Akii Ngo: 'Love and Other Drugs'

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coming up on reframed along with this week's special guest aki today we'll be discussing love and other

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drugs gender equity not just gender equality um

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no ableism no discrimination no racism the representation of you know disabled

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person being oh boy wasn't there a lot of it they hired a non-disabled actress to play

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a disabled character we love a dog on this show oh my god

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[Music]

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welcome back to reframed the podcast that reframes had disabilities portrayed in film and tv

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i'm your host jason claimo and today i have my wonderful co-host with me robin and along with this week's special guest

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aki today we'll be discussing love and other drugs but before we do let's say hello to aki and learn a little bit more about

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them so welcome to the podcast archie did you just want to start off by telling everyone a little bit about you

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and what you do sure hi everyone my name is akingo i am a non-binary

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person my pronouns are they them i'm i don't know i'm chronically ill

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disabled autistic um live with numerous chronic illness and disabilities i am a first generation

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aussie from a refugee background and i work within disability advocacy

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violence prevention particularly for women girls feminine identifying a non-binary people with

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disability and i do a lot of work in i guess um

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like promoting rights and advocacy and empowerment for i guess those cohorts um i also do a lot

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of work within um anti-discrimination equal opportunity

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and accessibility and i guess ensuring that as many intersections um are

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represented as possible in as many spaces as possible um as a person with

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multiple marginalizations in intersections myself um yeah i guess that's a little bit

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about myself um wow yeah that's that's a lot um and

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it's obvious that you know you're really passionate about advocacy and you do a lot of work in that space but what's one

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of the biggest changes that you would like to see within our society over the next couple years the patriarchy not

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existing gender equity not just gender equality

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um no ableism no discrimination no racism you know a whole bunch of things but i

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guess um personally uh i guess can i say two things

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accessibility like universal accessibility for all areas of like society community physical accessibility

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online accessibility firstly um and then secondly um just you

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know people's right to exist as they are without people having to discriminate against them in any way shape or form so

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but if you know if you're lgbtiqa um that you know a big like pronouns

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aren't a big deal that you know people can just exist as they are without feeling the need to justify themselves

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so yeah those are the two things i know they're massive things um which link back to you know the patriarchy not

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existing um and all that sort of stuff but you know one can hope

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one can do it exactly dream big it is hard to pick one as well

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you pick two great ones we'll really put you on the spot there like just the big questions straight up

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so very related to what we're talking about today is why do you think genuine

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representation of people with disability on screen is so important i think uh

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the genuine representation is incredibly important because there's so much misinformation and stigma that

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still exists around people with disability people from different marginalizations

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backgrounds um and a lot of that misconception are negative um stereotypes lots of stigma

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um and the stereotypes or say for example with uh as an autistic person

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um who was recently diagnosed last week

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the understanding of what autism is or adhd is and the way that's perceived and

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represented has meant that i wasn't able to get a diagnosis because i didn't feel that i

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fit that box that society portrays often through the media and therefore i haven't received the support

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that i obviously needed throughout my entire life and now i'm now unlearning a lot of

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the pressures and stresses and challenges that i put on myself based on what was portrayed to be like what an

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autistic person should be like that is also the same for disability same for queerness same for all of the things

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that make me who i am that i should have never been ashamed of or afraid to be

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but the portrayal particularly in movies and media and so on have such a large impact on society

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have a large impact on children um so growing up and seeing poor or negative

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representations feeds into our real lives and the way that community views and values us and

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that then leads to the discrimination or the misconceptions and the stigmas that we deal with both externally but that

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internalized harm that we cause to ourselves because of those portrayals that aren't genuine

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aren't co-designed and aren't informed by people living with such conditions or

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disabilities or whatever cohort or marginalization it may be

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we can finish here like that's all we need

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i would not have said it better myself i know robin's going to ask where people can can find you and follow you but

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before we do i think we need to highlight a bit more about the types of work that you do because you do such a big

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range of advocacy work but you're also a model i think yeah we really need to highlight

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all of your uh many facets and skills i all i often forget how much i do because

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i always feel like it's never enough because i just i think it's really difficult um not

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always in a negative way but just like as something to i guess acknowledged is that when you

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are advocating that for something that directly impacts you you never really stop

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so whether that is disability rights disability justice accessibility

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for the disabled part of myself but also it's you know for the all the lgbtiq plus work that i do

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with different various organizations um in that side of things as a person of

