Beyond the Silence

Beyond Beautiful: Disability, Liberation, Love

Season 2, Episode 1 — Beyond the Silence

🎧 Listen to the Episode

🧭 Episode Summary

In this episode, Mandi speaks with Amar Sharif about disabled sexuality, body autonomy, and the systems that deny disabled people access to pleasure and care. Together they explore how stigma, medical gatekeeping, and shame shape disabled people’s experiences — and how reclaiming desire becomes an act of justice.

⚠️ Content Notes

This episode includes discussion of sexuality, sexual health, medical trauma, and ableism. Listener discretion is advised.

🎙 Guest

Amar Sharif is Miss Wheelchair New York 2024 and the founder of Sexy Disabled Folks, where she advocates for equitable access to sexual health and autonomy for people with disabilities.

💬 Key Themes

• Disabled people as sexual beings

• Medical gatekeeping

• Body autonomy

• Disability justice

• Pleasure as resistance

📜 Full Transcript

Mandi: Welcome to Beyond Disability Liberation Love.

I'm Mandi, your Queer Christian Disabled host.

You are officially joining me in season two and I'm really excited about doing interviews this season.

Today's episode is called Beyond the Silence and I do want to warn listeners that we will be discussing mature content.

There may also be some content in this episode that can be triggering, so please listen with discretion.

I am interviewing Amar Sharif, a woman in her early 30s living with Spina Bifida, Anxiety and Depression.

She created Sexy Disabled Folks in 2022 as part of a Master's in Social Work thesis project to create awareness around the gaps in sexual health and sexuality resources available to people with disabilities.

She is a licensed social worker practicing in New York City.

She is hoping to obtain her clinical social work license so that she can open up a private practice that will allow her to support disabled people struggling with sexuality and sexual health concerns to process their experiences and feelings around this issue.

Amar is also Ms. Wheelchair New York 2024, where her platform was "Disabled People's Health is Disabled People's Wealth."

On that platform, she utilized her Instagram and website to create awareness around the issue of disabled people not being seen as sexual beings.

She did this by participating in speaking engagements as well as tabling events. I hope that you enjoy today's episode.

Mandi: Hi Amar, it's so great to have you on the podcast. How are you today?

Amar: I'm great. Thank you so much for having me today.

Mandi: Great. Well, I'm going to jump right in and ask you if you can just introduce yourself in a way that feels most authentic to you.

Amar: Yeah. So my name is Amar and my pronouns are she/her.

I'm a licensed social worker in New York and I'm also the founder of a now small business,

but it originally started as a website and an Instagram called Sexy Disabled Folks.

And my mission is to create awareness around the inequalities around sexual health and sexuality resources and services for people with disabilities.

Mandi: That's amazing.

And you know, I know that disabled people are often desexualized or treated as though sexuality doesn't belong to us.

So I'm interested to know what are some myths about disabled sexuality that you find especially harmful or persistent?

Amar: Oh, yeah. There's definitely a lot that I can think of, but I think the most important that comes to mind is that we cannot be suitable parents.

And that comes from the belief that our physical challenges or cognitive challenges will interfere with our ability to raise a child or multiple children.

And that is really harmful because I have seen Many people in the disability community,

no matter what their type of disability is,

they have become parents and they are wonderful at it.

Mandi: I couldn't agree more.

Obviously, as a parent myself, I definitely experienced a lot of discrimination around parenting, and we'll be actually doing an entire episode on parenting with a disability in just a couple of weeks.

But I couldn't agree more. And I think it starts even before pregnancy or having children. It actually starts at this idea that people with disabilities aren't even sexual or don't have sexual needs.

And I think even for people with, as you mentioned, cognitive or intellectual disabilities,

this idea that, can a person make choices for themselves to be sexual, can a person who has a disability that affects the way that their brain works be a consenting adult? And so that brings up a lot of challenges.

Amar: Absolutely.

Mandi: So I'm curious to know, as you know, I am part of the queer community, and I'm just wondering, how do intersecting identities like disability, gender culture, and even sexuality shape how people experience intimacy and desire?

Amar: Oh, yeah. So I can say as an ally to the queer and trans community, that a lot of times it appears to me at least, that men are often targeted the most when they are disabled, because men in general are expected to be the providers of a relationship or at least a heterosexual relationship, and if they have any type of disability, they are kind of seen as like,

incapable of being such a provider.

Mandi: That's really interesting that you mentioned that. I remember actually having a very similar conversation with my first boyfriend in high school, and we were talking about whether men or women with disabilities, specifically around physical disabilities,

kind of have a harder time, which I think is a conversation that really only takes place and can really happen within couples that have disabilities and really understand what that means.

And he shared the same thing you just shared, that he felt that as a man, that he kind of experienced greater pressures because of heteronormative, and in a lot of ways, conservative traditional views of the roles that men and women have.

