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International Day for People with Disability Ambassador Hayden Moon: Championing Change Across Disability, Gender, and Culture

Happy International Day for People with Disability! Today, we’re joined by Hayden Moon, a 2024 Ambassador for this significant day. In this episode, Hayden shares their remarkable journey as a queer, trans, legally blind advocate and leader.


Together, we explore the importance of diverse representation in disability advocacy and his experiences at Parliament House to push for systemic change last week.  Hayden also opens up about their passion for dance, their community-focused advocacy, and the challenges of breaking barriers in traditionally binary spaces.


Connect with Peta:

Instagram: @petahooke







 

Episode Transcript:

 

Peta [00:00:02] Hello and welcome to the I Can't Stand podcast. The podcast answering your questions on what life is like when you have a disability. My name is Peta. I have cerebral palsy and I'm your host. Happy International Day for people with disability. Everyone, today is Tuesday, December 3rd, and it's International Day for people with disability. To celebrate. I'm very pleased to be able to say that I have Hayden Moon here on the podcast this week. Hayden is one of the ambassadors for International Day for People with Disability. And I can certainly say why they were chosen. They are very eloquent, passionate and a fantastic advocate for bo th the disability community, the trans community and the queer community. I loved this conversation, and I hope you do, too. So without any further ado, let's get into it.

 

Hayden [00:01:16] Hi, everyone. I'm Hayden Moon. My pronouns are he, they. And I'm one of the ambassadors for International Day of People with Disability this year in 2024.

 

Peta [00:01:27] Massive. Congratulations. I'm so excited for you being appointed ambassador for International Day for Disability. Must be such a huge honour. How does it feel to be recognised in this way? Be really interested.

 

Hayden [00:01:42] Yeah, it feels amazing. Like I'm just still quite. Shocked isn't the right word. I don't know what the right word is still quite blown away, I guess, by it. As an advocate. That's. That's your dream, right? Like your dream is to get to federal parliament to advocate for your communities. And I just did that. So I'm just like, my gosh, yeah, it's huge. It's huge. And I'm just so honoured and I feel like it's such a privilege to be given this opportunity to get to represent my communities and to advocate for us.

 

Peta [00:02:19] I'll speak for myself. I don't want to speak for all the people in the community, but I'm so thrilled that International Day for people with Disabilities so diverse as well because we have so many different disabilities, of course. But also we can come from almost all sorts of different minorities. So I think it's fantastic to see such a plethora of what a disabled life can be for people who don't know. Can you explain why you went to Parliament as part of International Day for people with disability? Because for some people, I'm sure they just see posts online and they don't really know the significance and importance of the day. Heightened.

 

Hayden [00:02:58] Having those opportunities to speak to members of Parliament about what our community needs is so benefit. It's so important. As we know, there's not a lot of representation of disabled people in governments. You know, there's really only one politician that I can think of, which would be Senator Jordon Steele-john, who's actually really pushing for our rights. And, you know, Amanda Rishworth is doing good work as well, but doesn't identify as a person with disability. Firstly, I think we need to have more disabled people in Parliament. But you know, even just to get there, we need to have our voices heard. So when most people in Parliament don't have a disability, don't live with disability, don't live with somebody who has a disability, they're not going to know what our needs are, and they might be trying their best to support us and to pass bills and I guess advocate for us. But if they haven't got our lived experience and they don't know anyone personally with our lived experience, then they're not really going to know what we need. So having voices from our community who can advocate for what we need and people with diverse disabilities like, as you said, this year's line up of ambassadors is quite diverse. We have a representation of all different races or different disabilities. You know, we've got queer people. We've got me as a trans person and we need that because disability advocacy is not just wheelchair accessible spaces, which we still need, but there's a lot more access needs and accessibility requirements that we need to be pushing for. And yeah, I think like a lot of our politicians just aren't going to know what those are unless they have people with lived experience of diverse disabilities, just basically educating them in a polite way and just saying like, Hey, this is how I live my life, this is what would benefit me. I'm just having those conversations. We need to get our voices out there to the people who can actually make that change. And, you know, unfortunately, the the only way to do that is to speak to politicians, to go to state parliament, to go to federal parliament. I say, unfortunately, because it's not accessible to a lot of people, but it means that those of us who it is accessible do need to be taking the voices, not just our voices, but the voices of members of our community who aren't able to get to places like Parliament House and push those narratives and get our needs across.

