>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections on Veronica Volk.

Filling in for Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in a beautiful, chaotic home in Rochester.

It used to be just a husband and wife and their dogs and cats, but they desperately wanted a baby and they had a long, agonizing path to parenthood.

A stillbirth, miscarriages, the loss of hope.

They became foster parents, taking in two boys and soon after another pregnancy, this time triplets.

Two years ago, it was just Stephanie, Ryan and the pets, and now they have five children.

Oh, and by the way, Stephanie and Ryan both use wheelchairs.

The mom is Stephanie Woodward, one of the fiercest disability rights advocates anywhere.

She's probably not surprised that as her story of parenthood has gained national attention, some people have been critical or rude, or worse, saying that parents with disabilities, parents in wheelchairs should not be doing this.

But as their story went viral on TikTok and then landed them in people magazine, there's been a wave of love and appreciative feedback.

That kind of feedback makes it clear that people with disabilities need to see parenthood normalized.

It's been a while since we've had Stephanie Woodward in studio, so thank you so much for joining us, Stephanie.

Can you just start by just telling me about your kids?

>> Oh thank you.

And first, thanks for having me.

so my husband and I have six kids all together.

Our first daughter, Jo, who is stillborn.

And then after that our big guys came to us through foster care.

They're very funny, kind, compassionate kids.

we have a ten year old, and we have a 7-year-old.

Our ten year old just turned ten in November, so it was a very big deal.

And then we have triplets who are 18 months old, Max, Mimi and Gigi, and they all have wildly different personalities.

two of them are fully walking now, and Mimi is getting there.

>> So cute, by the way.

I've seen the TikTok videos.

We think they're adorable.

>> Cute and chaotic.

And it is cold season, so now they're cute and boogery.

>> Yeah, I know the struggle.

I don't know if you can hear it in my voice too, but yeah, tis the season.

When did you start putting your videos up on TikTok?

When did that start for you?

>> so we started.

I've always had like a personal TikTok account, but we started a separate TikTok account solely for our family.

When when we believed our triplet pregnancy was at a place where we felt comfortable sharing it because of the infertility that my husband and I went through for years, we really wanted to be sensitive to our other friends who were experiencing infertility, and I know what it's like seeing other people celebrate their pregnancies.

When you're waiting so long for your own.

So rather than sharing it on our personal social media pages, we decided to create separate accounts where we would share about our pregnancy updates so that if people did not want to see them, they wouldn't be exposed to them, so it wouldn't trigger anything.

And from that, we got a lot more attention than what we had originally intended.

We really just thought it would be our family and friends.

>> but I think probably it speaks to not only the cuteness of the children in question, but also some of the adaptive parenting hacks that you were kind of showing off.

I saw the the side accessible crib, and I thought about how many nights I had spent bent over a crib, rubbing my daughter's back like back aching.

And I just thought, like, everybody needs one of these.

>> Absolutely.

I think that a lot of things that we use as accessible parenting for us would be so good for so many parents.

And in fact, like, I think that's really something that we try to highlight is that accessibility doesn't need to mean specialized or only for wheelchair users.

we all can benefit from accessibility.

And one of my favorite things to point out is like ramps.

Any parent pushing a stroller loves a good ramp just as much as a wheelchair user does.

so for our cribs, our cribs have kind of like French doors on them, which are great for my husband and I, so we don't have to reach over a crib and then try to reach into it, but also I, I've heard from literally thousands of parents who have said, oh, my God, where did you get that?

Like, I didn't know that.

>> Existed.

>> Like I needed this, right?

So which led us to even create a video of like how to make these cribs so that other parents, if they truly want a crib like that, they can see exactly how to get it done.

>> So you made those.

>> so we received our very first one when, you know, we were hoping for one baby.

we received it as another mom in a wheelchair was her daughter was growing out of it, and she's like, hey, do you know anyone who might need it?

And at the time, my husband and I were looking into adoption, we said, you know, we don't have a baby yet, but.

So we don't want to waste it.

If you feel like it would be wasteful, but we'd be happy to hold on to it.

And she said, oh yes, please take it.