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color that in you know the light of course 19 and asian hate crimes and all of that stuff

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and talking about anti-racism and that sort of work that intersects with disability and queerness and then the

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work that i do in violence prevention as a survivor survivor advocate of intimate partner violence so um

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i uh my spinal injury is a direct result of intimate partner violence i've also

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dealt with a lot of family violence and intergenerational trauma so i bring a lot of that work and that advocacy um so

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as an example for that last week was the disability role commission into

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abuse neglect violence and exploitation of people with disabilities so

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i've done work in providing some i guess evidence through that i didn't attend the hearings myself because i knew

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physically emotionally would that be too much and too triggering and too upsetting for myself

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so but i was able to provide advocacy through media and sharing my story with a few media outlets um and i guess i do

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a lot of that work and that violence prevention work and sharing my personal story to let other people know

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if they're in the same situation that i was in that they're not alone if they might not be ready to share that there

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are people that are and do and there is light at the end of the tunnel and there are organizations that exist

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to support you and the service that it do exist to ensure that you are safe once

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if you need that support and that if you are dealing with whatever um

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challenging situation that there are different ways that you can tackle that and that you're not alone in those

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experiences um and then i also do like chronic pain

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and reform work in the opioid and health sector

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and i've done a lot of advocacy for like um invisible or hidden illnesses and

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hidden disabilities but particularly in relation to opioid reforms um in australia there's been a lot of change

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in accessing in medication access and that's been become

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much more difficult for people to get the medications that they need

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because of the misconceptions once again about certain medications um and for example

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like 40 million dollars worth of medicare funding for chronic pain services has recently been cut and

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repackaged as endometriosis services so um like they're doing these

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like repackaging as if we um to say that we're doing you know groundbreaking

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you know support for people living with endometriosis um but endometriosis is a chronic pain

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condition so it's kind of like the same amount of funding to go into a different area to repackage it to say

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that we care more about um you know reproductive health and you know health of people that have uteruses and those

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sorts of things when really they've just you know repackaged it in a way that

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makes it sound like they care more about a certain cohort but really all of us are impacted

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um so yeah i do and then yeah i model as well um

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so yeah um and you know i've modeled with jason um but yeah and that's also

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you know just in terms of that representation i think is so incredibly important um

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yeah so i guess i yeah it's it's a bit of everything and i view that as in like

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an activism sort of way but also because i think there needs to be representation

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of people with disability mobility aids you know queer gender diverse people all

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of that sort of stuff um and also if you're an ambulatory wheelchair user

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like i am as well having that representation that i've tried to push and show for such as um like with

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melbourne fashion week i was never forced to use one or the other but i wanted to go

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you know if i'm able to can i do this um this round i don't know what they call

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it i'm using my walking stick instead even though i did push because i wanted to

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demonstrate that you know i know that there are obviously people that use wheelchairs that aren't aren't ambulatory and there are and there

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should be that representation there is a reason why that yeah that i am and needing to use my chair for 90 of the

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time but if i do if you do see me on the street and i'm using my walking stick i haven't just not needed it 90 percent at the time um

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and it's not a miracle no no it's not a miracle and don't realize the complexities of my

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spinal injury and what that results in my neurological

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impacts and the like things like spontaneous paralysis and things like that people don't know exist they just

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have once again because of media and the conceptions of what um a person that uses a wheelchair should be like and

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should act at all times so i think that sort of representation as well so i guess every part of my life in some way

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shape or form is about having that representation and demonstrating um

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a positive representation of what often the media portrays

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as negative um which is a lot i guess to put on oneself um but i

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guess because i care about it um and i think it matters um and i think we can all benefit from

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that representation and accessibility because i feel like if the work that we're doing now existed when i was

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growing up i wouldn't and i'm sure many of most both of you would agree that it wouldn't be as hard as it was

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you know from different cohorts and marginalizations that you also both um

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represent i think if you know if there was more positive queer representation

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it wouldn't be as true like i've never i haven't met a queer person that hasn't gone through trauma um some way shape or

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form and that's just not okay um so yeah anyways i've rambled on for a while

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but also we're not interrupting because everything you're saying is true and amazing and if people want to see that

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representation and your work in action what's the best place for them to go and find out more about that

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yeah i guess you can connect with me on instagram um my name is just my first

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name and my last name um i'm on linkedin you can just actually google my name and my entire life story is there

