Down to the Struts

Welcome back to our series highlighting listener favorites over the last nine seasons. We’re on to your favorite from season 5. Qudsiya spoke to Jennifer Natalya Fink, author of the incredible book All Our Families: Disability Lineage and the Future of Kinship . The book opened up a fascinating conversation about how we think about disability within our own families, and how rethinking those famil...

In season 4, Qudsiya had the incredible opportunity to sit down with the legendary international disability rights advocate, Judy Heumann, before her passing on March 4, 2023. Now, almost two years later, her legacy lives on. As we continue the fight for disability rights, the memory of her struggle, and the struggle of so many others who fought, and continue to fight, for dignity, equal opportuni...

We hope you’re enjoying our past season rebroadcasts so far. It’s been fun to take this trip down memory lane to revisit some of the episodes that you all enjoyed the most. We’re on to season 3, and Qudsiya’s conversation with Lydia X. Z. Brown, a disability justice advocate and activist, who has dedicated their life and resources to combating injustice, oppression, and violence in all its forms....

Qudsiya is back with your listener favorite from Season 2—Designing Access for Disabled Students. Qudsiya spoke with Roger Ideishi about his efforts to challenge traditional approaches to occupational therapy by insisting that students with intellectual and developmental disabilities play a central role in shaping their own classroom experiences. Roger has also championed the inclusion of disabled...

As the team works on season 10, we wanted to bring you something extra special. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be recasting listener favorites from across all nine seasons of the podcast, highlighting one episode from each season that you, our listeners, particularly enjoyed. First up is season 1, “The Language of Disability” with disability studies scholar and activist, Sara Acevedo. Qudsiya often...

The team at Down to the Struts is thrilled to share the trailer for Season 4 of Contra*! This season,  Aimi Hamraie  and the  Critical Design Lab  share oral history interviews from the Remote Access Archives. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, they spoke with scholars and activists about mutual aid and pandemic times.  This season, they’ll be sharing some of these conversations. Aimi Hamraie,...

Check out the trailer for Pod Access, a brand new resource hub for Deaf and disabled podcasters from Cheryl Green and Thomas Reid. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit our website⁠ ⁠for transcripts .⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Subscribe to Qudsiya's Substack,  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Getting Down To It⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support the team behind the podcast  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠with a donation⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us...

BONUS EPISODE: Qudsiya chats with Kayla Hamilton, the Bessie Award-winning dancer, educator and consultant. Her performance, choreographic and disability arts work has been presented by institutions across the US. In July 2024, Kayla announced the creation of  Circle O , a new cultural organization established by and for black disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives. In this episode, Ka...

In the Season 9 finale, Qudsiya sits down with a dear friend and a champion of equal employment opportunity for people with disabilities, Amir Rahimi. Amir and Qudsiya talked about Amir’s journey with blindness and employment, and how he uses stand up comedy to make sense of ableism. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our website⁠ ⁠for transcripts.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Subscribe to Qudsiya's Substack,  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Qudsiya speaks with Marissa Ditkowsky, Disability Economic Justice counsel at the  National Partnership for Women and Families . Marissa and Qudsiya talk about the need to advance economic justice for disabled women, and the resources disabled women need to survive and thrive: from consumer protection to access to employment, to reproductive healthcare. And, they talk about what the National Partn...

Qudsiya sits down with retired DC Circuit Court Judge, David Tatel. Judge Tatel's recently released Book,  Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice , chronicles his experiences as a civil rights lawyer, a champion for access to justice, and a jurist on our nation's second highest court. In this conversation he discusses his book and his journey with vision loss, including the dog, Vixen,...

With just two weeks until the US election, access to the ballot has never been more important. But disabled people continue to face accessibility barriers when attempting to vote. This episode dives deep into the realm of voting access with Dessa Cosma and Kenia Flores of Detroit Disability Power. Dessa and Kenia walk Qudsiya through the process of conducting a polling place audit and how Detroit...

In this episode, Qudsiya will take you on a journey with one of her favorite adaptive sports organizations that prioritizes giving blind people access to the natural world. She joined the Metro Washington Association of Blind Athletes , affectionately known as MWABA, for a bike camping adventure along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Washington DC. Thanks to a grant from the Adventure Cycling Asso...

