July is Disability Pride — Freedom Oklahoma

ID: the Disability pride flag is the background - its a gray rectangle with red, gold, white, blue, and green in ascending order diagonally from the top left corner to the bottom right. the text reads "july monthly update - freedomoklahoma.org/news" there is a freedom oklahoma logo.

May we recommit ourselves to expanded access, to following the leadership of disabled folks, and to learning our disability history year-round

I sat down to write this, a week out from the start of disability pride month, as I scoured the internet to try and confirm if the launch of Governor Stitt’s new “make Oklahoma healthy again” initiative would in fact include the presence of US Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. And, because this timeline continues to be the worst, it seems that indeed he will be here in Oklahoma to spew anti-vaccine, anti-science rhetoric on the record with our Governor, in what I anticipate will be a plan that focuses not on resources for the health and well-being of Oklahomans, but instead on the white, Euro-centric weight-based ideals that celebrate only those able-bodied people able to perform and contribute to communities at a level that benefits the demands of capitalism as healthy. And while I could rant at an extended length about the harms of the policies being pushed at state and national levels under the guise of popular health, I instead want to focus on the long history of mad, disabled resistance leaders in 2SLGBTQ+ spaces, and the way disabled folks have engaged in disruption to win better conditions for all of us, while often ourselves being left out of and/or excluded from spaces that claim to be organizing for our collective liberation.

Marsha P. Johnson and Bellevue

Marsha P. Johnson pickets Bellevue Hospital to protest treatment of queer people and people experiencing homelessness, early 1970s. Credit: Photo by Diana Davies, courtesy of Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.

Marsha P. Johnson and Bellevue are both infamous in their own right. Marsha for her organizing against police at Stonewall and her leadership in the modern day queer rights movement, her community organizing with STAR, her friendship with Sylvia Rivera, to name a few of the long-list of contributions and relationships she built that allow us to do our work today. Bellevue was one of many horrendous institutions that caged mad and disabled community members under the guise of healthcare. Less often discussed (though covered with some detail in Tourmaline’s new book Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson) is Marsha’s madness, her forced periods of institutionalization at Bellevue, and her organizing around the mistreatment of and experimentation on 2SLGBTQ+ folks at Bellevue.

STAR had a platform "free gender expression, an end to prison injustice and homelessness, and the creation of an inclusive community that rejected binding definitions of gender and sexual identity," and that extended their organizing and community building to include those in the Bellevue facility, where organizers like Marsha herself were often subjected to horrors including electroshock therapy, nonconsensual medication regimens, and being held in the facility against their will.

The protest at Bellevue, at which we get the famous image of Marsha in her fur coat, smoking a cigarette and holding a “Power to the People” sign, came about as a result of intergenerational organizing of people across class, race, and experience, during the occupation of NYU’s Weinstein Hall. NYU’s policies targeting and violence against queer students and community members, including engaging municipal police for a violent end to the Weinstein Hall protest helped folks continue to fight against the larger infrastructure of NYU’s harm. NYU’s Bellevue Hospital, which practiced shock therapy treatment on homosexual psychiatry patients became an obvious target. Included in the demands from the Weinstein Hall occupation were: the use of university facilities by the gay community (students and non-students), open admissions and free tuition for gay people and all oppressed communities, the discussion of homosexuality in relevant courses and the end of oppressive treatment of gay patients at Bellevue Hospital. While we’re still fighting for much of this to be lived reality today, folks can only imagine that Bellevue’s prominence in treating patients in the early AIDS crisis would not have been possible without the disruptive organizing in and beyond Weinstein Hall, in which Marsha was a key leader. Disabled folks, trans and queer folks, occupying spaces to disrupt the status quo and demand change led to the types of successful movement organizing we still see today, including on college campuses.

Bobbie Lea Bennett Peterson and Medicare Coverage of Gender Affirming Surgery

Black and white drawing of Bobbie Lea Bennett, a woman sitting in a coat with a fur collar in a wheelchair, created by artists Zach Ozma and Julian Shendelman of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania as part of a 2021 display called *Lavender People*.

Bobbie Lea Bennett Peterson was a disabled, trans person who was forced like many of us to become an activist in order to access basic rights most folks take for granted. Born in 1947, Bobbie lived to be 72, passing away in 2019 near her home in Louisiana. She founded St. Tammany Organization for the Handicapped (a Louisiana organization) and hosted "Barbie's Talk Show," a Texas-based community television program where she raised awareness about gaps in accessibility.

