Search “#DisabledAndCute” on Twitter, and you’ll be deluged with sweet selfies—thanks to Keah Brown. Brown, who has cerebral palsy, first tweeted a few photos of herself in 2017 with that hashtag, and hundreds of disabled people from around the world responded with pix of their own. Over a year later, #DisabledAndCute is still going strong, with new photos and messages being tweeted daily. “It was just me being like, ‘Hey, guess what? I like me now,’” Brown, 26, says. “I wanted to show that you can get to the other side of self-hatred.”
Brown, who has written for publications including Harper’s Bazaar and Essence, is now working on an essay collection called The Pretty One to be released in 2019. Her message to the disability community? “People want to hear the stories you have to tell,” she says. “I hope the hashtag will help change the narrative around disability.”
By Erika W. Smith
Photo courtesy Keah Brown
This article originally appeared in the June/July 2018 print edition of BUST Magazine. Subscribe today!
More from BUST
Roxane Gay Launches Pop-Up Magazine “The Body Is Unruly”
Disability Activists Launch A Virtual Women’s March On Washington
“Yes, You’re Sexist” Twitter Is Genuinely Genius
