Dear Beloved,

Greetings to you across the distance! This Fall, when I haven’t been enjoying cooler weather while dodging sidewalk obstacles with my Guide Dog, supporting our local coffee shops, or organizing small groups at my congregation, I’ve been focusing my energy on growth. Through the mutual learning opportunities of PeoplesHub, and the UUA’s own Meet the Moment framework, I’ve been growing my understanding of both myself, and about fellow disabled Unitarian Universalists. I find moving back a bit to see and find out what I don’t know refreshing, and it allows me to reexamine my heart and my work.

It’s been 10 years since I was in school, and while I don’t miss trying to get the accommodations I need to learn, I miss the part where I was learning with other people. Being a member of one cohort of peers, and leading another this season have scratched an itch, and, of course, taught me a lot.

Back in August, I applied to join the Fall session of the peer-lead PeoplesHub Undoing Internalized Ableism cohort. When the opportunity first came across my inbox, I flagged it for a later me to consider. Applying to this program meant admitting something that I knew intellectually but didn’t usually let myself consider. Sure, if you asked me flat out if I had internalized ableism, I’d likely have shrugged, sighed, and admitted that I likely did. I’d learned of the concept many years ago— that it’s something we all have in us due to these inherent systems of oppression in which we exist. But accepting that it was a part of me, when I’ve been fighting the monster that is ableism, learning and then teaching about accessibility, and organizing myself and fellow disabled people for 17 years was an entirely different thing. Saying yes and putting the many meeting dates on my calendar was like ripping off a band-aid.

The beginning of the six-week chore was a little bit of a struggle. The 20 cohort members, (plus a handful of facilitators) all had different disabilities, and no one else was blind like me. Some needed CART (real-time captioning), some people needed us to go slower, some needed more breaks, more reminders, and more. I needed accessible materials, descriptions of visuals, help when activities required one to use the mouse, for the facilitators to vocalize which slide we were on at times, etc. It’s a lot. I struggled through my ever-present anxiety in order to ask for my access needs, feeling apprehensive about taking up space, and wondered as well just how many times I’d have to ask my autistic clarifying questions over the month in a half, and if the cohort members would become annoyed. While all that was swirling around in my head like a tornado, I realized that there was a high chance I just might have some internalized ableism.

The PeoplesHub cohort ended up being a rich, collaborative, and educational experience for me, and I was sad when it ended. While there are less meetings and subgroups, the UPLIFT Access Wave Cohort I’ve been focusing on has also been fulfilling my need to learn with peers. It’s the UUA’s only Wave Cohort that’s for and by disabled people, and we’ve been connecting with each other and discussing big questions together this Fall. It’s a group of people with different disabilities, from different backgrounds, and with some different and some similar perspectives on what’s needed in our communities. At the end of the cohort, we’ll be sharing much of what we’ve learned in order for the UUA and congregations to grow their own understanding of what’s needed by disabled individuals and communities.

Learning and growth also comes from reading (one of my favorite pastimes), and I’m excited to get to tell you that the UU Common Read for 2025-2026 is now available in audio! I’m buying Social Change Now from Libro.FM, and I’ll be hitting play later today.

Wishing you a multitude of opportunities to learn,

Gretchen

Peoples Hub

[Paraphrased from their website]: PeoplesHub is an online popular education school for activists based in the U.S. They are led by and for disabled organizers and allies. They offer public and private trainings, communities of practice, and peer support that is grounded in Solidarity Economy and Disability Justice principles.