The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) changed the lives of all Americans by reshaping society and improving accessibility when it became law in July of 1990. In honor of this historic milestone, July is recognized as Disability Pride Month in the United States. Many other countries have since declared July to be Disability Pride Month too, making it an internationally recognized event. 

Disability Pride Month has many goals, including:

• Celebrating people with disabilities and their contributions to society
  
  
• Honoring and educating about disability culture
  
  
• Challenging stigmas and misconceptions related to disability
  
  
• Promoting the idea that disability is a natural part of human diversity and life
  
  
• Raising awareness about ableism and social inequities experienced by disabled people 

Just like the ADA benefits every American, everyone benefits from Disability Pride, even if they aren’t currently disabled. Here are three reasons why: 

1. Approximately 25% of Americans have at least one condition that’s considered a disability, even if they don’t personally consider themselves disabled. That's nearly 14 million people! In fact, disabled people are the largest marginalized group in the world, and they have friends, family, coworkers, and communities. These 14 million Americans and all those connected to them are supported by Disability Pride. 
   
   
2. Nearly 100% of people will experience disability—whether permanent or temporary, visible or invisible, major or minor—during their lifetimes due to physical illness, physical injury, mental illness, psychological injury, or natural aging processes, etc. This means nearly every person benefits directly impacted by the mission of Disability Pride Month. 
   
   
3. A more accessible, accepting society is a better society for everyone. For example, ADA requirements like curb cuts on street corners make life easier for those pushing strollers. Required elevators in government buildings help everyone get around. Accessibility features on cellphones like speech-to-text and voice memos are a convenience many nondisabled people enjoy. Building a more affirming, accessible world is a win for everyone.
   
   

Ableism and Mental Health

One of the main goals of Disability Pride Month is to educate people about ableism and to actively oppose ableism. Ableism is broadly defined as discrimination against people with physical, intellectual, or psychological disabilities. Abelism can take many forms, including:

• Institutional Ableism: occurs when policies, laws, practices, and/or systems discriminate against disabled people. Examples include companies failing to comply with disability rights laws, eugenics efforts, mask bans, and healthcare rationing plans.
  
  
• Individual Ableism: occurs when people hold negative personal beliefs about disabled people or engage in behaviors that perpetuate discrimination. Of note, individual ableism may be conscious or entirely unconscious and is harmful either way. Examples include refusing vaccination due to lack of perceived personal risk, assuming people with mobility devices need help navigating spaces, and believing that disabled people are “faking it” to exploit systems.
   
• Physical Ableism: occurs when discrimination targets or excludes people with mobility, medical, or sensory disabilities. Examples include missing wheelchair ramps, signs without braille, and failing to provide or comply with mask-required events/spaces.
  
  
• Mental Ableism: occurs when discrimination targets or excludes people with mental health conditions or cognitive disabilities. Examples include calling people with ADHD lazy and segregating students with learning disabilities in schools.
  
  
• Hostile Ableism: occurs when ableism involves behaviors that are overtly aggressive. Examples include bullying or insulting disabled people or engaging in acts of violence that target disabled people.
  
  
• Benevolent Ableism: occurs when ableism involves behaviors that are patronizing and harmful even when well-intentioned. Examples include unsolicited offers to pray for the healing of disabled people, telling someone they “don’t look disabled,” engaging in “inspiration porn” that overly praises disabled people for completing routine activities. 

Unfortunately, most disabled people experience multiple forms of ableism on a regular basis. As disabled people are also more likely to belong to other marginalized groups, such as BIPOC people or LGBTQ people, they also are more liekly to be simultaneously experiencing other forms of discrimination. These recurrent experiences are profoundly stressful and impactful and can influence every aspect of a disabled person’s life. Some examples of the impacts of ableism include:

• Inaccessible healthcare, including both medical and mental healthcare
   
• Barriers to academic and occupational success
  
  
• Fewer financial resources and less financial stability throughout life
  
  
• Higher risk of medical trauma and intimate partner violence
  
  
• Social isolation due to inaccessibility and ableism in community spaces
  
  

As you can see from this list, many of these impacts directly influence the quality of life and the health of disabled people. Examples of the health impacts of ableism that are documented in research and/or commonly reported by disabled people include:

• Worse medical and mental health outcomes due to poor accessibility of treatment
  
  
• Worse medical and mental health outcomes due to the perpetual stress of ableism 
  
  
• Lower rates of job satisfaction and higher rates of job-related stress
  
  
• Higher rates of financial stress 
  
  
• Higher rates of trauma disorders like PTSD
  
  
• Higher rates of loneliness, depression, and anxiety
  
  
• Poor self-esteem and low confidence 

The impacts of ableism listed above are profound and harmful. Given nearly every human will experience disability at some point in their lives, ableism is a threat to mental health for all people, not just people who are currently disabled. 

