Ableism

It's about...

Anti-ableism, it's about learning about all of these systems that oppress so many people, including people in larger bodies.

I love that.

And honestly, before this conversation, I had no idea that it was so all-encompassing.

My guest today is Canon Tim Good, a residentiary canon at York Minster.

Tim is Canon for Congregational Discipleship and Nurture, and he's the author of the recently published Breaking Not Broken, Ableism and the Church after Constantine.

I'm recording this with Tim up here in York because he invited me to contribute to a symposium he ran yesterday entitled Reframing Healing for Our Time, Faith, Health and the Human Condition.

And we're recording this podcast in July 2026.

And you're going to make a documentary about a little white boy.

Are you actually joking? I have been fighting ableist media for four years, not just on this podcast, but on the website with the Anti-Ableist ADHD Media Coalition.

And seemingly, four years later, we haven't got anywhere.

I am so angry.

But...

All of that said, sucking in through the eyeballs and swallowing the lump in my throat, as bleak and frightening and infuriating as all of this is, to feel as though Channel 4 has just dragged us backwards four years, there is still progress.

Though the two campaigns I have attempted, the Anti-Ableist ADHD Media Coalition and the Make It Count campaign, were not successful, try as I might, the activism I entered this space to do took an unexpected path, which has led to creating a national network of free support groups informed by the community we support.

And they are working.

Griff.

For being, I guess, what would that be? Ableist?

Reductive at, like,

yeah.

And, um, we're very deficits-based, right? And it's just-

Ableism.

The ableism-

Yes

Open office.

Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with disabilities because maybe they can't walk in 'cause they don't have legs.

Fuck off.

So every nail salon that says walk-ins welcome is gonna have to change their fucking neon sign to say walk-in or roll-ins or crutch-ins available, because God forbid you lost a limb in Vietnam and you gotta roll in to get a one-legged pedicure, and that sign, trigger warning, oh, excuse me, content note, is really gonna fuck up somebody's day.

Little bit, uh, ableist, but okay.

What? Ableism is...

Crackheads and I are not disabled.

Well, well, th- disabled from society, are they not?