in This Body, and I started the project at the height of the pandemic because I really wanted to understand disabled farmers, disabled herbalists, disabled people who just loved nature's experiences. What I've learned is that healing happens when you're on the land. So when people don't have access to that, you're taking away their access to healing. 

[00:21:18] As an occupational therapist, I'm really intrigued by this because my role is to help people heal. 

[00:21:23] There is one person in particular, their name was Jamie, and their story always sticks with me, and I always talk about it. Jamie had to get surgery on their hip, but they were really struggling with this because even though their life right now without the surgery was painful because of their hip injury, they didn't wanna get the surgery because it would change their life.

[00:21:44] And one day while they were deadheading flowers, removing spent flowers, they had that connection to well, here I am doing this with this plant, I'm letting go of things that can be let go to allow more growth from the plant, and related that to their hip surgery. "I can let go of who I am right now for the possibility of something better tomorrow after this surgery." 

As an occupational therapist who has learned how to motivate people and ask thoughtful questions, I probably could never help them get to that space. That's a huge decision to make. But nature facilitated that in a way that was gentle, in a way that was authentic to them. 

[00:22:25] I think that's amazing. There's so many lessons to be learned in nature and it's incredibly unfair that only certain people get to experience that. Especially people who have ancestral connection to the land, they're missing that part of themselves because they can't experience it.

[00:22:43] So even things like people who put on activities like plant dying, or making ornaments out of plants for the holidays. You are putting on an activity that allows this interaction with nature. Have you considered how people of different experiences can do that?

[00:23:02] Farms who have the "you pick" options, "come and pick out strawberries or raspberries or apples". Well, shoot. Other people wanna pick them too. Have you thought about what that looks like? 

[00:23:13] That's some of the work I've done, with this one farm in particular, and hopefully inspiring them to think about those things.

[00:23:19] Or, CSAs, farms who give out boxes of food. Who are your disabled CSA members? Farmer's markets. There's no area that cannot be discussed. It's exciting. It's so exciting. 

[00:23:32] There's so many possibilities and it makes me sad that people haven't thought of it or they're resistant to it, because a lot of good could come from it. 

[00:23:40] Emily Race: Yeah. Yeah. When you just said resistant, I was like, oh, interesting. I'm assuming that people would do this if they just had the thought to. I'm like, oh, that's really beautiful invitation in a sense. But it sounds like you've come across resistance from folks. What does that look like? What do you think that's about? 

[00:23:55] Kristie Cabrera: In my experience, there's this light bulb moment, and then there's this excitement and then anxiety that follows of " how are we gonna do those? Because we're barely getting by right now." Especially food and nature spaces. Farmers who are struggling throughout the season, herbalist who are struggling to meet their financial obligations, et cetera, et cetera. 

[00:24:16] The main issue is that people have created these services and products with one person in mind, so now to go back and to reconsider how they can do something or provide something, it requires a lot of work. 

[00:24:33] Even if you just focus on social media. Let's say you are a nature space that has a really active social media account. Now they have to learn how to make their posts accessible and inclusive. We're getting into image captions. We're getting into alternative texts. We're getting into how do I do this, right? We're getting into transcriptions if there's music or a voiceover. Getting into do I use emojis? Why don't I use emojis? People haven't learned that. So now they have to go learn that.

[00:25:02] Who's gonna pay that person to go learn it, right?

[00:25:05] Then it's like, I have to make this post and do all that information, a caption could take a long time. Now I gotta write out the description of the image. And if I have a post with 10 images, now I gotta write descriptions for 10 images. 

[00:25:18] And now we're gonna have a virtual meeting and now I have to get someone to do ASL and figure out how to do captions on Zoom. 

[00:25:25] It's a lot of unlearning with learning, when we live in a society where it's productivity a hundred percent of the time, and once businesses and organizations have found their flow, they wanna protect that flow. Because if I spend any time and energy and money, we could be going under or I won't get paid enough. 