Disability Pride and Mental Health

Fortunately, the Disability Pride Month challenges ableism in the world, and disability pride offers a protective shield against the effects of ableism.

Disability Pride Month is about fighting for Disability Justice, which is a social and political movement that seeks to challenge ableism and improve the material, social, and health conditions of disabled people. It also promotes celebration of disabled people, their accomplishments, and their perspectives. 

Disability pride as a personal experience, however, is about having a positive, affirming perspective on disability, including one’s own current or future experiences of disability. Disability pride embraces disability as natural and common, and it rejects the ideas that disability is a reflection of character, moral failing, or inherent tragedy. 

Research is still limited, but thus far, the emerging science has shown that building disability pride can reduce internalized ableism related to stigma. Additionally, research has found that disability pride can protect self-esteem for disabled people, and that positive disability identity is associated with increased life satisfaction among young adults, even if they don’t personally identify as disabled. Collectively, these research findings suggest that disability pride and a disability justice mindset are protective factors against the harmful effects of ableism. 

Building Disability Pride–For Yourself And Society

While ableism is a systemic issue, we can all contribute to fighting ableism in meaningful ways by changing our own behavior to be more consistent with disability pride and to advocate for disability justice. Here are a few ways to build disability pride and fight ableism:

1. Remove ableist ideas from your language. Disability is not a bad thing, but everyday phrases and slang imply that it is. Small changes in phrasing can make a big impact in how you think about disability and how those around you do. Consider working to change your language from ableist terms to alternative language such as. For example, instead of saying, "That's crazy!" you could say, "That's shocking!" Rather than say, "They turned a blind eye," the same idea could be conveyed with, "They were oblivious." Instead of calling an experience "lame" you could describe it as "disappointing."
   
   
2. Improve accessibility wherever you go. Get curious about who has access to the places you spend time. Is your favorite restaurant wheelchair accessible, or are the tables too crowded to maneuver a wheelchair? Would an immunocompromised person be safe in your office, or is everyone coming to work sick? When you notice an access barrier, speak up and ask for changes to make spaces more accessible for all.
   
   
3. Support disability justice organizations. There are many organizations—many of which are led by disabled people—doing hard work to change the social and material conditions of disabled people. They often need donations, volunteers, social media boosting, or other forms of support. You can look up organizations specific to many different forms of disability that are international, national, or local.
   
   
4. Seek therapy to help you build disability pride. Practices like Aviva Psychology Services offer explicitly affirming, supportive spaces for people with disabilities to receive care, including by telehealth, which is an important disability accommodation for many. While all psychologists at Aviva are affirming, some members of the team have specialized training in working with clients experiencing disability and chronic illness. You can become a client at Aviva by filling out the Request an Appointment form. 

Selected References and Recommended Reading 

1. Arnett J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 55, 469–480. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.55.5.469
   
   
2. Bogart, K. R., Lund, E. M., & Rottenstein, A. (2018). Disability pride protects self-esteem through the rejection-identification model. Rehabilitation Psychology, 63(1), 155–159. https://doi.org/10.1037/rep0000166
   
   
3. Kattari, S. K. (2020). Ableist microaggressions and the mental health of disabled adults. Community mental health journal, 56(6), 1170-1179.
   
   
4. Nario-Redmond, M.R., Kemerling, A.A. and Silverman, A. (2019), Hostile, Benevolent, and Ambivalent Ableism: Contemporary Manifestations. Journal of Social Issues, 75: 726-756. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12337
   
   
5. Piepzna-Samarasinha, L. L. (2018). Care work: Dreaming disability justice. Arsenal Pulp Press.
   
   
6. Qin, S., Isadore, K., Chun, J., Chen, R. (Z.), & Mears, M. (2025). Belonging and pride in people with disabilities: An approach to counteract stigma. Stigma and Health. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/sah0000619
   
   
7. Santacreu-Vasut, E., & Wu, H. (2025). At the Intersection of Ableism and Sexism: Conceptual and Empirical Applications: Estefania Santacreu-Vasut, Huali Wu. Journal of Business Ethics, 201(4), 797-816.
   
   
8. Fuentes, K., Hsu, S., Patel, S., & Lindsay, S. (2024). More than just double discrimination: A scoping review of the experiences and impact of ableism and racism in employment. Disability and Rehabilitation, 46(4), 650-671.
   
   
9. Wong, A. (Ed.). (2020). Disability visibility: First-person stories from the twenty-first century. Vintage Books.