being invisible

It is hard to believe that someone that is encase in a large mechanical device, can be invisible but Connor has been invisible on more than one occasion. when he was young, it used to astound me how many individuals would walk right into his chair--in malls, parks and other places--as if he did not exist, as if he were invisible.

when Connor was in high school he participated in the drama club. in fact, he won the Drama award for the highest overall mark. that not withstanding, he was never invited to a class or drama party, never asked to go on school trips and was generally excluded from most events. For all intense purposes he was invisible. Considering the size of his wheelchair and himself, to make him invisible took quite a bit of ingeniuity; but he remained invisible nonetheless. If you mentioned to his fellow students that the parties and venues that they chose were inacessible and that they were deliberately excluding Connor, they would have been mortified. so he remained invisible.
Our families, with no malice intended, all have wheelchair inaccessible homes, even though 2 were purchased after Connor's birth and diagnosis. Every year there is a great discussion in our home about Christmas and the inevitable logistic nightmare of having Connor attend the family Christmas eve dinner; no matter where it is there are problems. The biggest one being that he is invisible. No one talks to him. he and I sit together, usually at a table catching up. One year, a former girlfriend of Jarrett's was there and observed this phenomenon; being a recent graduate of psychology, she was quite fascinated! She noted that there were people all around him, yet, not one had made any effort to engage him in conversation, despite the fact that we were in a house that was less than 1000 square feet. Connor smiled, and said "that's nothing, watch this!" and at that point he yelled out "ROUGH PIRATE SEX" there was no reaction: no head turned, no conversation stopped, no shhhhhhh from the various mothers in the room; he was, for all intense purposes, invisible.
Fast forward to University. Connor is about to graduate from the Humanities and after 4 years he is still invisible. He has won the Senate medal of Honor for the highest achievement in the Humanities program, yet, the post graduate party has been planned at a venue that is inaccessible. This is not the first time in his university career that this has happened but it is certainly the most important.
What most people do not understand is that there is more to inaccessibility than a set of stairs. If the place is not set up with wheelchairs in mind, then there will not be bathroom will not be accessible, nor will it be easy enough for an electric wheelchair to manoeuvre around. Yes, he could transfer to a manual wheelchair, but this leaves him helpless and more invisible. he is then totally dependant on those around.
I have often been accused of being too dramatic, perhaps even melodramatic; however, I highly doubt that any event that involved people of different racial background would be held at a Klu Klux Klan rally. Nor would a PRIDE event occur at a Heritage party meeting. Yet, it does not enter into very many people's consciousness, that a person may not be physically able to enter a premises. the problem is not just that the building has stairs; it is also a perception of the disabled community in general. I describe it as there being two kinds of wheelchair accessible: regular wheelchair and Connor wheelchair. Most of the public think of the media model of the disabled when seeing to accessibility--the Rick Hansen chair or Artie on Glee (who ironically, is played by an able bodied actor). these people are paraplegic and a small part of the disabled community: they still have full use of their arms. Connor and many like him, do not. they therefore, have become the invisible part of our society.
Once, when giving a keynote address to a group of teachers, Connor was asked, which did he think more marginalised him: being gay or being disabled. he answered that he thought that it was being gay, since it was socially unacceptable to be openly hostile toward people in wheelchairs but there are still factions of our society, in which, derogatory remarks toward differently gendered persons are acceptable. Looking on it now, I think he may be in error, because  being invisible seems so much worse.