Disability is diverse and subjective. Many people develop long-term health conditions, and when that happens, two things occur: firstly, everything becomes intensely medical, to ‘cure’ or ‘manage’ the condition. Secondly, there’s no handbook for becoming or identifying as disabled. Sometimes there may be a cognitive dissonance regarding what condition a person lives with and an acceptance of that as disabling.
Disability representation in publishing is on the rise. The Publishers Association stated in their 2020 diversity and inclusion report that the proportion of people within the workforce with disabilities has risen from 5% in 2018 to 8% in 2020. Despite this increase, disability remains under-represented: according to the Publishers Association, there are 13.3 million disabled people in the UK – just under one-fifth of the population.