What Do We Owe to People With Disabilities? | Opinion

A theater troupe has made headlines over the past several years for a provocative juxtaposition: Down's Syndrome and drag performances. U.K.-based Drag Syndrome bills itself as a "drag collective featuring highly addictive queens and kings with Down-Syndrome" and "the new queer cultural heroes." A slew of positive media buzz surrounds Drag Syndrome, with profiles in CNN, BBC, and elsewhere.

A video from CNN quotes the troupe's creative director as saying "the artists that I work with are very open-minded. So, I asked them 'would you like to try to do drag?' They got so excited and started researching drag...then they started to develop their own drag characters."

Drag Syndrome has headlined shows across Europe. It even jumped across the pond for an American tour several years ago, making waves when a Republican then-candidate for Congress, Peter Meijer, canceled a Drag Syndrome performance at his Michigan venue in 2019. The cancellation prompted a complaint from the ACLU, which accused Meijer of discriminating against Drag Syndrome performers due to their disability. In a statement defending his decision, Meijer explained that "the involvement of individuals whose ability to act of their own volition is unclear raises serious ethical concerns that I cannot reconcile" and elsewhere stated that he "will always err on the side of defending the vulnerable."

Many considered it "ableist" for Meijer, who won his congressional race and is now a 2024 Senate hopeful, to characterize people with Down's Syndrome as vulnerable. Media attention surrounding the cancellation reported performers were disappointed and frustrated with Meijer's perceived discriminatory behavior.

But by the admission of Drag Syndrome's director, introducing his friends with Down's Syndrome to the concept of drag was his idea, not theirs.

Do people with Down's Syndrome have the ability to fully consent to performances in drag troupes? The irony of Drag Syndrome headlining venues in places like Iceland should not be lost. In Iceland, nearly 100 percent of babies diagnosed in utero with Down's Syndrome are terminated. Vogue U.K. gave a glowing profile of the troupe in 2020, calling the performances "life-affirming." Meanwhile, a young British woman with Down's Syndrome named Heidi Crowter is campaigning to protect the lives of those with Down's Syndrome diagnosed in utero from being targeted for selective abortions. Vogue has yet to profile this young woman's life-affirming work.

This conflict demonstrates that people with disabilities, especially cognitive impairments, do require unique protection throughout their lives. They are extremely vulnerable to termination in utero, vulnerable to sexual assault and exploitation, and most disturbingly, vulnerable to use as entertainment in the dying embers of Western culture. Mistreatment of people with disabilities should serve as a warning for all of us, that the traditional ethical framework that upholds our laws is fading away and a strange new world is being ushered in.

When it comes to people with cognitive impairments, our instinct to uphold consent as the highest value breaks down painfully. Does everyone, regardless of physical and mental capacities, have the same ability to consent to medical procedures or social interactions?

The answer, of course, is no. My own son, born severely cognitively impaired, blind, non-verbal, and non-mobile, is fed by a tube. He is unable to give his full consent to almost any aspect of his life. His limitations do not bring into question his worth and humanity, but they do change my responsibility towards him.

The presence of a disability, regardless of an individual's unique abilities, does demand that an able-bodied person take special care and notice of that individual's limitations, as Peter Meijer argued, especially when introducing a complex and controversial concept like drag performances. This is not ableism, but a necessary ethical recalibration. Vulnerability does require protection. Anything less would be cruelty.

We must continue to afford people with disabilities the dignity that their unique vulnerabilities require. Where social protections begin to break down around the most vulnerable, they will eventually break down for us all. I don't want to live in a world where people like my son are trotted out for the entertainment of those who don't care whether they're terminated as a matter of policy. My son and those like him are gifts to be valued, examples that humanity comes in many forms, and deserve our attention and protection. There's nothing ableist about that.

Rachel Roth Aldhizer writes from North Carolina, where she is a disability advocate and mom to four kids, one of whom is profoundly disabled. Her work on disability policy has appeared in numerous publications, including Public Discourse, WORLD Magazine, The American Conservative, and The Federalist.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.