 

Peta [00:05:27] Sorry. How much prep did you do in order to be ready to have this very important meeting with people in power that you did in Canberra yesterday? A lot of issues that we live with every day. It's very close to our hearts. Was it something close to your heart and something you could speak to off the cuff with in certain areas that you really wanted to hit that were issues that you knew that were true to yourself, true to your communities, that you really wanted to make sure that the politicians understood to the highest of their ability.

 

Hayden [00:06:02] It's a very good question in so many ways. But what struck me about the way you ask that question is, yeah. Were there specific things that I really wanted to speak about that I was very passionate about and I really wanted to get across to the politicians? And the answer is yes. But the difficulty in answering this question is that, like, we really didn't have a lot of time to actually speak to the members of parliament. It's the last sitting week of parliament this week. So they were trying to push through like every bill that hasn't been voted on this year. They were trying to push through before Parliament ended for the year. So it was not the best timing in that sense because what happens in Federal Parliament is that they ring a bell. It's kind of like a school bell, which was not very autistic friendly, but we'll get to that. But they ring a bell every time the members of parliament have to vote on a bill that's being proposed. And they were pushing through about I think they're pushing through about 30 bills this week alone. So we were there for about two hours. And in those two hours, they were pushing through seven bills. So the bell was ringing pretty non-stop, which was, I'm sure, frustrating for the employees, but also frustrating for us because the employees had to keep leaving to go in and vote in parliament and then come back and then go and come back. So it was disrupted for, you know, for good reason because they're doing their job as members of parliament. But it did mean that we weren't we didn't have the amount of time that we were expecting to be able to actually communicate with them, which was a bit of a shame. The way that the event ran was that there was like half an hour of like mingling and chatting, and then there was 45 minutes of like official proceedings. So there was like an emcee. And then all videos were played, the promo videos, which you've probably seen. And then each of us said something a little bit about ourselves and what we do. And there was a speech from Minister Amanda Rishworth, Minister Bill Shorten and Minister Penny Wong. We really only had maybe a minute or two to really actually chat to the ministers, which again is no one's fault like it was the last sitting week of Parliament. They're very busy. They had to vote on things. But it was it was a shame as an advocate to have gone all the way to Federal Parliament to have this opportunity to advocate for our community and really not have a lot of opportunity to do that. So, yeah, I kind of, you know, very briefly, you know, I said hello to them and it's a short and then said, you know, thank you for the work you're doing. You know, there are a lot more things that we need to be pushing for the disabled community. We need to look beyond the NDIS because like I'm not even on the NDIS, you know, and there's a lot of disabled people who aren't on it and also disabled people who want to be on it who need support. And myself and Minister Rishworth had actually had quite a long discussion a couple of weeks back when she was in Sydney where we just we were able to discuss quite a significant amount. Which I'm very grateful for because yeah, we had about 30s of like a quick. I gave her a hug, said hello and then, you know, she was like, Thank you so much for coming. And then her assistant was like, We need to go. We need to go. So, you know, it was a bit of a chaotic, but I'm I'm really glad that I was able to meet with Minister Rishworth a couple of weeks back. And we actually sat down for for morning tea. We spoke for about 20, maybe 20 minutes, 25 minutes. And, you know, I said these are the things that are important to my team, to me and my communities, you know, and I really spoke to her about, you know, the trans community and, you know, the amount of hype that's increasing and how we really need to be supporting trans youth right now. I spoke to her about, you know, we need to be looking further than just the NDIS. She's also doing a lot of really good work for survivors of domestic family and sexual violence. And I'm a survivor as well. So we spoke about that. And Minister Wong kind of. She turned up quite late in the proceedings. I'm not sure where she was coming from, but she obviously had other commitments, so she turned up quite late and then really only stayed about five minutes, so. Well, I didn't even have a chance to say anything other than like, hello just to make. Yeah, there were other like stakeholders and people that we could communicate with as well, who again can also get our messages to the politicians. So it was a, you know, it's not like I didn't get to advocate at all. I did you know, I spoke to quite a lot of people. But in terms of speaking to politicians specifically in that at that event. We didn't have as much opportunity as I think we were all hoping to.

 

Peta [00:10:56] First and foremost, thank you for doing that. Work like that is so important for the disability community. Thank you so much. It sounds very tiring, very anxiety inducing because it is so much responsibility. So I can't imagine being in an atmosphere where bells are going off that isn't very neurodivergent friendly, that isn't possibly very friendly for people with hearing impairment. I've spoken to Senator Jordan's children's on this podcast before in the past, and we spoke about how inaccessible Parliament is, which just goes to the low expectations that disabled people do face every day in regards to the sort of areas of employment or areas of passion that we might want to explore. So I'd love to hear your perspective on that. As a disabled person, what it was like for you engaging in that space that so important?