Welcome to season 9 of Down to the Struts! To kick off this season, Qudsiya sits down with Anna Zivarts, the author of  When Driving Is Not An Option: Steering Away From Car Dependency . Anna shares how she has helped to build a coalition of non-drivers to create more accessible communities where disabled people, older adults, children, and so many others can move freely without a car. She also of...

Down to the Struts is back September 24th! Listen to the trailer for a sneak peek at the questions Qudsiya will explore with our guests in season 9: Why is disabled humor so important? What would it look like to travel in a world that isn't designed with cars at the center? How can we ensure that disabled people have what they need to participate in our democracy? And how can we make sure that...

Over the next few weeks, we'll be bringing back some early episodes of Down to the Struts to get ready for season 9. This episode was first broadcast in July 2021, but with a key election just months away, it couldn't be more timely now. Qudsiya sits down with Lisa Schur and Doug Kruse, both professors at Rutgers University. They discuss their research on voting access for people with disa...

Over the next few weeks, we'll be bringing back some early episodes of Down to the Struts to get ready for season 9. This episode, originally broadcast in November 2020, dives into the world of adaptive sports, and specifically looks at Goalball, a sport designed for blind and visually impaired people. Qudsiya is an athlete herself, and in this episode interviews Karla Gilbride and Justin Chan...

Qudsiya shared her love of libraries with Emily Drabinski, the president of the American Library Association. They chatted about ALA's innovative Libraries Transforming Communities program, which is dedicated to providing libraries with the tools and resources they need to be more accessible for people with disabilities, and to enhancing the capacity of small and rural libraries to address the...

Justice Shorter is a skilled organizer and facilitator, disability justice amplifier, and senior advisor on issues at the intersection of race, disability, gender, climate, and crisis. She is a national expert on disability inclusive, disaster protections, and emergency management. And, she is a rare return guest on Down to the Struts. Justice joined the podcast in season one, alongside Conchita H...

Diego Mariscal is the founder, CEO and Chief Disabled Officer of 2Gether-International (2GI), the leading nonprofit startup accelerator run by and for disabled entrepreneurs. A trailblazer at the intersection of advocacy and entrepreneurship, Diego joins Qudsiya to discuss his entrepreneurial origin story, how he started 2GI, and his advice for aspiring disabled entrepreneurs. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit our web...

Down to the Struts welcomes disability equity researcher Bonnie Swenor for a conversation about one of Qudsiya's favorite topics: advancing data and research on the disability experience. They dive into the early experiences that spurred Bonnie's love of science, how her disability journey impacted her pursuit of a career in public health, and using data to uplift the disabled scientists a...

Award-winning recording artist and social entrepreneur Lachi joins Down to the Struts to talk about her love of music, and her vision for how disability culture can transform the music industry. Lachi also tells Qudsiya about her experience hosting the pilot episode of Day Al-Mohamed's PBS Masters Series, Renegades. If you want to learn more about Renegades, head back to episode 2 of this seas...

What is disability culture? Qudsiya is joined in conversation by author, filmmaker, and policy expert Day Al-Mohamed. They talk about Day's approach to transforming social and cultural attitudes about disability. Day sees this as a central tool that goes hand-in-hand with advancing policies that ensure rights and legal protections for disabled people. Day wants people to see disability culture...

Season 8 kicks off with a very special first episode—a love story, just in time for Valentine's Day. On August 19th, 2023, Qudsiya married the love of her life, Sean Collins, in a small celebration in Chicago. Listeners may remember hearing from Sean in the season 1 bonus episode Accessing the News , where he shared his gift of crafting vivid image descriptions to bring important news events t...

Season 8 of Down to the Struts is coming to your podcast feeds on Tuesday, February 13. Listen now for a sneak peek into this season's interviews with disabled filmmakers, access artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists, all of whom are leveraging their disabled genius to create a more just, accessible, and inclusive world. Music by Adrian Morris of  Quartetto Solo. ⁠⁠Visit our website for trans...