And then when we were having three we just had Ryan's uncle, who's very handy look at the first design and replicate it on the two next cribs.

>> Well it's fantastic.

I actually wanted to ask you about cost, because I wonder if some of this more accessible baby equipment, like baby equipment, already costs so much money.

but is some of the stuff a little bit more expensive?

>> I would say there's always what I call the disability tax.

So even like with our the van that we drive to make it accessible, we paid about what you would pay for a very fancy sports car just so that we can get around with our family.

So anything that's accessible tends to be more expensive.

But we try to find ways to make things accessible that aren't an additional cost.

So like, yes, we had to pay more for like parts to make cribs accessible.

We have rotating car seats.

Those are not made for wheelchair users, but they are pricey.

But they will keep our kids in their car seats.

I want to say, until they're like 6 or 5 or wherever the expiration of a car seat is.

But they rotate, which is so helpful for wheelchair users.

And when parents other parents see our car seats, they're like, where did you get that?

That's amazing.

>> And is that the one that, like, rotates to the front?

Oh.

>> It's a 360 revolving car seat, which is just amazing because I don't know, I don't use my legs, but I imagine parents with legs struggle with the like contorting your body to figure out how to get your kid out of a car.

>> It's like the first thing that I bought when I found out that I was having a kid, too.

So, yeah, it's it's it's like you said, I think a lot of people benefit from more accessible, more accessible, like baby stuff.

Baby gear.

>> Absolutely.

One of the biggest questions we get, we have a baby carrier that's called lap Baby, which is essentially almost like just a waist belt for us.

That has an additional strap that once you're sitting, you put the waist belt on and then you put the baby in front of you and you almost put like a waist belt on them.

Everyone sees those and they're like, where did where did you get that thing?

And like, it's not an outrageous invention.

I think it's like a $50 baby carrier.

But if you're going on an airplane and you don't want your baby crawling everywhere, like that could be a life saver for someone with legs.

But for me, it means that I am hands free so that I can use my hands to do other things.

for my husband, that's really important because he uses a manual wheelchair so he can't hold a baby on his lap with his arm and try to push.

He just end up going in a circle.

So the baby has been fantastic, but people think it's revolutionary.

>> What are some of your other adaptive gear?

What are some other adaptive gear that has gotten a lot of attention?

>> I mean, those are usually the big ones.

I will say, like, we adapt our lives in ways that we don't even think about sometimes that like it doesn't occur to us that other people would like say, wow, that's an adaptive way to do something.

So like instead of a like baby changing station, we had a desk so that we could roll under the desk and still be able to reach the baby because a lot of baby changing stations are on top of dressers, which would be hard for us to manipulate.

We are just able to roll under a desk, and that's been pretty easy for us.

we choose toys that are easy for us to get off the ground when the babies are playing.

one of the best hacks I heard from other moms who are wheelchair users is put your kids in overalls so that when you're trying to pick them up off the ground, you can just.

>> Pick them up.

You just grab them.

>> By the overalls to help them stand up.

And like, honestly, when our babies were first learning to crawl, that was a great way to catch them.

When they were on their way to the dog bowls.

Because boy, are they always on their way to the dog bowls.

>> The struggle.

The dog bowls are to pull the cat's tail or.

>> The cats have learned that any enthusiastic baby is not in a baby.

They want to be around.

They'll only be around calm babies.

>> Smart cats.

So tell me about the people magazine interview.

How did that come to be?

>> You know, I think that someone at people probably just saw us on TikTok or on Instagram, and they called us.

And a lot of people think that our family is fascinating.

but from the inside, I would say were rather mundane.

and that's really what we're trying to show, whether we're talking to people or just showing our lives on TikTok, is that wheelchair users and parents with disabilities in general are really rather boring and normal and run of the mill.

This what we're doing is not revolutionary.

And in fact, like there's no reason to stigmatize parents with disabilities.

We don't need to be seen as inspirational, but nor do we need to be seen as incapable.

We're we're just parents.

>> how do you how do you walk that line?

I guess between publishing these videos and and educating people about your story versus creating content that people might like, I don't know, look at as sort of Mike gawk at or might see as some sort of like, oh, isn't it, isn't it interesting or isn't it weird or isn't it different?