 

Hayden [00:11:59] Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I definitely agree with with that. It was something that quite a few of us did remark on. Parliament House itself is not particularly accessible to people with disabilities. I think we were quite, quite lucky in the sense that because we were going there as a group of disability advocates, we like specifically had guides who were there to support us and to meet our accessibility needs. Which was really useful for me as someone with low vision. And I also had a support person there as well. They had Auslan interpreters and captions for the speakers as well, which was really useful and subtitles and all the videos. They did say that they had a quiet room that we could go to. But the difficulty with that is that I kind of felt like I couldn't do that in the middle of the formal proceedings because there were speeches and like, you know, the videos were playing and stuff like that. So I was like, well, if I, if I, if I get up and go to the quiet room, then I'm going to look. I'm sure I wouldn't look rude like I'm sure people would know, but like understand why I was doing that. But it's kind of like I'm here as an ambassador and I need to listen to the speeches. And of course I want to listen to the speeches. But there was a big part of me that was like, Why? Why won't you wait until the bells stop ringing? But then I was like, okay, they probably cause they probably got this specific allotted amount of time to do this event and then they've got, you know, back to back meetings or whatever. So I was like, on the one hand, I understood why they were just continuing the speeches through this, like really loud ringing bell. But on the other hand, it was just really inaccessible. So at one point I was just like sitting there, like, covering my ears. But then I was like, no, I don't want the minutes. Ministers who are speaking to think that I'm like blocking my eyes to their speech. And so I was like, are they going to understand that it's the ringing bells and not them? So yeah, then I got quite stressed. So yeah, I would say that it's there's definitely improvements to make in terms of accessibility for autistic people.

 

Peta [00:14:11] Well, that's why it's so important to have people like yourself in those spaces, because I think until you have people with different access needs, people who aren't disabled don't realise how inaccessible a space can be. So I think that's also another really important thing, just physically being present, even though that could be really uncomfortable when you feel like you need to go away and regulate, but it should just highlight hopefully to the event organisers next year to say maybe we could go to a building where the bells don't ring or something along those lines that give you a moment to regulate and really be present in the moment. Because I know it's such an important day for people that are there. So as somebody who is part of a minority, we both are, of course, both being disabled. However, when you are from multiple minorities, I'm sure it can be quite overwhelming with the amount of issues that need to be improved in our community. How do you go about educating people about all the different minorities that you're part of to make sure that they're on your team rather than feeling like they're going to say something wrong or they don't feel comfortable? Because I don't know about you. When I meet someone and I think I'm the first person that they've ever met in a wheelchair, I can feel that instantly uncomfortable. I'm really interested to hear how you put that out in your mind to make sure that your impact is is as positive as it possibly can be in formal settings like yesterday.

 

