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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to the I Can't Stand Podcast for
podcast answering your questions on what life is like when
you have a disability. My name is Peter, I have
several palsy and I'm your host. Happy International Day for
(00:23):
People with Disability everyone. Today is Tuesday, December three, 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,
(00:46):
and I can certainly see why they were chosen. They
are very eloquent, passionate, and a fantastic advocate for both
the disability community, the trans community, and the community. I
loved this conversation and I hope you do too, So
without any further ado, let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Hi. Everyone, I'm Hayden Moon. My pronouns are here they
and I'm one of the ambassadors for International Day of
People with Disability this year in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Massive congratulations. I'm so excited for you. Being appointed ambassador
for International Day for Disability must be such a huge honor.
How does it feel to be recognized in this way,
I'll be really interested.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
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. It's still quite blown away. I guess by it.
As an advocate, that's your dream, right, Like your dream
is to get Federal Parliament to advocate for your communities.
And I just did that. So I'm just like, oh
(02:05):
my gosh. Yeah, it's huge, it's huge, and I'm just
so honored and I feel like it's such a privilege
to be given this opportunity to yeah, to represent my
communities and to advocate for us.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I'll speak for myself. I don't want to speak for
other people in the community, but I'm so thrilled. The
International Day for People with Disability is so diverse as well,
because we have so many different disabilities, of course, but
also we can come from all 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
(02:42):
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 there's significance and importance of
the day Hayden.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Having those opportunit comunities to speak to members of Parliament
about what our community needs is so benefital, It's so
important as we know, there's not a lot of representation
of disabled people in government. You know, there's really only
one politician that I can think of, which would be
Senator Jordan Steel John who's actually really pushing for our rights,
(03:23):
and you know amount of Richworth 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
(03:44):
trying their best to support us and to pass bills
and I guess advocate for us, but if they haven't
got our lift experience, and they don't know anyone personally
with our lift 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
(04:08):
diverse disabilities, Like as you said, this year's lineup of
ambassadors is quite diverse. We have a representation of all
different races, all different disabilities. You know, we've got queer people,
We've got means, a transperson, 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
(04:30):
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, and just having those conversations. We need to
(04:53):
get our voices out there to the people who can
actually make that change. And you know, unfortunately, 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 is accessible
to need to be taking the voices, not just our voices,
(05:16):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So 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 Cambray 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,
or were there certain areas that you really wanted to
(05:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
It's a very good question in so many ways. But
what struck me about the way you asked 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
(06:23):
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
(06:43):
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 thirty bills this week alone.
So we were there for about two hours and in
(07:05):
those two hours, they were pushing through seven bills, so
the bell was ringing pretty NonStop, which was I'm sure
frustrating for the MPs, but also frustrating for us because
the MPs had to keep leaving to go and vote
in parliament and then come back and then go and
come back. So it was disrupted for you know, for
(07:27):
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 forty five minutes of
(07:48):
like official proceedings, so there was like an EMC and
then our 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 amount of Rishworth, Minister Bill
Shorten and Minister of Penning One. We really only had
(08:08):
maybe a minute or two to really actually chat to
the minister's 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 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
(08:31):
to do that. So yeah, I kind of, you know,
very briefly, you know, said hello to Minister Shortened and 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
(08:51):
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
(09:14):
thirty seconds 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 it was a bit chaotic, but
I'm really glad that I was able to meet with
Minister Rishworth a couple of weeks back and we actually
sat down for morning tea. We spoke for about twenty
(09:34):
maybe twenty minutes, twenty five minutes, and you know, I said,
these are the things that are important 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 hate that's increasing, and how we really need
to be supporting trans youth right now. Spoke to her about,
you know, we need to be looking further than just
(09:55):
the NDIS. She's also doing a lot of really good
work for so of domestic family and sexual violence, and
I'm a survivor as well, so we spoke about that,
and yeah, Minister Wong kind of she turned up quite
late in their proceedings. I'm not sure where she was
coming from, but she obviously had other commitments, so she
(10:17):
turned up quite late and then really only stayed about
five minutes. So I didn't even have a chance to
say anything other than like, hell, old this to me. Yeah,
there were other like stakeholders than 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.
(10:39):
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.
