Celebrating Disability Pride Month: Stories From Career Driven Women With Disabilities

Women aren’t letting their disabilities stop them from achieving their career goals; they are instead striving to reach new heights despite having a condition that limits them. They are breaking down barriers instead of being defined by them.

July is Disability Pride Month, and it’s a time to celebrate the accomplishments and milestones of women who have chosen to defy the status quo. According to The Arc, Disability Pride Month honors the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and promotes disability culture and visibility. The act was signed into law on July 26, 1990, with the first Disability Pride Day taking place that same year in Boston. In 2004, Chicago held the first Disability Parade.

People with disabilities, especially women, have helped shape history. From Claudia Gordon to Yolanda Thompson, women who live with disabilities have often been overlooked and undervalued, but they have continued to inspire change. In honor of Disability Pride Month, we highlight four career-driven women who have persevered despite their challenges.

Hailing from Jamaica, Claudia Gordon made history as the first deaf African-American woman to become a lawyer. She was also the first deaf student to graduate from the American University Washington College of Law in DC in 2000.

Claudia’s career and accomplishments are a mile long, as she served in the Obama Administration as Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. In 2022, former president Joe Biden selected Claudia for a coveted position on the National Council on Disability. She was later appointed as chair of the council on April 9, 2024.

Now, Claudia serves as the Senior Accessibility Strategy Partner for T-Mobile after previously serving as the Senior Manager of Government and Compliance at Sprint.

Gabi Angelini is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and North Carolina business owner with Down syndrome who is at the helm of two nonprofit organizations.

Gabi was struggling to find a job, facing rejection after rejection due to her disability. According to the News & Observer, before the North Carolina native started her own business, she applied to work at a smoothie factory. After the interview, the employer told her she would be too slow at this job.

Following this incident, Gabi co-founded Gabi’s Grounds Coffee with her mother, Mary, in 2017. In 2020, she pivoted her focus to shipping, starting Gabi’s PALS (Packaging, Assembling, Labeling, and Shipping). The company, which packages everything from coffee to candles, currently has 46 employees. Gabi has used her experiences with finding work to pay it forward, hiring employees with disabilities, and giving them a fair chance.

Chicago native Stephanie Thomas is a disability fashion stylist, speaker, voice actor, professor, and the founder of Cur8able. A congenital amputee, Stephanie was born without three toes and a right thumb. Doctors told her she would not be able to walk. Determined not to let her disability stop her, she decided to create Cur8able to end ableism in the fashion industry.

The stylist has become the go-to for Hollywood celebrities in the industry with disabilities, using fashion to advocate against ableism. She brings high fashion to her clients, letting them know it is not unattainable to them. Since launching in 2010, her business has been thriving.

“Cur8ble solves two problems. It is a disability styling consultancy, and we simply are shopping and we de-stress dressing,” she told ABC7.

Shelby Lynch is a 28-year-old beauty and fashion influencer with spinal muscular atrophy type 2. Her condition causes muscle weakness and trouble breathing, leading her to use a ventilator at all times. Using her ever-growing online platform, Shelby encourages the fashion industry to be more accepting of disabled people.

Her content allows her viewers to see that fashion doesn’t have just one type. As a content creator, model, and disability activist, she has received significant mainstream attention from interviews to gracing the cover of Glamour Magazine UK. She has used her platform to inform people of not only her disability, but what it’s like to be disabled in general.

In 2018, she penned an article for Cosmopolitan Magazine about the struggles of shopping on the high street in a wheelchair. The article detailed the daily challenges she faces every day. Today, Lynch continues to grow on both her Instagram and TikTok, sharing her story.