Hayden [00:15:57] It's interesting because I was saying to someone recently like, I actually kind of I think I'm so used to being in the bubbles I was talking about before. Like I surround myself with queer people, with transpeople, with disabled people, with First nations, people, with black people, people of colour. Like I'm just so used to being in very intersectional spaces that when I step out of those spaces, I often forget, you know, I like I forget that most people haven't met a trans person and I forget the most people haven't met, you know, someone with my vision or someone who is openly autistic. And usually people have met an Aboriginal person, but often I get like, I wouldn't have known. And like, but you don't look at which is racist, but they don't realise it's racist and things like that. And there are times where I have been nervous. I know for a fact that the person I'm meeting is, you know. Not that I think they're going to not be inclusive, but that I just know that they've never met someone like me before and I don't know how it's going to go and how much I'm going to have to educate them. And I try not to show my nerves, but often it does all kind of be a bit like all houses going to go. But for the most part, people have been quite lovely in person. Like most of the hate that I get is online. And, you know, sometimes people screaming slurs at me on the street. But like most of the time, people are just kind of curious as opposed to hateful. And I think for me, working with kids really helps. So I've been teaching Irish dancing to kids for many, many years now. And so you can imagine I get a lot of questions. You got a lot of like, are you a boy or a girl? And why do you have long hair? And like, why do you speak like that and why do you wear pink and why. You know, and they're just curious. And I just answer that question like you should with a child who's learning. And I think that helps because I have so much patience because I work with kids that not that I'm comparing adults to children, but it does it does help. It's such a hard balance because on the one hand, it's not our job and like we're not getting paid for this emotional labour and I shouldn't have to educate these people. But I if I have the capacity, I always will, because I am pretty confident in the fact that that person is not going to go away and do their own research and learn. They're going to expect me to educate them. And if I don't do that, they're going to leave being just as ignorant and then they're going to upset another person in my community with that ignorance. So I'd much rather educate them and send them on their way. Understanding, you know, whichever one of my minority statuses or multiples. Sometimes I get questions on all of my minority statuses. You know, I would rather them leave with an understanding of who I am. Even if, like, exhausting. At least I know that I've benefited my community. I couple months ago actually basically talked somebody out of the the journey to being a tough. So for any listeners who don't know I'm sure you do but for any listeners that don't know that's a trans exclusionary, radical feminist, a feminist in quotations who don't include trans people in their feminism, this is not feminism. It's just transphobia. But. There was a woman who I don't know particularly well, but I. That I knew. And she had read some stuff that was just really trans misogynistic. And I won't repeat it because it's quite awful. And I could tell that she was not that kind of person. I could tell that she was a person that was just very confused. And so I was like, Let's go for a drink. Because she knows I'm trans and that's why she was talking to me about it because she was like, Look, I read this stuff and this is scary to me. And you're trans. Can you help me understand it? And we went for drink and we spoke for about two hours. And, you know, every concern that she had, I just unpacked with her. I listened to her. I heard her. Yes. There was some things that was said that I was like old boy. But I listened to her and I said, look, I hear what you're saying. However, have you considered this? And I am a transmasculine person. I know what it's like to live as a woman. I live for a woman lived as a woman for 23 years. I've never been a woman. But I know what it's like to be seen as untreated as a woman. I know how hard it is to live in this world as a woman. I'm listening to you and I understand you. However, your fears that you're expressing right now are not of trans women there of men. And trans women are not men. Trans women are women. And you can be scared of men. You have every right to be scared of men. You know, maybe not every man because there are some beautiful men out there, but you know what I mean. Like, we just had this conversation. And she was like. And she like, she just didn't know what trans women were and she didn't know what trans people were. She didn't even really understand me. And after this two hours, she had this understanding. She was like, my gosh, I understand now. And I really get what you're saying. And then she was like, Can I give you a hug? And I was like, Of course I'm a big hugger. So she gave me a big hug and she was like, thank you so much. And then the next time I saw her was the sweetest thing. She came up to me and she was like, Hayden, I told all the women at my book club. At my book club about everything you said about trans people in trans women. And now they're all telling everyone. And, you know, like, I just thank you so much for helping me understand. Like, I didn't realise how offensive I was being to the trans community. And, you know, I would never mean to be offensive. I was just confused. I was like, I know. You know, this is an obviously disabled community is the trans community. But this is the fact is that you educate one person and that one person will educate the whole book club and then every member of that book club will go and educate other people. So it's that ripple effect of like, yes, it's exhausting. Yes, we shouldn't have to do it. It would be really nice if we got paid for this emotional labour, trust me. But the benefits, that ripple effect of the amount of people that you can affect just by having one conversation for me is totally worth it for our community.

 

Peta [00:22:01] You're such a kind soul that must take so much emotional labour, but also take on people's fears that can be or could feel quite affronting to you and your identity like. Credit to you for being willing to sit down with someone like that and educate, because that is a really big thing. You said early on in your beautiful explanation there that you are part of the dance community, and I'd love to touch on that because as someone who hasn't been able to access the dance community, maybe if I hadn't had the disability, I might have been into it more than I am or had the experience of being able to engage with the dance community. But my perception, and this is probably where you're going to educate me, Hayden, is that the dance community is quite binary in gender and very sort of staid. So I'd love to hear about your perspective and what happens when someone like you is like gender got nothing to do with it. Is it art form?