Bobbie underwent early transition related care in Galveston, TX at the clinic University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston, which performed its first gender affirmation surgery in 1966. When Bobbie obtained gender affirmation surgery in 1978, she was told that the cost would be covered under Medicare’s Social Security disability benefits program. In a story that rings too relevant all of these years later, her payment was then denied without explanation. And she refused to allow that. Bobbie mobilized community around her case, forcing Medicare officials to acknowledge gender affirmation surgeries are medical necessities. She eventually drove across the country, first to the White House and then to the Baltimore office of Medicare Director Thomas M. Tierney, refusing to leave until she got the check to cover the cost of her surgery. While Medicare officials initially denied the money was to cover gender affirming care, the $4600 check she left with covered that exact cost, and marked a significant moment of activism for trans and disabled folks. In April 1978, Tierney noted new policy would extend Medicare coverage to sex reassignment, as long as the candidate had "at least one year's experience living as a member of the opposite sex".

After her surgery and her advocacy, Bobbie continued to lead a full and loving life, while also being a staunch advocate for disabled folks. In 1981, Bobbie’s sister served as a surrogate for her first of two children. The legacy of the access Bobbie helped us gain is now being challenged by both Trump Executive Order and through Congressional spending bills, with efforts to limit coverage of gender affirming care by Medicaid, Medicare, or Tricare.

Queers, Community Care, and Mask Blocs

Photo of six organizers and friends of Mask Bloc OKC, sitting around a centerpiece with colorful art and a copy of No More Police while being honored at the 2025 Freedom Oklahoma Freedom Futures Gala. Photo by Steph Montelongo.

If you’ve interacted with your local mask bloc at any point since the start of the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic, you know that 2STGNC+ organizers are often at the center of these efforts. And that most of these spaces are organized and maintained by disabled folks, whether they were pre-disabled or became disabled as a result of COVID-19. Maybe you’ve seen the advocacy of Themme Fatale, followed the queer-led efforts of Clean Air Club Chicago, or engaged with Mask Bloc OKC or Mask Bloc Tulsa, you know queer and trans folks are out here leading the work to get folks care and mitigation tools as the state continues to fail us.

When you think about the legacy of mutual aid and community care in the queer community, folks especially invoke the peak of the AIDS crisis in the ’80s and ’90s, where lesbians and other queer people alongside people living with AIDS started food banks, devoted their time to caretaking, donated as “blood sisters,” provided treatment, helped people grieve, raised funds, fought for medication access and medical trials and coverage, and provided other life-saving volunteer services while mainstream society stigmatized and abandoned people with AIDS.

Clean air orgs (more than 30 autonomous orgs now up and running in the world), mask blocs, and other COVID-19 mutual aid groups are a short-term solution for the institutional failures of local, city, state, and federal governments (and international health orgs) that have an obligation to safeguard public health from COVID-19 but have instead completely failed us again and again in meeting that obligation.

These organizing spaces and models show us what the world could be like, if we adopted principles of collective care and resource sharing at a larger scale. Disabled folks like Marsha and Bobbie have always provided us with examples of how disabled folks can rally our communities, and create the kind of future we want to live in by shifting practices in the present, even when the state is trying to disrupt our safety to thrive.

Actions To Take:

A photo of 4 people. Two police arrest Rev. William Barber II, center left, and Suvya Carroll, center right, in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, June 2, 2025, in Washington. (Photo: Jack Jenkins, RNS)

When we talk about medicaid closures that means so many things are at risk - 1 in 4 folks having healthcare ripped away, ramped up hospital closures, and severe job loss in the state. That physically looks like the assisted living facility shutting down and not being able to take care of grandparents or parents. It looks like Oklahoma having 78 rural inpatient hospitals with 47 of them at risk of closing - and 23 at risk for immediate closure. When these facilities close the medical staff might be able to find another job, but likely not all in the same place. This means doctors will leave and less healthcare providers will be available for our families. But what about the grandmother that works in the cafeteria at the hospital, or the uncle that does maintenance, custodial staff and student aids? Many folks are trying to figure out what comes next. The truth is there are so many options. If policy still aligns with you, make sure you give our federal House members of Congress a call (its always good to have the numbers). Stopping medicaid in Oklahoma is detrimental to our neighbors.

The final vote on the bill is expressed to be at 8am July 3rd.

1st district: Kevin Hern (R) (since 2018) - (918)-935-3222
2nd district: Josh Brecheen (R) (since 2023) - (918)-283-6262
3rd district: Frank Lucas (R) (since 1994) - (405)-373-1958
4th district: Tom Cole (R) (since 2003) - Norman (405) 329-6500, Ada (580) 436-5375, Lawton (580) 357-2131
5th district: Stephanie Bice (R) (since 2021) - (405) 300-6890
If you are looking for something else to engage in remember people are trying to get through this time. Direct mutual aid is always going to be most effective. Remember, you can choose who / what to give to, but you don’t get to dictate how the money ultimately ends up spent.
Happy Disability Pride Month. May we recommit ourselves to expanded access, to following the leadership of disabled folks, and to learning our disability history year-round.