Speaker 1 (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
(11:17):
very neurodivergent friendly, that isn't possibly very friendly for people
with hearing impairment. I've spoken to Senator Jordan Steel John'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
(11:42):
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's so important.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
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 disabilities. I think we were quite quite lucky in
the sense that because we were going there as a
(12:21):
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 Osland interpreters and captions for the speakers as well,
(12:45):
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 pres because there were
speeches and like, you know, our videos were playing and
stuff like that. So I was like, well, if I
if I get up and go to the quiet room,
(13:07):
then I'm gonna 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, oh,
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 won't you wait until the
bells stopped ringing? But then I was like, Okay, they
(13:27):
probably can't. They've 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
(13:48):
like covering my ears. But then I was like, oh, no,
I don't want the ministers who are speaking to think
that I'm like blocking my ears to their speech, and
so I was like, oh, they can to understand that
it's the ringing bells are not them, so yeah, and
then I got quite stressed. So yeah, I would say
that there's definitely improvements to make in terms of accessibility
(14:09):
for artistic people.
Speaker 1 (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
realize how inaccessible a space can be. So I think
that's also another really important thing, just physically being present,
(14:32):
even though that can be really uncomfortable when you feel
like you need to go away and regulate, but it
should just highlight, hopefully to the event organizers 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
(14:53):
in the moment, because I know it's such an important
day for people that are there 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
(15:14):
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.
(15:35):
When I meet someone and I think I'm the first
person that they've ever met in a wheelchair, I can
feel they're instantly uncomfortable. I'm really interested to hear how
you work that out in your mind to make sure
that your impact is as positive as it possibly can
be in fullmal settings.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Back yesterday, 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 trans people
with disabled, people with First Nations, people with black people,
people of teller like, I'm just so used to being
in very intersectional spaces that when I step out of
(16:18):
those spaces, I often forget, you know, I like, I
forget that most people haven't met a trans person, and
I forget that most people haven't met, you know, someone
with low vision or someone who is openly autistic, and
usually people have met an aboriginal person. But often I
get like, oh, I wouldn't have known, and like, oh,
but you don't look at which is racist but they
don't realize it's racist, and things like that. And there
(16:42):
are times where I have been nervous where I know
for a fact that the person I'm meeting is you know,
not that I think they're gonna 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 gonna go
and how much I'm gonna have to educate them. And
I try not to show my nerves, but often it does.
I'll kind of be a bit like, Oh, how's this
going to go? But for the most part, people have
(17:06):
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
(17:28):
kids for many, many years now, and so you can
imagine I get a lot of questions. You get 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 do you know? And they're just curious, and
I just answer that question, Mike, 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
(17:49):
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 labor, and I shouldn't
have to educate these people, but I if I have
the capacity, I always will because I am pretty confident
(18:11):
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
(18:32):
one of my minority statuses or multi was. Sometimes I
get questions at all of my minority statuses. You know,
I would rather them leave with an understanding of who
I am, even if it's 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
(18:57):
being a URF. 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 feminist in quotations who
don't include trans people in their feminism is not feminism.
It's just transphobia. But there was a woman who I
(19:18):
don't know particularly well, but 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
(19:39):
for a drink because she knows some 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 your trans can you help me
understand it? And we went for a 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 were some things
that were said that I was like, oh boy, but
(20:02):
I listened to her and I said, look, I hear
what you're saying. However, have you considered this. And I
am a trans masculine person. I know what it's like
to live as a woman. I live for lived as
a woman for twenty three years. I've never been a woman,
but I know what it's like to be seen as
and treated as a woman. I know how hard it
is to live in this world as a woman. I'm
(20:22):
listening to you and I understand you. However, your fears
that you're expressing right now are not of trans women.
They're 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, oh, and
(20:45):
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, oh my gosh, I
understand now and I really get what you're saying. And
then she was like, can I give you a target.
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
(21:06):
saw her was the sweetest thing. She came up to
me and she was like, Hayden, I've told all the
women at my book club at my book club about
everything you said about trans people and 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 realize 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,
(21:27):
you know, this isn't obviously the disabled community is the
trans community. But this is the fact, right, is that
you educate one person, and that one person will educate
their 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 labor, trust me, But
(21:50):
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 ac unity.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
You're such a kind soul haven that must take so
much emotional labor, 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 earlier on in
(22:27):
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 a disability, I might have
been into it more than I am, or had the
experience of being able to engage with the dance community.
(22:51):
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's got nothing to
(23:12):
do with it, It's an art form.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
It is really disappointing. Like everyone, not everyone, but 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, you know, in twenty twenty
(23:38):
four 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.
(24:01):
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.