So it's really interesting that you bring that up. I'm curious about your thoughts around same sex couples and how you think disability can kind of play into what pleasure and intimacy look like in same sex couples?

Amar: Yeah, I mean, I think that in same sex couples it kind of takes away the concept of like, oh, how are you going to have children?

Because people assume that same sex couples do not have children at all because they are oftentimes ignorant to concepts, things like IVF or adoption.

And also I think that a lot of times when it comes to things like I want to say physical disability,

for example, somebody who may deal with paralysis may not experience pleasure through,

I guess, penis and vagina type of sex. Whereas if they use things like toys, that can bring pleasure.

And oftentimes people in the queer community do use toys. So that, I guess is helpful in that aspect.

Mandi: So in speaking about sexuality, what barriers do you feel like disabled people face when it comes to sexual and reproductive health care?

Amar: I think the thing that comes to mind is the fact that we lack the appropriate services and like health care, that we need to maintain our sexual health and reproductive health.

So, for example, in New York City there is only one clinic that accommodates people with physical, well, women with physical disabilities where they use hoyer lifts for those who need it, as well as straps for the stirrups to keep a woman's legs up.

And the fact that that's the only place in New York City that has that and not every person is aware of that is really harmful to the concept that disabled people are or can be sexual beings.

And even if they're not, they still need to get tested for things like cancer and other sexual health related things.

Mandi: Absolutely. And this makes me think specifically, you know, this place, the one I know you're talking about specifically is targeted towards women. And it does make me think,

as we were talking about intersecting identities, about how does that particular clinic even identify or define what woman means? Right. So it makes me think about like folks with disabilities who are trans and may need specific care around trans needs.

And the idea that we talked about men kind of not having the same kind of access and just even additional pressures when they have disabilities. There aren't a lot of places for male health either, male sexual health in particular.

So I think that's really important to point out and highlight.

So this goes along with that. But I'm wondering how you feel that systems fail disabled people most when it comes to consent, autonomy and bodily agency?

Amar: Yeah. So a lot of times we talk about things like forced sterilization being a thing in the intellectual and developmental community in the past.

But a lot of times people don't recognize that this is still an issue where women with IDD are kind of forced to get tubal litigations or like to get their tubes tied so that they cannot have children because of the belief that they would not make good mothers.

And also the concept of adoption.

I have known many people, especially this one couple, that they are both disabled and struggle to get through the adoption process and get grants to be able to,

to afford adoption because of the idea that they would not be able to manage being parents of a child.

Mandi: Yeah, so you brought up a lot of things there. And I think that people don't realize that there was this forced sterilization of people with disabilities. I mean, thousands of people with disabilities were sterilized against their wills.

Like there were laws in place to do this and that said it was acceptable to do this.

And many of those laws, like, have not even really been looked at or reviewed. And when we look in disability law, there are still so many things that are discriminatory that really do keep the disability community just really segregated and outside of being able to be part of mainstream society, so to speak. And I'm even thinking, and this is obviously not connected to sexuality, but I'm thinking about the laws that allow people with disabilities to be paid below minimum wage.

The fact that that is still something that's legal to do really just boggles my mind. So just thinking about the fact that there was a point where, you know, it was considered not to be unconstitutional to force people with disabilities to not be able to reproduce.

And recently, I mean, we're talking as recent as, like the 1960s.

So that is just heartbreaking.

Amar: Yeah, definitely.

And in terms of the forced sterilization, I have encountered a client when I worked with the IDD population where she has a son and he was adopted by a non disabled parent.

I don't know how that came about.

I think the court determined that she would not be able to take care of him.

So she, this was back in 2020, actually, so five years ago, almost six now.

So I think that, like, the idea that she wouldn't make a good parent has affected her in so many ways. Like, even she was able to acknowledge and understand that this is not good belief.

And her father even expressed the need or his belief that she needed to get her tubes tied so that she wouldn't have any more children.

And that's really unfortunate because she expressed to me that she would love another child.

But as we've mentioned, the disabled population, no matter what type of disability,

is seen as unfit to be in the parent role.

Mandi: Yeah, I really appreciate you bringing this up because there is the legal side of things, which we talked about, and then there is culture and society.

And so even though laws have changed, it doesn't. That doesn't always translate into how people or individuals or even groups of people view disabled people or what they feel they should be pressuring or kind of normalizing.

So what I'm hearing you say is, like, even though now it is illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities, especially in adoption or in parent the parenting realm, there still can be a lot of social or societal pressures that can effectively have the same impact of people with disabilities not being able to engage in consensual acts of intimacy or in parenting.

And so that really does kind of open up to the next question I wanted to ask you,

which is how does your culture, background or your own identity influence how you think about disability, sexuality or just the body in general?

Amar: Yeah, so I identify as an Arab Muslim and I grew up with that being an important aspect of how I was raised.

