The Missing Gendered Lens in Disability Rights
Disability and gender are deeply interconnected, yet their overlap is often overlooked in policy, healthcare, and mental health practice. This post examines the gaps between legal protections and lived realities, highlighting why justice for disabled people must centre consent, autonomy, accessibility, and dignity, both within and beyond the therapy room.
Disability justice cannot be separated from gender justice.
Women, trans people, and non-binary individuals with disabilities experience forms of marginalisation that are shaped by both ableism and patriarchy. These realities are often ignored by legal systems, institutions, and even in conversations around mental health. It is important to look at what our laws currently acknowledge and where they continue to fall short.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to which India is a signatory, affirms that people with disabilities are entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed to every human being.
Article 6 of the Convention specifically recognises that women and girls with disabilities face multiple forms of discrimination and that steps must be taken to ensure their full development and empowerment.
This is a powerful commitment on paper, but how far have we come in turning it into action?
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, passed in India in 2016, marked a shift in how disability is defined and addressed in policy.
The Act recognised a broader range of disabilities and named women and children with disabilities as vulnerable groups.
It also included a provision that makes it a criminal offence to perform a medical procedure leading to the termination of a pregnancy without the informed consent of a disabled woman.
This was an important recognition of bodily autonomy. However, the protections it offers remain limited.
The law does not address several deeply concerning issues.
It does not mention forced sterilisation, a practice that continues to be carried out under the pretext of family welfare or caregiver burden.
There is no specific attention given to the sexual and reproductive health rights of people with disabilities.
There are also no structures in place to hold institutions or professionals accountable when these rights are violated.
Without such clarity and enforcement, the law falls short of its intent.
Disability remains largely invisible in many of the laws that shape daily life.
Existing legislation on domestic violence, sexual assault, education, employment, and public health often fails to address the unique barriers faced by disabled individuals.
These silences have real consequences. They suggest that disabled people are not expected to be part of family life, the workforce, or society in the same ways as others.
They reinforce the idea that disabled lives are less worthy of support, autonomy, or protection.
Even where legal protections exist, they are often not implemented in practice.
Standards for accessibility are routinely ignored in hospitals, schools, public offices, and transportation systems.
Most healthcare professionals receive no training in disability-inclusive practice.
Legal systems remain difficult to navigate for disabled people, especially those facing additional barriers due to gender, class, or communication needs.
These gaps allow violence and neglect to continue unchallenged.
Working toward justice requires more than writing laws.
It involves listening to the experiences of disabled people and acting on what they say.
It means recognising the many forms of harm that occur within medical systems, families, and institutions.
It asks us to rethink how support systems are built and who they are designed to include.
Gender, disability, and mental health are not separate issues. They are deeply connected and must be addressed together.
These questions do not stay outside the therapy room.
Disabled clients may come in carrying years of medical trauma, violation of consent, or being spoken over and spoken for. They may have been treated as incapable of intimacy, parenting, or self-direction. Their realities make it crucial to recognise that therapy is not neutral or apolitical. Therapeutic spaces need to be created where disabled clients are seen as whole people, not as problems to manage or fix.
Consent, autonomy, and dignity are not clinical goals—they are starting points.