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like an open book and that is purposeful beautiful we'll hopefully get some followers and maybe some inquiries for

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some future work and hopefully everybody keeps it very respectful too and one other thing i i'm a consultant um so i

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consult on all of the things that i've just talked about um for businesses and

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organizations and so on so that they can become better at getting representation

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so i could so i facilitate co-design like focus groups i consult on

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accessibility policies i can sort on excel accessibility standards protocols etc

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i consult on disability equity inclusion and diversity protocols

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principles all of that sort of stuff and provide co-designer representative work in that area

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that is another thing that i do but i kind of forgot about oh and i run my own um

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a dog sitting business um yeah um let me grab one don't know how

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you do it we love a dog on this show

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oh my god um so i have two sausage dogs of my own and

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then i kind of got obsessed with them and then i made a business out of it so this is cookie um

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oh my god it's so adorable this is rex

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can this just turn into a podcast oh my gosh they keep on coming

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and also like the names are so good like sizzles like sausage sizzle odd

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this is spud um and there's three others running around

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i don't know how you get anything done and you get so much yeah if i had that many dogs in my house i would just

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i have one dog and it's a struggle like

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and now i think it is time for us to review love and other drugs robin would

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you like to give us the rundown uh so love another drugs came out a little while ago 2010 which makes us all

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feel incredibly old um but it's an american uh romantic comedy drama about the

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relationship uh between jake gyllenhall who plays jamie randall and he's this like

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womanizing pharmaceutical salesman um who's promoting viagra through the entire film

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just because um and um he falls in love with maggie who's this like artistic

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alluring free spirit who happens to have parkinson's and it's kind of about their relationship and negotiating that uh

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with with something like parkinson's so yeah yeah it's a very like

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interesting film and like so yeah 12 years ago i was um

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it was prior to me acquiring my disability so i feel like my memory of when i first

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watched it as well was just like didn't even really register that there was anything to do with disability

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realistically until like they have i feel like they have like a big fight and it's like

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yeah anyway i feel like it was done quite well in in the sense that

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didn't seem to be disability was this all-consuming thing in the narrative

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um but that was just my little two cents to kick us off archie what did you think about the disability portrayal the thing

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that i remember most about the show as it was like over a decade ago was

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that that portrayal of um anne hathaway

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pushing away jake because she didn't want to be a burden because like she wanted to deal with

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all of her like her disability and her conditions on her own and i remember them

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fighting about the fact that she had to hop on a bus to go to canada to get her

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medications and that was just a part of life for her and like there was a whole

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bunch of like other people mainly older people doing the same thing and that would be there

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that every single weekend that's all they would do because it was so unaffordable to get the support that they needed in

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the united states and like like her not wanting to put the the burden of

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disability on him and and that i think was really a profound

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component of him going no you know that's that's not what it is you know you know i want to be with you for you x

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y and z and um but yeah i think in some way shape or form when you live

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with disability or chronic illness whether you have internalized ableism or

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whatever ableism you deal with from the way that society portrays disability you feel that way in some like you can't

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help but feel am i a burden or am i am i making x y and you know x y and

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zed's life more difficult by being in it and so you try to protect them by trying to protect yourself by pushing them away

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and it doesn't really work but that's just like this irrational thing that i think we all do in some way and i think

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that betrayed really well in the show and so well that i remember it after

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12 i don't know 12 years um and i think that's that's why um it

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resonated with me um when it was time to choose something to talk about so yeah

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yeah and i think it's such a complex thing as well because i think i do it like a little bit like in all of my

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relationships which is like you know it's kind of actually devastating a little bit when you think about it like this like

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overwhelming like internalized ableism impacts like every relationship that i have but like i feel like even with

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like my friends or like even like colleagues and stuff like that like i there's like certain parts of

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life and my disability that's just like i completely shield away because it's like you don't want to

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like it almost feels like getting them to do something for you exactly for example like you know

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helping me up a step or something it's totally like you know

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i shouldn't shouldn't feel this way the step shouldn't be there as well by the way but like i shouldn't feel this way

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about even like having that assistance but it's kind of like you

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can't help but feel it i feel like yeah you can't help but feel like you're like oh well you don't need my help sort

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of thing to you know it's a very complicated thing how to explain i was because i remember

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watching this movie and i'm i'm not a crier like it was a running joke in my family that like i was a little robot

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because i'd never cried at a movie and it was just like robin has no emotions like she watched so much smiley at me

