Alana Schetzer meets Stella Young, a self-described ‘crip’ who likes messing with the tactless.
Don’t call Stella Young ‘‘inspirational’’. ‘‘I find it really patronising when someone assumes you’re an inspiration based on what you look like, rather than knowing anything about the work that you do. They assume your life is horrible and therefore think you must be a really amazing person by getting out of bed every morning and remembering your own name.’’
Still, in a sense, Young, 30, is grateful for people’s insensitivity. ‘‘I’ve got endless material for my comedy about the stupid things non-disabled people say to me. So it’s kind of great.’’
And, whether she likes it or not, Young does come across as kind of inspirational. As well as being a successful stand-up comedian, she is a journalist, editor of the ABC’s disability issues website, Ramp Up, an in-demand master of ceremonies, a high-profile disability activist and, in her spare time, a knitter extraordinaire.
Young and I meet for coffee in the ABC’s Southbank complex to discuss her ever-expanding career.
To say she’s developing a media profile is an understatement. In the past few years, Young has appeared on the ABC’s Monday night institution Q&A, spoken at the 2012 Global Atheist Convention, and written for Frankie magazine and websites mamamia, Daily Life and The Drum, to name but a few.
In the process she’s built a loyal following for her dry wit and willingness to challenge the status quo, especially the politics of language used to talk about disabled people.
Young describes herself as a ‘‘crip’’, a term that gets people flapping their arms about. She defends the word, saying she uses it only when talking about herself. It is part of her quest to make people rethink their attitudes to disabled people.
‘‘I take every opportunity to question why that language is used. People learn to use whatever bodies they have. It really bothers me. And it’s inherent ableism and that’s what I want to challenge.’’
Young was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a near-unpronounceable way of saying ‘‘extremely fragile bones’’.
As a result, she’s very fond of her wheels, a sleek royal blue set she likens to a Toyota – sturdy, reliable and practical. She’d had her old chair for 17 years and was more than ready to trade up.
‘‘I think of that one as a 1975 Datsun!’’ she says, laughing. ‘‘I wrote my old chair a eulogy. It was a really long relationship, the longest in my life, apart from the one with my family. So it was really weird saying goodbye to it.’’
Young had to try out a few models before she settled on her current wheelchair, which she’s dubbed Elita-1, after Transformer Optimus Prime’s girlfriend, because she’s ‘‘shiny and new and gorgeous’’.
‘‘You get funding for a new wheelchair in Victoria every seven years and that’s only $7000. Elita-1 cost $22,000. But it’s good … she climbs curves really well.’’
Despite her profile as a disability activist, Young emphasises that she doesn’t speak on behalf of all disabled people – it’s not like there was a mass meeting and she was elected leader – but she does bring a distinctive voice and perspective to discussions about the way society considers and treats disabled people.
‘‘If kids ask, ‘Why are you small and why do you look funny?’, then I’m very happy to say that grown-ups come in all different shapes and sizes and I’ve grown into my special shape and size and you’ll grow into your special shape and size and isn’t it great that everyone is different?” she says.
‘‘But when adults ask those questions, I like to play with them a bit more.”
Young has, for example, been asked if she has a vagina, she’s had her head patted, and – horrifically – was told on Twitter she was ‘‘an example of why disabled people should be killed at birth’’.
‘‘This woman the other day popped out at me and asked, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and I said I went through a full cycle of the washing machine and dryer and this is what happened. Turns out I’m not machine washable.
‘‘The reality of my life is that I don’t do anything that non-disabled people don’t do and there are just some extra barriers that come in the form of the environment.’’
Young has twice been a state finalist in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Raw Comedy competition. But because many venues don’t have wheelchair access, she doesn’t perform as often as she’d like.
‘‘I really, really, really like stand-up but I don’t like it enough to be hauled up a flight of steps. Thankfully, there are so many ways to do comedy. I think social media has completely changed the world for people with disabilities, who may not have had access to people and communities before in the same kind of way.”
Young appears to have two great loves. She recently became engaged to her boyfriend of six years, Anthony, an accountant. And there’s knitting. She turns on her phone to show me photo of a pair of mittens she recently completed – white and purple with an intricate diamond pattern. They look impressive.
‘‘I’m an obsessive knitter,” she admits. “I’ve made some really weird things. A friend and I had a craft stall and we had a little section for naughty knits, like penis warmers and little penis-shaped ChapStick cosies,’’ she says. ‘‘It’s just that I can’t sit still. I don’t like to just watch TV; I need to be doing something.’’