How do you sort of walk those two paths?

>> I mean, I think for me, my existence is something that people gawk at.

I'm used to being gawked at.

Right?

Like as a wheelchair user growing up, I was gawked at like, you're so young, you're too pretty to be in a wheelchair.

Like, what does that even mean?

When I married.

>> Another?

Be that.

Really?

Wow.

>> When I married another wheelchair user, like, come on now.

Like that is Gawk Central.

So then we went and had six kids and three of them are babies.

Like, we can't leave the house as a family without being gawked at, so we might as well just educate people.

And that's really why we decided to continue on our TikTok journey, was the amount of people who were commenting on what I would call very run of the mill videos of us showing off like my pregnant belly, like as we're growing.

That is something very standard that moms do these days is like, show off.

Like, oh, here I am at 20 weeks, here I am at 21 weeks.

The comments that we were getting of like, who's going to raise these children?

Like, who's going to like change their diapers when you can't even, like help yourself?

I'm like, where where did these ideas come from?

Like, nothing about me showing the progress of my pregnancy indicated at all whether or not I need help in the shower.

So how did you come to that conclusion?

so that's when my husband and I decided, like, people need to be educated and hopefully if people take the time to look at our materials and even criticize us or question us, hopefully if they stick around long enough, they'll learn from us so they don't have to do this to another parent because we want other people with disabilities to feel like they can parent without scrutiny.

>>, how how do you think that's going?

How's the education part of that going?

>> Honestly, I would say that it's really easy to see the negative comments that people leave.

but for me, I take a lot of joy in reading the positive ones.

People who are saying, thank you so much for posting this.

I learned so much from you.

I love seeing how you do things.

It's given me ideas for my own life and I'm not a wheelchair user.

my favorite things are I get messages from people who say like, thank you so much for posting this video.

I'm a disabled person too, and I, I was afraid to have kids, but you've shown me it's possible.

I got a message this morning on a video that I posted about people often say, well, no child would choose you as their parent like they ended up with you, but no one would choose you.

But in fact, we are in a really unique situation where our two oldest boys do get to choose who their parents are.

They get to choose because they're in foster care, and they have been freed for adoption.

Like they get to choose and they choose us.

and that's just like, probably like the biggest flex I have is that, like, I know for a fact my kids chose me as their parents.

Like, I can't say that for our triplets.

Maybe someday they will say they wish they had someone else.

But I can tell you, my two oldest want me and my husband as their parents.

And I think that that speaks volumes.

So I posted a video about that today and someone reached out and said, like, I never realized that.

Like that was one of my fears was that my kid wouldn't want me until I watched that video.

And I realized that that's a fear I had, and that my kid will want me.

And like, thank you for posting that.

And those are what make it worth it.

>> Wow.

I'm getting emotional.

I feel like those are sort of the fears that every, every parent goes through.

And I I mean, I guess I'm just glad that you were able to sort of add that, that context just to say that, like, I think everyone worries about whether or not they're doing a good job and showing up your life as an example of just being like, like this is this is boring.

This is mundane.

This is day to day, like we're going through the same thing that every parent out there is going through the good and the bad, right?

>> Yeah.

And I think that's what we're trying to show is that we are literally the same as every other parent, but we are held to a higher level of scrutiny.

For example, we have a nanny girl.

We have triplets.

Okay.

And my husband and I both work very fulfilling careers, like whether we had one baby or three babies, like we were going to get child care because we never planned to give up our careers in order to have a family.

We believe that we can have both, but the amount of people who give us scrutiny because we have a nanny, so therefore we must not be able to care for our children.

I'm like, do you go to work?

Because I'd like to go to work.

That doesn't mean I'm not capable of caring for my children.

It means not only am I capable of caring for my children, I'm also capable of being a CEO.

>> That's right.

So what was the process of finding a nanny like?

Did you run up against any sort of barriers there?

>> the process was that my husband and I were incredibly naive.

and genuinely believed, like, I work from home.

Like, how hard could it be?

Like, how hard could it possibly be to have three babies?

They sleep all the time, right?