When I work with and educate others, I acknowledge this, and say it's okay. It's okay to feel overwhelmed by the unlearning learning cycle. But what you can do is talk to me and talk to your staff and find space that makes sense, right? Because not all of it is hard. And you don't want to try to do everything and burn yourself out and do everything poorly versus starting somewhere. 

[00:26:10] And that starts the conversation as to what is really important to this organization, to this nature space. If we have a park, and we're like, "Oh my God, it's gonna be so expensive. We have to transform the whole park." 

[00:26:22] And it's just like, "Hold on. What do disabled people want in your community? Maybe a lot of people just want access to this one space. Maybe we could start on the parking lot so people could get in. 

[00:26:34] Maybe it means creating a virtual video of the entire space and putting it online so people can experience it there. When we take a step back and we look for the strengths and the opportunity, it's like, "Ah, okay. That sounds like a reasonable project." 

[00:26:51] And then once they do it and they realized those positive feedback and, wow, I did something really great. Okay, what's the next thing?

There's always room to do the right work, but I also acknowledge that it requires a lot, and unfortunately a lot of people who are working in these nature spaces, already have so much on their plate. They're people of color, they're usually women or non-binary folk who are already doing multiple jobs.

[00:27:15] It's a big conversation and it doesn't have to be a scary one if we look at the strengths and we take a breather. 

[00:27:22] Emily Race: Mm. Oh my gosh. Yeah. If I could summarize that in a sense, if and when resistance comes up for you, it's taking a deep breath, giving ourself some space and acknowledging that it's okay to be having this 

[00:27:34] Kristie Cabrera: Yes.

[00:27:35] Emily Race: This response. And then to start with, what would really make a difference? And then to do that, there's a bit of actually going in and asking the questions of the communities you're looking to serve, which, I come from both justice spaces and a original background in advertising and marketing. And it's the same kind of idea, right? That you would wanna center the voices of those who you are speaking to or helping or serving. 

[00:27:56] Kristie Cabrera: Exactly. That's why it's exciting because every nature space is different and is used differently by people. How people use a park versus a community garden versus a pier is going to be different.

[00:28:09] Can we find excitement and fun curiosity as to, "Why is this here? Who are the people using it? How can we make this more inclusive for everyone?" In return, we get to experience these things with diverse people and allow everyone to experience their own healing journeys if they choose to do that.

[00:28:29] Emily Race: Wow. Yeah. Real expansion in a sense, too, of what's possible in life. 

[00:28:33] On that note, in terms of engaging with your community to ask these questions and begin that discovery process, that curiosity process, what is, from your experience, an authentic way to do that, or I don't wanna say right or wrong, but do you know what I'm saying, what is a right way to go about doing that, for lack of a better word. 

[00:28:50] Kristie Cabrera: The right way is to first explore internally your own views on disability, on neurodivergence and how your views show up in your life and in whatever job you have or whatever role you have in this world.

[00:29:07] Because what you don't want is to have these thoughts and ideas that haven't been unpacked, and then you're the one bringing resistance or barriers or discomfort to a really exciting project. 

[00:29:20] While you do that unpacking, you want to learn from the community. You wanna learn from people who are disabled and neurodivergent. That means following them and investing in their work and their time. 

[00:29:33] Even though that's a long thing, you can simultaneously do multiple things. I could unpack internally while moving forward on a project. With your project, you don't ever want to do it with just your own experiences. You want to involve disabled people, right? You don't wanna design for disabled people. You want disabled people to be the designers. 

[00:29:54] And when I say design, I'm not just talking about a physical space, it could be anything from an urban farm having a disabled or neurodivergent person reviewing their public curriculums for a afterschool program. It could be a person reviewing their social media presence. An event planner who comes from a different experience. 

[00:30:14] Those are the first three steps to approaching this the best way possible. 

[00:30:19] And then, like I mentioned before, accepting that it's gonna take a long time, and that even when it's done, there's gonna be room for growth.