 

Hayden [00:23:15] It is really disappointing. Like everyone. Not everyone, but pretty. Pretty much everyone I meet in our age bracket has had similar stories of either not being welcome at all in the dance community or being in the dance community, but not being completely accepted, which is my experience. It's really beautiful to see that now in 2024 and in the past, like ten or so years, there has been a huge increase in accessible dancing. You know, the dance community has become a lot more inclusive. It's kind of devastating as a dancer to know that there are so many people in my age group who would have loved to dance as kids who didn't get that opportunity. But it's also really lovely to see that kids like us now are getting that opportunity and are having their access needs met. And there are adult dance classes out there that will cater to people with different disabilities, like the schools that I'm at now. In terms of gender? Yeah, I think. Dance can be binary in so many ways. It's very is very rigid. Obviously like my main style for the past, like 15 years has been Irish dancing. That is very, very binary. But I also do pole dancing, which I found is just so inclusive in terms of gender. Like they even have mixed pole now, which is incredible because, you know, most dance forms, dance genres don't have a may a major competition that is just dedicated to being inclusive of all genders. So that's huge. And it was interesting for me because I started out in ballet as a kid, so and it was one of the first times I experienced gender dysphoria, which I didn't know. That's what it was at the time. But looking back on it, I remember being devastated that I couldn't do the boys moves like the other boy in class, you know? And I was really devastated by that as a as a child. And I didn't understand why. But obviously I do now. And Irish dancing is very similar. So, for example, there's a whole dance that only women can do, and that's called the slick jig. It's like a fairy dance. So it's very light ability and graceful and pretty and soft. But then the men in soft shoe. You've got to be stamping your heel. You've got to be clicking your heels. You've got to be very strong, very masculine, very aggressive. And for me, that was a very difficult change to make. When I affirmed my gender and wanted it all started to dance as a man. I'd spent years being told not to let my heel touch the ground. And all of a sudden I was being told that I wasn't loud enough and that I was too quiet and that I needed to make more noise and I needed to let my heel, you know, I needed to stamp and things like that.

 

Peta [00:26:13] I find it fascinating that you would want to engage in it. Like, obviously you get so much out of dance, but that you want to engage in a community that is so binary because that must be so confronting that you're walking into a space that you love. But by the very existence of the way you are, you're going against the grain. That's like totally, completely different of how it's quote unquote meant to be.

 

Hayden [00:26:42] Absolutely. And that was a huge challenge. Like when I did first a my gender and I came out to my teacher at the time, at a previous school, she was not accepting at all. You know, she was like, you either dance as a woman and you use your birth name or you leave the school. And I was like, Well, I guess I'm leaving the school then, because this is who I am. It was devastating. It felt like this huge betrayal, like the rug had been pulled out from under me. As you know, I had to I had to fight with pro bono lawyers to get the policy change because they were going to make me dance in the women's. And I was like, I'm not dancing as a woman. I'm not a woman. And they were, you know, talking about my body in such a dehumanising way and like all, you know, like they they were born this way. And so they have to dance like this. And it's like, what did what does my body have to do with what I do, how I dance? You know, like, I should be able to dance, ask myself how I want to dance. It. It was it was a very yeah, it was a very difficult time emotionally. I love Irish dancing. I'm very passionate about it. And because I'm Irish as well as indigenous, my grandma is Irish and we were she was my best friend. We were really, really close. It was something we really bonded over. And so. When all of this was happening, I was like, maybe Irish dancing is just too binary. Maybe they're just not ready for someone like me. You know, maybe. Maybe this just isn't for me. And I thought about taking a break and I just couldn't because I just love it too much. I was like, I love this, you know, this art form too much to step away from it. So the only option that I have is to change it and change it in a way that doesn't change the tradition because it's a very traditional art form, but change it in a way that allows people like me to be able to dance on stage as ourselves. Pacifically as a legally blind person in Irish dance. I mean in all of my dance styles, but specifically in Irish dance, it's quite interesting because where the only dance style in the world that dances multiple people on stage at a time dancing different steps to the same music. You can't get distracted by the other person on stage because that will throw you off. You have to basically ignore the other person or people, depending on if it's 2 or 3 at a time who are on stage with you. And you need to just dance your dance and not get distracted. You know, I have no peripheral vision and I can only see clearly for about a metre. And so it's it's quite amusing for me because often my sighted friends will be like, my God, like she was dancing here and I was so distracted because I could just see out of the corner of my eye and I'm like, Yep. I don't have that issue. That's not a problem for me. And I always like when I'm side stage with the other competitors, I'll talk to who I'm on stage with and I say, Look, I'm legally blind, so just letting you know that I don't have peripheral vision. I can only see this far, so I can't see you. So I'm going to need you to stay out of my way. If I bash into, you know that it's not intentional and everyone's lovely about it. The person who marshals us usually helps me get on stage and get offstage, and the people who are on stage performing will wait until I walk on stage and I stand behind them so I know where to stand. And before we compete, the marshal always takes me around the stage to show me where the front of the stage is as well, so I can navigate the stage as best I can. Yeah, that's all they got to talk about as a blind person. But yeah. Neurodivergent. It's less of an issue in Irish dance, actually, than it is in Paul. I find that the combination of like the flashing lights and, you know, people screaming loudly and the loud music can sometimes be quite a lot. For Irish, it's kind of the opposite in the sense that the bright lights get me and the long days. Irish dance competitions are often very, very long. They often run lights. You know, you're listening to the same piece of Irish music that you've listened to like ten times. Sensory fatigue. I get you know understands competitions whereas football I often will have like this sensory overload. So I guess they affect me in different ways. Because of the way my brain works. As an autistic person, I won't understand the way that my teacher has described a move quite often. But like I said, I'm at schools now where they're very understanding and I'll just say, Hey, can you rephrase that or can you show that to me in a different way? Or can you come over and just explain that to me while I do it? And also, I got to say, in Irish dance as well, the Picasso of elements of it is also a benefit for me as someone with my vision, because there's a few times where I don't even need to see what my teacher's doing because I can hear it. You know, if we're in Honshu, if she does a she's like, You're going to do this. I can hear exactly what noise I should be making with my feet, and I don't actually need to see what her feet of doing because I know what sounds my feet should make.