(24:24):
It's very rigid obviously, Like my main style for the
past like fifteen 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
(24:46):
because you know, most dance forms, dance genres don't have
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
(25:06):
experienced gender dysphoria, which I didn't know that's what it
was at the time, but looking back on it, you know,
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 child, and
I didn't understand why, but obviously I do now, And
Irish dancing is very similar. So, for example, there's a
(25:28):
whole dance that only women can do, and that's called
the slipjig. It's like a fairy dance. So it's very
light and boetic 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.
(25:49):
And for me, that was a very difficult change to make.
When I affirmed my gender and wanted it well 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
(26:09):
let my heel you know, I need to stamp, and
things like that.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I find it fascinating that you would want to engage
in a 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
(26:34):
against the grain. That's like totally completely different of how
it's quote unquote meant to be.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Absolutely and that was a huge challenge. Like when I
did first affirm 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 name,
or you leave the school. And I was like, well,
(27:04):
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 you know, runk had been pulled
out from under me. As you know, I had to
I had to fight, you know, 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,
(27:26):
and they were, you know, talking about my body in
such a dehumanizing way and like, oh, you know, like
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 how I dance?
You know, like I should be able to dance as
myself how I want to dance. It was it was
a very yeah, it was a very difficult time Emotionally.
(27:50):
I love Irish dancing. I'm very passionate about it. And
because I'm Irish as well as Indigenous. My Grandma's 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 this
(28:12):
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
(28:33):
able to dance on stage as ourselves, specifically 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 we're 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
(28:55):
distracted by the other person on stage, because that will
throw you off. You have to basically ignore the other
personal people, depending on if it's two or three to 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 the meter, and so it's it's quite
(29:15):
amusing for me because often my sighted friends will be like,
oh my god, like she was dancing here and I
was so distracted because I could just see her through
the corner of my eye. And I'm like, yeah, 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
(29:36):
you know that I don't have peroferal 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 off stage,
and the people who are on stage before me will
(29:57):
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 stages best I can. Yeah,
that's something I want to talk about as a blind person.
But yeah, neurodivergence, it's less of an issue in Irish
(30:18):
dance actually than it is in Pole. I find that
the combination of like the flashing lights and you know,
people screaming loudly in 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
(30:38):
the long days. Irish dance competitions are often very very long.
They often run late. You know, you're listening to the
same piece of Irish music that you've listened to like
ten times sensory fatigue I get in Irish dance competitions,
whereas for pole I often will have like the sensory overload.
So I guess they affect me in different ways because
(31:01):
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?
(31:22):
And also, I've got to say in Irish dance as well,
the percussive element of it is also a benefit for
me as someone with low 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 hard shoe, if she does a step and
she's like, you're going to do this, I can hear
exactly what noise I should be making with my feet,
(31:42):
and I don't actually need to see what her feet
are doing because I know what sounds my feet should make.
Speaker 1 (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 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
(32:14):
wants to embrace their identity but also advocate for their
community in such a beautiful way like you do.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
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 a trans person, as a queer person, you know,
as a Fast Nations person like I genuinely thought that
there weren't people out there who would love me as myself,
(32:44):
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'm a big music theater gay and so like,
I got so excited, and so like when I'm excited,
(33:04):
I stim and so I started, like you know, flapping
my hands and I was like, oh my god, I'm
so excited. And then I like stopped for a bit,
and then when I'm sorry, the tism came out and
all of my friends were like the chism 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
(33:25):
and will encourage me to use my mobility aids and
wants to spend time with me while I use them
and encourage me to stim and you know, like love
me for who I am, with my disabilities, with my
gender identity, with my queenners, with my first nation's identity.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
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
(34:02):
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.
(34:26):
Because what I've found now is that for every one
hate comment that I get, there's twenty 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 onto the negative.
(34:47):
But if you've got one one negative comment and then
twenty 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. Just stay
healthy while you do it.
Speaker 1 (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 Day for People with Disability.
(35:25):
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 a 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
(35:49):
on International Day for People with Disability. You can always
contact me by Instagram. My handle is at Peter Hook
spelt pe h o o k E and my email
address is I Can't Stand Podcast at gmail dot com.
(36:10):
Thank you so much for listening. Until next week, have
a good one, guys bye. I would like to respectfully
acknowledge they were wondery and bunner wrong people of the
call and nation of which I record the podcast today,
and I pay my respects to both elders past and present,
(36:34):
along with and especially to those in the first Nation's
communities who are disabled themselves.