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and like didn't even shed a tear but like i remember watching this movie

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and it destroyed me because i have a movement condition i guess sort of similar to parkinson's related to my

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disability and so many of the scenes in the movies were things that i could i could see in my own life where i'd like

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shielded and hid like you know opening things and uh you know like using scissors in

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class like i'd have all these mates that were close to me that i'd pass off all these like activities too so that no one

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knew that i was like struggling with those things because for some reason like that was it was just like embarrassing to me and it was like so

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much harder to explain than the fact that like oh i struggle to walk and i use a wheelchair which is like pretty easy for people to understand

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and i think like i don't think i've seen another movie where it sort of highlights that like how much shame and

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stuff is associated with certain things whilst also you're not having an empowered character because she's not

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like 100 a victim in the movie and then also like just negotiating those relationships where it shows that she

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supports jake as well like helps him stay grounded or whatever it is like it's not a one-way thing i thought that

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was yeah that that like i was following my eyes out so

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yeah but it is like i think that's one of the things as well as like you know it's ingrained in us as well

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like it's ingrained in everybody in society but i think you know i i feel like

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especially prior to acquiring my disability i didn't really think about the fact that like you know disabled people aren't shielded

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from ableism and you know being ableist as well or having internalized ableism

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like it yeah it can really like impact every sort of like relationship i mean i

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i have conversations now with people that like i would deem you know like relatively close to me and it's like wow we didn't realize how disabled you were

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like how much your impairment affects your life because you managed to hide it so well and i'm like well that didn't really do any service to me or anyone

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else and it's just like the pressure that's what i knew yeah absolutely like if anything probably made

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everything more inaccessible and it doesn't expose people you know to

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the challenges that people face so that they can make things accessible yeah and i think not realizing that you are

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entitled and you deserve accessibility and you deserve support

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is a massive thing because like i like i never like i think it took me a

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really so i was born with a condition called necrotizing entry colitis which if anybody knows what fleshy eating

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bacteria is just imagine that but in an infant so i had to get surgery as soon as i was

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born and i spent many many many first parts of my life in hospital and i had

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recurring surgeries and i then you know discovered at a genetic condition which impacts a lot of

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my body um and my ligaments and tendons and soft tissue because so it's ellis

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animos which is a collagen um sorry it's a what's the word sorry um

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brain stopped working um uh it's a it's like sorry it's a

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connective tissue disorder that impacts your collagen and the collagen the glue that puts your body that keeps your body

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together so um your gastrointestinal system is inside entirely soft tissue so like looking

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back into like my birth i guess um and then getting the diagnosis 25 years later

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which is another story in itself is all connected but like pretty much

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it took me over two and a half decades before i even connected or um

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identified with disability or chronic illness um i knew i was sick and that was it and i

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just kind of like pushed through and masked a lot and just didn't

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know accessibility was a thing but didn't know that i could receive support and could ask for help and that it was

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okay and i think also that's a cultural component being a child of refugees

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you know that escaped a war if i've got a roof over my head and food on the table i've got nothing to complain about

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and so i didn't i just like sucked it up and dealt with

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internalized shame internalized trauma into internalized everything but also

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external because that was the way culturally we had to deal because

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it's almost like you don't have the luxury to to um to think about accessibility or

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entitlements to support to asking for help because you have food on the table and running water and things like that which is very

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complex and very nuanced but um but when it comes to like the way that anne um i

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don't know what the name was in the movie so i'm gonna say anne um maggie

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uh portrayed herself as this independent person that didn't want that help but then was able to provide support to jay

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i don't know what his name was j jake jamie

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and so you're right like it was a really great portrayal of you know you can you know have these hidden conditions or

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whatever and struggle so much with x y and z challenges and still try to hide

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it and no matter how much you try to hide it still impacts you on the daily

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whether it be mentally emotionally physically but there isn't shame in that and that

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she was able to provide insight and guidance to him and empower him in ways that he didn't even realize

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was possible and then like vice versa but she still try to protect him by protecting her because obviously

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getting let down by people as a disabled or chronically ill person is a very common thing because we feel as though

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we like once again feel like a burden and then it's this endless vicious cycle of

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not giving like enough yeah

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i think probably like one of the um other things that i thought was really

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good was obviously the representation of you know disabled person being sexual oh

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boy wasn't there a lot of it quite special um

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and that is like and to think that that was like 12 years ago as well like we're still not doing

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that right now but they actually did it quite well back then so it's really

