"Standing on my titanium legs": Representations of disability among disabled politicians

• In Event: Disability and Media

Abstract

Although one in four Americans reports having a disability (CDC, 2018), disabled Americans lack political representation. Few politicians have disabilities, and, among those who do, a personal experience of impairment does not necessarily lead to a disability identity or a commitment to advancing disability rights or the wellbeing of this population (Reher, 2021). Although scholarly attention to politicians with disabilities is increasing, studies that examine the relationship between disabled politicians and the disability community are still uncommon (Friedman & Scotch, 2017). Our study identified nine politicians with impairments elected at a federal level and serving in office 2025-2026. With this sample, we explore narratives of disability identity and disability politics across varied media forms including: biographies from their campaign websites, biographies from their official website, and tweets from an 8-week period which covered, among other events, the lead up to and passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill and the annual ADA anniversary. Controlling the data sources and time period enabled a comparative study of the rhetorical use (or lack of use) related to disability. The study indicates that politicians were more likely to invoke disability in emotionally charged language in their campaign biographies to show resilience, as compared to their government biographies which tended to downplay or erase disability. In contrast with biographies, tweets offer short-form commentary on daily political events. In tweets, politicians rarely positioned themselves as disabled or mentioned disability, even when issues were critical to this community. When mentioned, disability was typically connected to public benefits and/or veterans. Disability rights such as accessibility, employment, or marriage received almost no mention.

Authors

• David Boatwright, Shippensburg University

• Allison C. Carey, Shippensburg University