Andrew Gurza is a disabled queer cripple, and he wants you to know it. After all, the phrase “queer cripple” is tattooed over his nipple — a controversial phrase he knows will give potential lovers pause, but that’s exactly why he did it. Born with cerebral palsy, Gurza has dedicated himself to spreading awareness of the truths of marginalized populations and those within them; to that end, the advocate and creator of the sex and disability-focused podcast “Disabled After Dark” spends much of his time talking about and with people with disabilities and their sex lives. But in doing so, Gurza laments that people forget about one thing: his own.

 

In fact, Andrew says that that kind of invisibility is one of the largest forces in the lives of disabled people. “Ableism works its way into the queer community,” he says, “because we have a very specific aesthetic that we adhere to very rigidly. The disabled body doesn’t follow that, so we’re not seen in magazines. We’re not seen in queer porn. We’re not seen in the queer clubs on the go-go dance box. We’re not seen in all these popular places where queer people — especially, in my case, queer men — go to grow their own knowledge of queerness.”

 

“When [able-bodied people] enter your space and start to see the reality [of disability,] they get really uncomfortable and really unsure,” he says. It’s essential, he adds, to have “a constant check-in to make sure that a non-disabled partner is okay.”