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interesting how there's like these sort of like flash in the pan moments where things are done quite well

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and you know a disabled person is represented in a you know really sexual way which is really positive

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for us because we're so often desexualized like just systemic by all of society um

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but yeah it's really interesting to me as well to see that that was happening but you know that that they did it so well and they did that film so long ago

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but yet we're still not really doing it anymore um and i i think

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it was set in 1996 actually which is blasphemous to think about

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um you know like english blasphemous like oh my gosh disabled people have sex what um i mean

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but that's that is still the case where we're desexualized um and we're in fantasize

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so it's it's really once again frustrating and complex so to have maggie be this like free spirit

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who's wanting to live life on her own terms is really empowering to see it and like

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doing and like i think their relationship started off like as casual sex and stuff

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yeah and it was like a fling and then it became something more real and then he started discovering things about like

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her condition and like the parkinson's that she was dealing with which goes to show that you never know what

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people are going through despite what their appearance is or despite how well it seems they are

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coping which is another thing that disabled people have to constantly deal with on a regular basis so yeah it was

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it was really it was it was actually really a great movie in the sense particularly since it was set in the

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early 90s and it was made over 12 years ago um which is probably why i remember

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it and has it's had such an impact since then i i feel like it was quite laid like it

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was like number one disabled people have sex number two they don't just do it as part of like romantic caring

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relationships like and then number three that sex thing you know that their disability then goes on to inform the

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kinds of sex that they have later on and how you know that relationship works and intimacy and all those kinds of things

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so i think like to have that complexity in a movie that was made you know 10 years ago and yet like you know on other

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podcasts we've talked about similar portrayals going absolutely terribly so

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yeah and more modern ones like just crap and i think like they did a really good job of like the complex like

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nature of like having agency like as a disabled person like

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she had like so much i guess like freedom and

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agency but then when it came down to it this like complex relationship with the

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healthcare system removed so much of that as well and so this like

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you know incredible you know human being was then just being crushed

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by the systems around her medicalised and dehumanized yeah that's a i think that happens

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to pretty much all of us or most of us in some way shape or form even in a country with free health care like

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australia like it happens a lot i like i've i've i am going

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through it i've been dealing with it it's it's exhausting um and so much is taken away

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from you and you have no control over a lot of it and um you're just expected to

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let whomever in control decide how your life will be because of

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whatever schedule suits them or whatever way that they want to do things or say with the ndis like there's so many

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challenges going on with that and like the people that they perceive your goals should be yeah whatever they perceive it

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whatever they perceive they should cut and how they should cut such funding or whatever supports you need or however

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you're like and it's it's just like if those barriers didn't exist you know

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this person would be able to live an extremely fulfilling life with with you know all of these others but that's the

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whole point whole reason why the ndis exists but it's not doing that and so so many

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people are being left behind forgotten about and falling through the cracks yes exactly exactly

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i think we've spoken a lot of like the good stuff and i don't know if there is that much bad stuff other than there's

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you know one very big obvious one which is that they hired a non-disabled actress to play

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a disabled character um and so i think you know when we're considering our scores i'm taking points

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off of that absolutely i didn't know if either of you picked up on anything else that you weren't really impressed yeah i

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think the biggest one was yeah the the unreal as well yeah the not authentic casting i did i didn't know that when

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she goes to the convention um and she sort of finds a bit of a community of people with parkinson's all of those

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people in that convention actually did have parkinson's um so there was a bit of authentic

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representation in the film but it would have been better if you know it wasn't two perfect people

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um you know perfect bodies trying to yeah portray disability yeah yeah very

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very attractive people i think also from memory it was not very

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culturally diverse as a cast but most movies weren't yeah back then

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only like in the past couple of years ish that we're getting better at that i'm like yeah but still yeah

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yeah like i say that with a lot of reservations as a person of color but yeah like it's um it's getting better

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but absolutely i think i think go on other days that the entire cast of any show are all

33:05

white people but it's still obviously a majority and and often there it's that

33:10

tokenistic you know asian friend a tokenistic black friend that does something and that's still

33:16

a trope that exists it's better but yeah you're right so i think

33:22

yeah the negatives would be you know obviously and hathaway not having parkinson's um

33:28

and yeah just the diversity is that component but it's good to know that the people at the convention were people

33:34

that you know had that representation and lived experience um but yeah i think the worst thing