So once the babies got home from the NICU, I think I lasted eight weeks attempting to work from home while having all of the babies.

And then one day I got sick.

I actually got, I think it's called mastitis.

from like breastfeeding and pumping with three babies.

That's a lot.

And I got really sick, so I had to call in a family member and be like, can you, like, just come in and take care of the babies for the day?

Like, I can't do this, because it just wasn't working.

And that one day I was like, oh, my God.

Like, I could have this all the time.

I could just have childcare and I'd get so much more done and I wouldn't feel guilty about, like I missed a meeting because the baby was crying.

so we ended up hiring my aunt because she loved being with the babies.

Anyway and I loved the idea of our family members being in their lives all of the time.

So she it was a perfect opportunity for her.

She wasn't working.

And I said, great, can I give you a job?

And she is with the babies right now, and I know that they're happy and safe and loved.

>> Oh, that's a win-win.

Did you for those first eight weeks, did you feel like you were trying to prove something by not getting help, by not hiring help?

>> No, I'm just frugal, to be honest.

Like, my husband grew up bougie and I grew up poor.

And so in my mind, like, if I could do it myself, why would I pay someone else to do it?

And then I realized, I, I can't work and like, be a mom.

Being a mom to three infants is more than a full time job.

>> Just delusionally confident.

>> Yeah, a delusion gets you through a lot.

Honestly.

>> Yeah, it absolutely does.

So talk to me about sort of the virality.

Like when did your video start reaching a national audience?

>> I want to say one of my pregnancy videos, maybe around like 20 weeks or something like that, got more than a million views.

And like, all of these people were commenting about, like how bad they felt for these babies and how wrong it was for doctors for to even allow me to get pregnant.

As if doctors like, give permission slips.

Right.

and.

>> That's not generally how that works.

>> Yeah.

I mean, obviously, don't we all go just go to the doctor and get a permission slip to have a baby?

>> I certainly didn't.

>> So many like wild comments.

And for me, it was like a very highly emotional time.

I was in and out of the hospital with my high risk pregnancy, and I was on an anti-nausea medicine that causes anxiety.

So, like, I didn't want to vomit, but I was incredibly anxious.

And now I'm having all of these people comment that I'm going to be a terrible mom, and I'm like, oh, my God, what am I going to do with all of this?

And thankfully, I gave birth very quickly and realized that, like, that high level of anxiety wasn't necessary.

and I got off the anti-nausea drugs and just realized, like, these people need an education.

Like, so why not be the if they're going to criticize us anyway, why not show them that they're wrong?

Like, part of what I do is mostly because I'm petty.

>> I mean, that's a great motivator.

>> I just want to prove to you that you're wrong.

And it's easy for me to do just by like, existing and showing you how we exist.

>> And I mean, you were I mean, you must have been prepared for some of the attention.

You've been an activist and an advocate for your for for your career.

I mean, were you expecting sort of the, the trolls and the comments and the haters?

>> I mean, I'm used to trolls and comment.

I mean, I was an activist for disability rights, and so that in itself brings a lot of people coming to hate you, because shouldn't you just be happy with what you've been given?

so I guess I, I didn't think people would take that much of an interest in our family.

Like we genuinely started this account so that our family and friends could see how our pregnancy was doing.

And that was really important to me, because with our first pregnancy, we didn't announce that we were pregnant until we were 18 weeks.

And I genuinely believe, like that's the safe time, right?

And then we lost our daughter at 21 weeks when she was stillborn.

And so for me, I didn't I didn't want to wait that long.

I just wanted to show our family and celebrate every moment we had with our babies in case we lost them.

and that's why I think we told everyone before, even 12 weeks and started this TikTok was just so our family could enjoy our babies while they were here.

Because if I'm being fully honest with you, until they were born alive, breathing, and I saw them in the NICU, I didn't believe that they were all going to make it.

>> I mean, it's such an incredibly stressful time.

And you're hearing from doctors all the time about, like, percentages and statistics about when is like a safe time, when is like a time when you could lose the baby.

and they don't, you know, pregnancy loss is just like, historically not talked about a lot.

>> Oh, it's incredibly not talked about.

