My name is Chloe Hayden. I'm 25 years
old and I'm an author, an actor, and a
disability advocate. I had teachers and
doctors and psychologists tell me and my
parents that I'm not able to achieve
things because I'm autistic. I'm doing
everything I'm doing because I'm
autistic. I'm able to have the life I do
and do the things I do because I'm a
neurody diverent human and my brain
works in ways that are wonderful and
creative and brilliantly weird. No
neurotypical could do what I do. and I
can't drive a car and I can't eat bread
food and I can't do basic math, but I
can also do things and have already
achieved things that people twice my age
would never be able to do. We don't have
to be afraid of the word disabled or,
you know, start calling it differently
aabled. I'm disabled and I'm okay with
being disabled. It's not a bad thing and
being disabled can be a beautiful,
wonderful, incredible thing. Just
because I'm autistic doesn't mean I like
trains.
That's a lie because I've always been
like I'm autistic and I don't like
trains so I'm not like the stereotype.
And then my special interest is the
Titanic. Like I'm obsessed with it. And
someone was like, "Babe, that's
literally a sea train." And I was like,
"Damn it." The power of social media has
been instrumental in changing both the
way that people view disabilities and
the way that disabled people are
actually able to have a voice. We've
been left out of traditional media for
our entire lives. Now, when the ball's
in our court and we're able to be the
ones that share our stories, it entirely
changes the way that the world views it,
reaching people that may otherwise have
never heard about certain disabilities
or had access to learning about certain
disabilities um and just had access to
unlearning and relearning what disabled
people are like and what our experiences
are. It's massive. Social media has a
massive impact on the way that we view
things. If I saw one person that was
like me in the media, um I wouldn't have
thought that I wasn't supposed to be
here. You know, I just needed one person
that I could look to and go, "Oh, okay.
I get it now." And a lot of disabled
people growing up didn't have that. So
to now have International Day of People
with disability and young people and
just humans in general to be able to see
representation of all aspects is so
important. And hopefully that does mean
that there is some, you know,
13-year-old girl out there who goes,
"Okay, well, if she's supposed to exist,
so am I.