33:40

from a lot of i guess movies i guess you would have discussed is like people saying oh it's just impossible to find

33:46

um same with modeling oh impossible to find disabled models impossible to find trans models impossible and it's like no

33:53

we all exist it's just or it's too hard yeah yeah and a disability yeah

34:00

and it's it yeah yeah and like i could have found you know like a typically attractive looking

34:06

female that happens i'm sure there's plenty that exists in the world yeah and especially considering the other the

34:13

other other actor is already a big draw card you know they always worry about oh well jake gyllenhaal's pretty bloody

34:19

famous

34:24

all right i think it's time to give our scores out of five on the inclusive disability representation scale so if

34:31

you're following along for the first time five out of five is like pretty much the perfect portrayal of disability and zero

34:39

or sometimes we do dabble with some negative numbers depending on how terrible it is

34:45

uh is means that it's not great so robin do you want to kick us off what

34:50

did you score yeah i gave it a four to a four and a half depending on you know just because

34:56

again we want to see authentic casting um but the the movie obviously hit hard by the

35:02

way that i was like just a mess afterwards so yeah pretty much yeah that and like

35:10

in the city when i was like six maybe yeah yeah too funny i was a three and a

35:17

half out of five just because just a massive disappointment i think

35:22

like you know to have that you know like a female lead role the character is disabled like such an awesome

35:29

opportunity 12 12 years ago or just over 12 years ago and to then not cast it authentically

35:35

and like you've said jake gyllenhaal was already that kind of like star power draw card could have like launched you

35:41

know a disabled actress career yeah i'm just i'm sticking that crap so

35:48

i'm going to take off a whole 1.5 fresh for just that

35:54

that's valid um i was gonna do three and a half but i'm gonna do three

36:00

for the lack of diversity and a very very white cast um

36:05

and that's i think another thing like people just go one

36:10

marginalization is enough that's it like oh my you're why you're disabled that's enough

36:16

they pick the most palatable version of like yeah some of them have a group where they

36:22

have like one of everything but like [Music]

36:33

i am sick of that crap um that whole yeah you know if you fit this box that's

36:40

okay you're the most palatable version of a disabled person a trans person an ex person and then if you

36:46

like myself fit into more oh my god just too difficult just ah my brain's gonna

36:52

explode like i just don't want to deal with it that sort of stuff which is exhausting because it just makes you feel like your existence is

36:59

too hard for people and people will have literally told me in the medical field that it's just too hard to deal with me

37:06

like you know respect my pronouns understand my disability understand my chronic illnesses

37:11

you know not be racist like oh my god that's so difficult but really

37:17

well like but it is i've actually had people like openly say stuff like that and

37:23

openly say things like you know here's the thing though like this is gonna sound super contentious until i

37:30

explain to myself but like i actually think it is difficult because they have like we all have so much to unlearn

37:36

but it's that's not your problem like that's society's problem like it's all our own responsibility to unlearn

37:43

all this that's been ingrained in us and also like treat this human

37:48

in front of us with the respect that they deserve like it can be hard like i think that's the

37:55

thing that sometimes like you know and i think that's something i'm learning as well the more i do advocacy work as well

38:01

is that like actually it can be difficult to unlearn all the crap and so i understand to a degree

38:08

but the the ignorance then when they when when you provide that opportunity when they refuse to do

38:14

that work or learn and when they're just like well that's the part where it's like you

38:19

don't get to do it i think i think that's that's the difference between a decent and a non-decent person though

38:25

it's like yeah okay i need to unlearn this i've made an error i'm willing to learn and

38:31

change or that you're making my life too difficult i don't want to deal with you and that's

38:36

that's the that's the point it's kind of like if so like this happens quite often which

38:43

it shouldn't like it's kind of like when someone is micro-aggressive or racist and you just go that wasn't really appropriate instead

38:50

of them going oh my god i shouldn't have said that you know they take it as an attack on their character and they take

38:56

it as an attack on how dare you call me a racist or whatever it may be and it's like i didn't use that word i just said

39:03

that that made me uncomfortable or that wasn't really appropriate just be mindful but it's almost like

39:09

that's the difference because then you know if you're a decent human being you go oh yep shouldn't have said that

39:15

i'll make a note i won't do that again and we move on and it's that's it or then there's the people that just

39:22

take it to a whole different level like they shouldn't um and then that's when it becomes more of an issue than it

39:27

should could have been because it was a learning opportunity that now you've taken as an attack on whom you are and