Hello, and welcome to the I Can't Stand Podcast for
podcast answering your questions on what life is like when
you have a disability. My name is Peter, I have
several palsy and I'm your host. Happy International Day for
(00:23):
People with Disability everyone. Today is Tuesday, December three, 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,
(00:46):
and I can certainly see why they were chosen. They
are very eloquent, passionate, and a fantastic advocate for both
the disability community, the trans community, and the community. I
loved this conversation and I hope you do too, So
without any further ado, let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Hi. Everyone, I'm Hayden Moon. My pronouns are here they
and I'm one of the ambassadors for International Day of
People with Disability this year in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Massive congratulations. I'm so excited for you. Being appointed ambassador
for International Day for Disability must be such a huge honor.
How does it feel to be recognized in this way,
I'll be really interested.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
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. It's still quite blown away. I guess by it.
As an advocate, that's your dream, right, Like your dream
is to get Federal Parliament to advocate for your communities.
And I just did that. So I'm just like, oh
(02:05):
my gosh. Yeah, it's huge, it's huge, and I'm just
so honored and I feel like it's such a privilege
to be given this opportunity to yeah, to represent my
communities and to advocate for us.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I'll speak for myself. I don't want to speak for
other people in the community, but I'm so thrilled. The
International Day for People with Disability is so diverse as well,
because we have so many different disabilities, of course, but
also we can come from all 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
(02:42):
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 there's significance and importance of
the day Hayden.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Having those opportunit comunities to speak to members of Parliament
about what our community needs is so benefital, It's so
important as we know, there's not a lot of representation
of disabled people in government. You know, there's really only
one politician that I can think of, which would be
Senator Jordan Steel John who's actually really pushing for our rights,
(03:23):
and you know amount of Richworth 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
(03:44):
trying their best to support us and to pass bills
and I guess advocate for us, but if they haven't
got our lift experience, and they don't know anyone personally
with our lift 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
(04:08):
diverse disabilities, Like as you said, this year's lineup of
ambassadors is quite diverse. We have a representation of all
different races, all different disabilities. You know, we've got queer people,
We've got means, a transperson, 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
(04:30):
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, and just having those conversations. We need to
(04:53):
get our voices out there to the people who can
actually make that change. And you know, unfortunately, 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 is accessible
to need to be taking the voices, not just our voices,
(05:16):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So 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 Cambray 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,
or were there certain areas that you really wanted to
(05:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
It's a very good question in so many ways. But
what struck me about the way you asked 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
(06:23):
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
(06:43):
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 thirty bills this week alone.
So we were there for about two hours and in
(07:05):
those two hours, they were pushing through seven bills, so
the bell was ringing pretty NonStop, which was I'm sure
frustrating for the MPs, but also frustrating for us because
the MPs had to keep leaving to go and vote
in parliament and then come back and then go and
come back. So it was disrupted for you know, for
(07:27):
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 forty five minutes of
(07:48):
like official proceedings, so there was like an EMC and
then our 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 amount of Rishworth, Minister Bill
Shorten and Minister of Penning One. We really only had
(08:08):
maybe a minute or two to really actually chat to
the minister's 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 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
(08:31):
to do that. So yeah, I kind of, you know,
very briefly, you know, said hello to Minister Shortened and 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
(08:51):
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
(09:14):
thirty seconds 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 it was a bit chaotic, but
I'm really glad that I was able to meet with
Minister Rishworth a couple of weeks back and we actually
sat down for morning tea. We spoke for about twenty
(09:34):
maybe twenty minutes, twenty five minutes, and you know, I said,
these are the things that are important 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 hate that's increasing, and how we really need
to be supporting trans youth right now. Spoke to her about,
you know, we need to be looking further than just
(09:55):
the NDIS. She's also doing a lot of really good
work for so of domestic family and sexual violence, and
I'm a survivor as well, so we spoke about that,
and yeah, Minister Wong kind of she turned up quite
late in their proceedings. I'm not sure where she was
coming from, but she obviously had other commitments, so she
(10:17):
turned up quite late and then really only stayed about
five minutes. So I didn't even have a chance to
say anything other than like, hell, old this to me. Yeah,
there were other like stakeholders than 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.
(10:39):
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.