[00:30:28] Because again, accessibility and inclusivity isn't a final destination. It's an ongoing topic. 

[00:30:34] Emily Race: Hmm. Yeah. As you're sharing that, I'm like, it is also about reducing harm or reducing additional harm in that process, right? So that's really helpful to also point at what within yourself do you need to unlearn, or learn or expand? What are some areas that are new to you that you might wanna start to expand your own knowledge around or understanding? 

[00:30:51] Kristie Cabrera: Yeah, in the world where people make attempts to be accessible and then they only focus on physical accessibility? A lot of this has to do with the disability rights movement, the ADA, which primarily focuses on people with physical disabilities, but, there are ways to make things accessible and inclusive for people with emotional and cognitive differences. But a lot of people don't explore that because it's not as apparent, it's not as visible. It's not as "common". 

[00:31:20] Emily Race: I'm feeling brought back to what you said at the start around this sense of hope that you brought into today. 

Top of mind, are there any folks or organizations, like the birding one you mentioned, that you wanna point to in terms of this is what's hopeful, maybe folks can check that out after this recording, for example, or just feel inspired by?

[00:31:38] Kristie Cabrera: Yeah. There's SinsInvalid, which is a well known organization that puts out a lot of information on disability justice. There they have lots of resources and reading suggestions. So I would say everyone should start there.

[00:31:54] Then, I might pronounce the name wrong, but there's Neuroplastic. That website has a lot of great stories from neurodivergent people on their experiences with the world, that I find really helpful. And there's a few others that I have that aren't coming to mind, but I can send them over.

[00:32:09] Emily Race: Hmm. And I wanna call out myself too, if some of these questions were more centered towards someone who doesn't actually identify as disabled in some way or another, let's say someone as a listener does identify with being neurodivergent or some disability, what inquiry or action do you have for them to take?

[00:32:26] Kristie Cabrera: The only action that I hope disabled and neurodivergent people take is just being themselves. Being themselves in the world is really radical, for disabled and neurodivergent folk. 

[00:32:38] And I would also say that if a person wants to share, I don't want people to feel, like I consider myself a consultant, right? People can reach out to me to do work, but really they can reach out to any disabled or neurodivergent person and say, "Hey, I see that you're open to sharing your experience. Would you want to add your input here?" Pay people. Reach out. 

[00:33:01] Emily Race: Yes. Yes. 

[00:33:01] Kristie Cabrera: If someone expresses that they are willing to share their experiences, people should reach out to them. And if a disabled or neurodivergent person feels like they have helpful insights to any space, to feel like they are valid and insightful and have the capacity to share that input. 'Cause people need it. Most designers aren't disabled and most business people aren't. I want people to feel like they have knowledge that they can share and that it's worthy knowledge if they want to share it.

[00:33:32] Emily Race: Yeah. Yeah. If they want to. And like you said, compensation, 

[00:33:36] Kristie Cabrera: Yeah. 

[00:33:36] Emily Race: To match or to balance that exchange of energy and effort. 

[00:33:41] Another question coming to mind, maybe more from your work on that healing side of things, I can imagine just given any number of identities, but when you exist in a world that isn't designed with you in mind, it can be exhausting on one level and harmful and traumatic and all these different things. And so do you have any thoughts on what care towards yourself could look like? 

[00:34:03] Kristie Cabrera: When I'm in a world or in a space that isn't designed for someone like me, I have to be my best self to myself. The amount of work that it takes to feel and believe that you are worthy of existing in any space is work that should be done. Even if it takes a long time, even if it's exhausting, even if it's hard, being able to say " Yeah, I am neurodivergent and I deserve to be in this space, or I deserve to ask for my needs to be met, or I'm worthy. And just because I don't understand or I process things differently, or I need something, or I don't need something, doesn't mean that I'm any less.

[00:34:49] That journey looks different for everyone, but a lot of that work means unpacking our own internal views of what it means to be different, what it means to not just be productive all the time, not just have to bring in money or status or friends.