39:33

really it wasn't that i think there's that assumption that we're like demanding so much and like i don't have a problem if people slip up

39:39

whether it's with pronouns or whatever like we all make mistakes but it's how you go about like correcting that

39:45

afterwards and how you move on from that experience which you should be able to learn from like you know i speak to all

39:50

different kinds of people and i'm like oh i need to like shift my perception on this because i've learned this is this

39:55

like that's that's the process that you go through i think when you're trying to be a better person and that's you know what people should be aiming for

40:02

yeah and i think that's that's the key point though the the wanting and trying to be a better person it's the same

40:08

principle like you know when you're using gendered language or whatever um and then you you

40:14

and like if someone makes a mistake and they make this massive deal about it you make everyone super awkward and you're

40:19

just like that's correct move on that's it don't don't like do that because then

40:24

you then put the onus on the person that you've misgendered to to re-explain and like forgive you in a way

40:31

yes it's like you're you're making a big deal so that and whether this is consciousness or not

40:37

like essentially like with the subconscious even like you are making a big deal for them to say oh it's okay

40:43

so that then you can walk away and be like yeah and you're once again centering yourself

40:49

as the person that has done whatever incorrectly rather than the person that you

40:55

potentially consciously or inadvertently or subconsciously harmed in minor or

41:01

major ways and i think that is a big part of living with a disability but any

41:07

other sort of non you know mainstreamed cohort that people just just yeah i guess that's the

41:14

thing about unlearning and being willing to learn and being accepting and i think that comes to all sorts of inclusion um

41:21

disability you know queerness anything like that i think is the biggest part and also um assumptions of what a

41:27

non-binary person should look like or act like or be like or a queer person or

41:33

and and that as well is an exhausting thing all of it's exhausting and we just want

41:38

to be accepted and valued at the end

41:44

absolutely we want to take a nap whilst you go and educate yourself and that's the thing

41:49

there are lots of people like you know all you know us three even like spen have spent time on social media

41:56

educating so i think this is a good point to leave this episode as well is we've given our scores you know we've

42:03

reviewed love and other drugs but i think you know it's something that we can leave people at home with is

42:08

if there's something that's come up in this episode that you think oh i think i do need to go and learn a bit more about

42:14

that just have a look on instagram or google it like there are so many advocates there's so many resources

42:21

and by resources i mean like people sharing their experiences as well um it's not always just frameworks and

42:27

things that are like can get bogged down but like there are frameworks as well but there are people out there sharing

42:32

their experiences for this reason that you don't have to then go and put all this emotional labor on someone in your

42:39

direct life like a colleague or a friend to educate you like just spend some time yourself

42:44

diversify your like if the last thing the minimum thing that you can do or take away from a lot of the advocacy

42:50

work is diversify your feed diversify the perspectives that you may not be able to get in your daily life but you

42:57

can definitely get that through social media you can definitely get that through connecting or interacting with

43:03

people that don't live the same lives as you and don't deal with the same challenges or barriers that you or you you may live

43:10

with but you can learn from that and then potentially make someone else's life or community so much better just by

43:17

being more aware and more understanding and and and making that conscious effort to be inclusive and if you don't have to

43:24

always get it right but just wanting to is is a huge part of that and i think

43:31

i think people sell themselves short they're like if i don't do it to the best of my ability i shouldn't try at all but actually you know having that

43:38

courage to try and make mistakes and learn from them is the biggest way that you can

43:43

show your allyship and connection and and commitment to wanting that inclusion

43:49

i think that's a perfect place to leave it for this week's episode thank you so so much robin and aki for joining me and

43:55

thank you everyone for following along as well with this episode we want to know what you think um and have thought

44:01

about love and other drugs um you can give us your thoughts by jumping on our social media we have facebook instagram

44:08

and twitter if you search reframe podcast or podcast reframed we'll show up on those three platforms

44:15

if email works best for you you can actually email us at hello reframepodcast.com if you want to know

44:21

what you thought what your idr scores were if you want to say hey to aki or robin or i um and you know let us know

44:29

if there's a special guest that you'd like us to have on um the series or if there's a great tv show or film that you

44:36

would like us to review or a not so great one we're all about having some uh great conversation and being critical as

44:42

well and lastly before we go i just want to say a big thank you to the community broadcasting foundation to for helping

44:48

to fund this series as well bye

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[Music]

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[Music]

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[Applause] you