 

Peta [00:31:50] That's absolutely fascinating. Thank you for that explanation. Particularly your auditory ability must be absolutely fundamental in how you work. And clearly you've found your community in many ways. Hayden So reflecting on your journey, I'd love to give you the opportunity to share some advice for anybody listening today that wants to embrace their identity, but also advocate for their community in such a beautiful way like you do.

 

Hayden [00:32:22] When I didn't have community, I felt like I was so alone and that there was no one else out there like me and that no one would ever accept me as my autistic self. As someone with low vision, as as a trans person, as a queer person, you know, as a First Nations person. Like I genuinely thought that there were there were people out there who would love me as myself, you know, like I thought that I would have to hide parts of myself. And in the past I did like I and every now and then when I go, like recently we were talking about Wicked. I was talking about Wicked with a few friends and I got so excited because I I'm a big musical theatre guy and so like I got so excited and so like when I'm excited, I see him. And so I started, like, you know, flapping my hands. It was like, my God, I'm so excited. And then I like, stop for a bit. And then when I'm sorry that his name came out and all of my friends were like, the two of them should come out. Like, they're like, Yeah, like, it's fine. So to like be in a situation now where the people I'm surrounded by will, like remind me to use my mobility aids and will encourage me to use my mobility aids and wants to spend time with me while I use them and encourage me to stay home and, you know, like love me for who I am with my disabilities, with my gender identity, with my queerness, with my First Nations identity. You know, that would be my first piece of advice, is find community, which I know is easier said than done, especially, you know, if you don't have access to things like social media and things like that. But there are, you know, there are like support groups out there where you can find other people like yourself. It might sound simple, but I think finding community is just the gateway to becoming the advocate that you want to be because being an advocate as well. There's a lot of unfortunately, there's a lot of hate out there. And there are people who will, you know, not be supportive. And that's when you need your community. You know, when you get a hate message because you've advocated for our community, you need like our whole beautiful community or communities, in my case, backing you up. Because what I've found now is that for every one hate comment that I get, there's 20 positive ones. And that's you need that community. Like you cannot be an advocate unless you have a support system. Like I just wouldn't recommend it because sometimes the hate can get to you even if it's just one comment. And that's just because that's how our brains work. Our brains latch on to the negative. But if you've got one, one negative comments and then 20 positive comments and then this whole community or communities of people surrounding you, that's going to allow you to be the advocate that you want to be and to stay healthy while you do it.

 

Peta [00:35:04] Thank you for listening to this very special episode of the I Can't Stand podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. And thank you, Hayden, for your time. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to you. If you want to support the I Can't Stand podcast on Today International, go for people with disability. Please fill in the five stars and do a review. It will take approximately three seconds to do. And if you're not sure, send me DM over on Instagram or send me an email. I'm happy to show you how to do it. It helps more people find this podcast of which I'm very proud of my work, particularly today on International Day for People with Disability. You can always contact me by Instagram. My handle is at Peta Hooke, spelt petahooke And my email address is icantstandpodcast@gmail.com. Thank you so much for listening. And till next week. Have a good one, guys. Bye. I would like to respectfully acknowledge the Wurundjeri people and Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation, of which I recalled the podcast today. And I pay my respects to both elders past and present, along with and especially to those in the First Nations communities who are disabled themselves.

 

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