Because so much of it is tied into, "well, if I can't do this, who am I in the society where everything's about doing and making a profit?" But we don't have to do anything. We are loved just by existing. So whatever work that needs to be done to get to that place where people really believe it, I feel like they should try to do that work.

[00:35:26] Emily Race: Yeah. Thank you for what I hear as affirmations. That's can be really nourishing for someone listening who may need to hear that right now. 

[00:35:34] Last question, may feel a little out there, it just keeps coming into my head, but I'm wondering are we actually looking to get to a world where there is no such thing as "abled" and "disabled", and have you ever thought about that or have a thought around that?

[00:35:47] Kristie Cabrera: Yeah. It's a question that usually comes up during my trainings, and yeah, I would love to get to a world where we've relied less on labels to understand people and more on getting to know people, to understand people.

[00:36:00] Labels have their role today, they can be helpful in understanding, "why am I like this?" or "why are they like that?" 

But if we created a world that was based on communication and respect and really wanting community, we wouldn't really need as many labels as we have. It's definitely a possibility. And if we kept the labels, it would be for a reason that was empowering. 

[00:36:29] Emily Race: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a great distinction, and as you were sharing that, what comes to mind is how, in many of these interviews, we have this ultimate vision, then we have evolutions of that vision and that vision will also evolve. 

[00:36:40] There seems to be a need in this moment to distinguish certain things because we've been in such a separatist, individualistic norms that have been centered that we need to disrupt. 

[00:36:51] Kristie Cabrera: Yep. 

[00:36:51] Emily Race: And start shifting. 

[00:36:53] You've mentioned a few times about your consulting work and you clearly have such a wealth of knowledge. I'm curious how can folks work with you, partner with you, and support the work you're doing? 

[00:37:02] Kristie Cabrera: Yeah, I do accessibility and inclusivity consulting. Right now it's specifically for either nature spaces or spaces that have healing at their center. Radical nonprofits or schools or clinics.

[00:37:18] They could reach me through my website or my email, which we can share. My work is about helping to figure out what's the reason behind the organization wanting to do this work; what is reasonable for their capacity; having goals and action plans, but also helping to navigate that internal work while doing this work in an employment setting, which is really tricky to navigate.

[00:37:44] Emily Race: Hmm. Wow. I'm so grateful that you are doing the work you're doing, you know, and that you feel called and it sounds like fulfilled, in doing this at this time. 

[00:37:54] My hope from talking with you would be that we have more folks like you out there in the world and that it's not just a designated occupation, but it's actually integrated into, like you said with your vision, the way we all are looking at things. 

[00:38:06] Kristie Cabrera: Absolutely. 

[00:38:07] Emily Race: Thank you. Anything else you'd like to share before we, we sign off today? 

[00:38:11] Kristie Cabrera: I hope people are encouraged to get to know, you know, different people who are doing similar work and, you know, figure out ways that they could learn more about this stuff.

[00:38:22] And that looks different for everyone. It might be like picking up a book or following like a disabled hashtag on Instagram or watching a movie, but just finding a place to start that like feels like it's within your capacity and just building upon that. 

[00:38:37] Emily Race: Yeah. Amazing. I love that. I personally am inspired and I'm so excited to share this conversation with others. Thank you so much, Kristie, once again.

[00:38:46] Kristie Cabrera: Thank you. 

[00:38:50] Emily Race: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Founding Mothers podcast. This podcast is produced and hosted by me, Emily Race, and edited by Eric Weisberg. If you wanna support the show, please leave us a rating or share this episode with the important people in your life. We'd also love to hear from you.

[00:39:06] If you or someone you know would be a great guest to share about their vision for the world, you could email emily@founding-mothers.com. Or visit www.founding-mothers.com/podcast.

Additional Resources

https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com

https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com

https://www.instagram.com/crutches_and_spice/?hl=en