Speaker 1 (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
(11:17):
very neurodivergent friendly, that isn't possibly very friendly for people
with hearing impairment. I've spoken to Senator Jordan Steel John'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
(11:42):
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's so important.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
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 disabilities. I think we were quite quite lucky in
the sense that because we were going there as a
(12:21):
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 Osland interpreters and captions for the speakers as well,
(12:45):
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 pres because there were
speeches and like, you know, our videos were playing and
stuff like that. So I was like, well, if I
if I get up and go to the quiet room,
(13:07):
then I'm gonna 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, oh,
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 won't you wait until the
bells stopped ringing? But then I was like, Okay, they
(13:27):
probably can't. They've 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
(13:48):
like covering my ears. But then I was like, oh, no,
I don't want the ministers who are speaking to think
that I'm like blocking my ears to their speech, and
so I was like, oh, they can to understand that
it's the ringing bells are not them, so yeah, and
then I got quite stressed. So yeah, I would say
that there's definitely improvements to make in terms of accessibility
(14:09):
for artistic people.
Speaker 1 (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
realize how inaccessible a space can be. So I think
that's also another really important thing, just physically being present,
(14:32):
even though that can be really uncomfortable when you feel
like you need to go away and regulate, but it
should just highlight, hopefully to the event organizers 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
(14:53):
in the moment, because I know it's such an important
day for people that are there 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
(15:14):
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.
(15:35):
When I meet someone and I think I'm the first
person that they've ever met in a wheelchair, I can
feel they're instantly uncomfortable. I'm really interested to hear how
you work that out in your mind to make sure
that your impact is as positive as it possibly can
be in fullmal settings.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Back yesterday, 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 trans people
with disabled, people with First Nations, people with black people,
people of teller like, I'm just so used to being
in very intersectional spaces that when I step out of
(16:18):
those spaces, I often forget, you know, I like, I
forget that most people haven't met a trans person, and
I forget that most people haven't met, you know, someone
with low vision or someone who is openly autistic, and
usually people have met an aboriginal person. But often I
get like, oh, I wouldn't have known, and like, oh,
but you don't look at which is racist but they
don't realize it's racist, and things like that. And there
(16:42):
are times where I have been nervous where I know
for a fact that the person I'm meeting is you know,
not that I think they're gonna 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 gonna go
and how much I'm gonna have to educate them. And
I try not to show my nerves, but often it does.
I'll kind of be a bit like, Oh, how's this
going to go? But for the most part, people have
(17:06):
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
(17:28):
kids for many, many years now, and so you can
imagine I get a lot of questions. You get 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 do you know? And they're just curious, and
I just answer that question, Mike, 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
(17:49):
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 labor, and I shouldn't
have to educate these people, but I if I have
the capacity, I always will because I am pretty confident
(18:11):
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
(18:32):
one of my minority statuses or multi was. Sometimes I
get questions at all of my minority statuses. You know,
I would rather them leave with an understanding of who
I am, even if it's 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
(18:57):
being a URF. 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 feminist in quotations who
don't include trans people in their feminism is not feminism.
It's just transphobia. But there was a woman who I
(19:18):
don't know particularly well, but 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
(19:39):
for a drink because she knows some 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 your trans can you help me
understand it? And we went for a 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 were some things
that were said that I was like, oh boy, but
(20:02):
I listened to her and I said, look, I hear
what you're saying. However, have you considered this. And I
am a trans masculine person. I know what it's like
to live as a woman. I live for lived as
a woman for twenty three years. I've never been a woman,
but I know what it's like to be seen as
and treated as a woman. I know how hard it
is to live in this world as a woman. I'm
(20:22):
listening to you and I understand you. However, your fears
that you're expressing right now are not of trans women.
They're 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, oh, and
(20:45):
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, oh my gosh, I
understand now and I really get what you're saying. And
then she was like, can I give you a target.
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
(21:06):
saw her was the sweetest thing. She came up to
me and she was like, Hayden, I've told all the
women at my book club at my book club about
everything you said about trans people and 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 realize 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,
(21:27):
you know, this isn't obviously the disabled community is the
trans community. But this is the fact, right, is that
you educate one person, and that one person will educate
their 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 labor, trust me, But
(21:50):
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 ac unity.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
You're such a kind soul haven that must take so
much emotional labor, 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 earlier on in
(22:27):
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 a disability, I might have
been into it more than I am, or had the
experience of being able to engage with the dance community.
(22:51):
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's got nothing to
(23:12):
do with it, It's an art form.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
It is really disappointing. Like everyone, not everyone, but 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, you know, in twenty twenty
(23:38):
four 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.
(24:01):
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.
