Biography
Cheryl Marie Wade, who was often referred to as the "Queen Mother of Gnarly," was a disability activist born and raised in California. She had rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that severely limited her mobility and led her to be a lifelong wheelchair user.
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Cheryl Marie Wade, who was often referred to as the “Queen Mother of Gnarly,” was a disability activist born and raised in California. She had rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that severely limited her mobility and led her to be a lifelong wheelchair user. Beginning in the 1980s in the San Francisco Bay Area, Wade turned her experiences as a woman with severe rheumatoid arthritis into performance poetry, one-woman shows and films that were funny, moving, startling and, above all, unsparing
Her work explored subjects few people thought about if they thought about people with disabilities at all: body image, sexuality, depression, invasive medical procedures, isolation. Cheryl experienced significant hardship as a child -her parents were severe alcoholics and she was SA’ed by her father. By age 10, rheumatoid arthritis manifested itself intensely. By the time she was 16, she was in a wheelchair full time.
While attending the College of Marin, she devoted herself to the Disabled Student’s Union; eventually she became its president and a member of the student government. In 1985, she earned a master’s degree in psychology at Berkeley, where she began writing essays and short stories and eventually joined a writing and performance group made up of women with disabilities. It was through this group where she found her writing voice and discovered the liberating power of performing. In the late 1980’s, she founded Axis, a dance troupe made up of artists with disabilities. She was described as unapologetic, proud, complex and loud. She embodied and modeled disability pride.
- Lifespan
- 1948-2013
- Nationality
- American
- Occupations
- Disability activist, Writer, Performer
- Era
- Disability Rights Movement
- Born
- 1948 Needs source
- Died
- 2013 Needs source
- Tags
- American, Disability Rights Movement, Disability activist, Writer, Performer
- Themes
- Activism, Writing, Arts and Culture, Global History