And if you look at me, I am very white presenting.

So that is not a reason why people treat me differently.

However, I think that because of my culture, I was never given the talk about how sex works and all of that.

And it's almost as if I was raised to believe that I would never engage in any of that.

Mandi: That's really interesting because I think that that idea of someone having a disability really can kind of cross cultures. So I remember just feeling like there was this idea that a non disabled person wanting to be in a relationship with me was not real.

This idea that a non disabled person would just be taking advantage of me and that my only option was to be with another disabled person. Because that was the,

the idea behind that was like that was the only person who wouldn't be just trying to take advantage of me in some sexual way.

So that's kind of what I grew up with. And so it's interesting to hear you talk about how your culture kind of just desexualized you in some ways.

Amar: Yeah, I actually very much agree with that and can relate to that because I too grew up with being told that an able bodied person was going to take advantage of me in that way.

It's almost as if I was taught that I would never be loved unconditionally or wanted or desired for who I am because I'm disabled.

Mandi: Yeah, no, I, I hear that a hundred percent. And something I do want to talk about and it's not to validate this idea that people with disabilities cannot be loved by non disabled people, because clearly that's not true.

But this idea around the fear and why that fear exists, because it is true that sexual trauma and abuse do in fact disproportionately impact disabled people.

So I'm wondering what do you want more people to understand about that reality?

Amar: I think the most important thing to recognize is that unfortunately the disability community is at risk of, at a higher risk of experiencing some form of intimate partner violence or so that could be sexual, emotional, physical, all of that.

I think that it's important to keep that in mind, but also understand that it doesn't have to be that way.

That's not the default of how interabled relationships should be generally.

Mandi: Yeah. And for listeners who are not familiar with this idea of interabled relationships, can you share a little bit about what that means?

Amar: Yeah so interabled relationships are when one partner has any sort of disability and the other partner is non disabled.

So that's the idea that those two identities can fall in love with each other or.

And. Or engage in sexual activity.

Mandi: Yeah. Thank you so much for helping us define that. I actually only recently learned of that term probably within the last five years.

And when I heard of it, my partners typically have been non disabled. I haven't been with many other disabled people, but I also think that there are a lot of people who are still undiagnosed with disabilities.

So I don't know that I can even 100% say that's true. But I did hear this idea of interabled and I thought, oh, what a really neat term that is.

In talking about all of this, I'd love to know what it would mean to you for disabled people to be fully seen as sexual beings without shame, fear or erasure?

Amar: Yeah. I think that it would be important for places such as, like the medical field to be more aware and educated on disability related issues as well as people who provide sexual education to be aware of that too, and to kind of bring that into the focus as well and to acknowledge that it's normal for us to be recognized and acknowledged just like anybody else.

Mandi: I really appreciate you talking about the education piece. I find that as a queer person,

where especially in today's society, anything other than heterosexual is still at the minority and often still experiences discrimination, it can be really hard to get good sexual education.

And even for people who identify as heterosexual, it can still be difficult to really broach that topic. I think we talked a little bit about culture and how that can impact the ability to have those kinds of conversations within families.

There's been plenty of debate about the education system and whether or not the education systems in schools should be teaching young people about sex and sexuality. And I think there are so many taboo things around sex in our society and it becomes more difficult the more marginalized identities that you have.

So it can be difficult if you have a disability to get education on. What does that mean for you to be able to experience that type of intimacy and pleasure?

And then I think when you're a person who's a member of the LGBTQ community,

on top of that, it becomes even more layered where, you know, you can't really find good places to get education about same sex issues as well as disability issues and how all of those things come together.

And I think the more layers you add, whether that be trans or being BIPOC person. Right. Like, all of these layers can make it even more difficult to get educated about sexual health,

you know, healthy sex practices and all of these things. So I really appreciate you bringing that up, that there needs, needs to be more awareness.

Amar: Yeah, definitely.

Mandi: So what do you hope that listeners will carry with them after hearing this conversation?

Amar: I think the most important thing that I'm hoping listeners will take away from this is that it's always important to include everyone in discussions related to sexuality and sexual health.

Mandi: Thank you so much, Amar. I really appreciate this conversation and really appreciate you being so open and vulnerable about your own background and experiences and just helping to educate listeners and bring awareness to this really important topic.

Amar: Yeah, thank you so much.

Mandi: To keep in touch with Amar and follow her work.

You can follow her on Instagram. Sexy Disabled folks, please feel free to also follow me at Intersectional_Access.

You can also keep the conversations going in the Beyond Beautiful collective on Facebook.

Next week, we'll talk more about disabled parenting.

I'm looking forward to that interview.

And if this episode resonates with you, please consider leaving a review and sharing with someone you think would enjoy the content.

And remember, disability, liberation, love are always beyond beautiful.

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