(24:24):
It's very rigid obviously, Like my main style for the
past like fifteen 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
(24:46):
because you know, most dance forms, dance genres don't have
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
(25:06):
experienced gender dysphoria, which I didn't know that's what it
was at the time, but looking back on it, you know,
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 child, and
I didn't understand why, but obviously I do now, And
Irish dancing is very similar. So, for example, there's a
(25:28):
whole dance that only women can do, and that's called
the slipjig. It's like a fairy dance. So it's very
light and boetic 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.
(25:49):
And for me, that was a very difficult change to make.
When I affirmed my gender and wanted it well 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
(26:09):
let my heel you know, I need to stamp, and
things like that.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I find it fascinating that you would want to engage
in a 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
(26:34):
against the grain. That's like totally completely different of how
it's quote unquote meant to be.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Absolutely and that was a huge challenge. Like when I
did first affirm 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 name,
or you leave the school. And I was like, well,
(27:04):
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 you know, runk had been pulled
out from under me. As you know, I had to
I had to fight, you know, 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,
(27:26):
and they were, you know, talking about my body in
such a dehumanizing way and like, oh, you know, like
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 how I dance?
You know, like I should be able to dance as
myself how I want to dance. It was it was
a very yeah, it was a very difficult time Emotionally.
(27:50):
I love Irish dancing. I'm very passionate about it. And
because I'm Irish as well as Indigenous. My Grandma's 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 this
(28:12):
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
(28:33):
able to dance on stage as ourselves, specifically 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 we're 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
(28:55):
distracted by the other person on stage, because that will
throw you off. You have to basically ignore the other
personal people, depending on if it's two or three to 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 the meter, and so it's it's quite
(29:15):
amusing for me because often my sighted friends will be like,
oh my god, like she was dancing here and I
was so distracted because I could just see her through
the corner of my eye. And I'm like, yeah, 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
(29:36):
you know that I don't have peroferal 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 off stage,
and the people who are on stage before me will
(29:57):
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 stages best I can. Yeah,
that's something I want to talk about as a blind person.
But yeah, neurodivergence, it's less of an issue in Irish
(30:18):
dance actually than it is in Pole. I find that
the combination of like the flashing lights and you know,
people screaming loudly in 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
(30:38):
the long days. Irish dance competitions are often very very long.
They often run late. You know, you're listening to the
same piece of Irish music that you've listened to like
ten times sensory fatigue I get in Irish dance competitions,
whereas for pole I often will have like the sensory overload.
So I guess they affect me in different ways because
(31:01):
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?
(31:22):
And also, I've got to say in Irish dance as well,
the percussive element of it is also a benefit for
me as someone with low 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 hard shoe, if she does a step and
she's like, you're going to do this, I can hear
exactly what noise I should be making with my feet,
(31:42):
and I don't actually need to see what her feet
are doing because I know what sounds my feet should make.
Speaker 1 (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 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
(32:14):
wants to embrace their identity but also advocate for their
community in such a beautiful way like you do.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
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 a trans person, as a queer person, you know,
as a Fast Nations person like I genuinely thought that
there weren't people out there who would love me as myself,
(32:44):
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'm a big music theater gay and so like,
I got so excited, and so like when I'm excited,
(33:04):
I stim and so I started, like you know, flapping
my hands and I was like, oh my god, I'm
so excited. And then I like stopped for a bit,
and then when I'm sorry, the tism came out and
all of my friends were like the chism 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
(33:25):
and will encourage me to use my mobility aids and
wants to spend time with me while I use them
and encourage me to stim and you know, like love
me for who I am, with my disabilities, with my
gender identity, with my queenners, with my first nation's identity.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
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
(34:02):
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.
(34:26):
Because what I've found now is that for every one
hate comment that I get, there's twenty 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 onto the negative.
(34:47):
But if you've got one one negative comment and then
twenty 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. Just stay
healthy while you do it.
Speaker 1 (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 Day for People with Disability.
(35:25):
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 a 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
(35:49):
on International Day for People with Disability. You can always
contact me by Instagram. My handle is at Peter Hook
spelt pe h o o k E and my email
address is I Can't Stand Podcast at gmail dot com.
(36:10):
Thank you so much for listening. Until next week, have
a good one, guys bye. I would like to respectfully
acknowledge they were wondery and bunner wrong people of the
call and nation of which I record the podcast today,
and I pay my respects to both elders past and present,
(36:34):
along with and especially to those in the first Nation's
communities who are disabled themselves.
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