And it's really stigmatized.

So in fact families who experience stillbirth are more likely to experience PTSD if they don't talk about stillbirth.

But in society, nobody wants you to talk about it.

So I'm very adamant about ensuring that we always talk about it and saying, no, we have six kids.

We do not have five.

Just because she passed away does not mean she stopped being my daughter.

and I hope that that helps other parents who have experienced stillbirth know that they should be talking about their kids too.

>> Do you have any resources for people, particularly people with disabilities, who maybe want to be part of a community that they can talk about parenthood conversations, maybe even about pregnancy loss.

>> So I don't know about pregnancy loss.

I know that the Disabled Parenting Project is a really cool resource that helps parents with disabilities not only just connect with each other, but also see unique and adaptive ways that people parent to help them, like learn what techniques might work best for them.

and then of course, I run Disability Empower Network, which is an organization run by and for girls, women with disabilities and feminine aligned people.

And we have people who've never had kids and who don't want them to moms who have had lots of kids.

but it's a safe space for us all to share in community with each other and lift each other up.

And I find I was really worried about Disability Empower Network when I was pregnant because I started it in 2020 and it was a very young organization.

and I knew I was going to be out with my pregnancy, but because it's such a strong, beautiful community, we are still thriving.

We just hit five years and the community is stronger than ever.

And I have received so much support from the Women in Disability Empower Network.

So I think that I would be remiss if I didn't mention that as a resource.

>> I want to talk about Empower Network too, because I think that a lot of what we're talking about here whether it's about pregnancy discrimination, it's a lot of gender discrimination, and there's a lot at this intersection between gender discrimination and disability discrimination.

So can you talk about what what started the Empower Network and how that came to be?

>> Absolutely.

so as a disabled working woman and with a professional degree, I'm a lawyer by trade.

I was often in a lot of spaces where I was the only openly disabled person in the room, and there was no one that I could relate to or bounce questions off of that were in that disability sphere.

And I had to deal with a lot of discrimination and not know how to react.

So like, for example, being in a mediation where a mediator shakes my opposing counsel's hand and then comes and taps me on the head.

>> Oh, God.

>> Like, how do I how do I respond to that?

Well, not having that interfere with my clients outcomes, I didn't have anyone who I could talk to about that.

And growing up there was no disabled women that I could look up to or aspire to be like, and I wanted I wanted to change that.

There should be people that you can look up to, that you can relate to and know that, like, you can achieve that someday.

So with Disability Empower Network, the goal was to create a community where disabled girls could look up to women and say, you're successful.

I can do that too, because oftentimes people with disabilities are in isolation.

They they don't know other people who are like them.

And it makes you feel alone.

And when you feel alone, you feel a lot less capable.

>> And having that community, that space is it is it physical space or is it just like a space of of sort of meeting of the minds.

>> All of the space.

So we actually we have physical space.

So in Rochester we have programing we have national programing, we have one of our my favorite things we do is Empower Camp where we bring ten girls with disabilities from across the nation to go camping in the Adirondacks and learn independent living skills and survival skills and leadership skills.

And that becomes a year long program where they meet with their mentors every month after the camping trip, they work on a community impact project, and then we bring them to Washington, D.C.

after a year where they present their projects to Congress.

It's such a cool program, and it really helps them define themselves as leaders, which is really cool.

But we also have like an awesome art program which is disabled women make history in Art, and we partner with the Toledo Museum of Art to uplift and empower disabled women artists and show their work, which is really cool.

And starting in January we're starting on a whole new venture of having a virtual book club where people with and without disabilities can come together for our book club, where we will solely be reading about disabled women in history.

>> I want to ask you how what set you on this sort of life path and how maybe and full disclosure for our listeners, Stephanie Woodward was also interviewed as part of another project that we were working on called the Move to Include podcast, that's coming out next month, where we talked about relationships and people with disabilities and self-advocacy.

But in that interview, Stephanie, you talked a little bit about your parents and how they set you up for a life of advocacy, self-advocacy that maybe turned into advocating for others.

Can you talk a little bit about about that?

>> Absolutely.

My parents were absolutely incredible growing up.

They were very run of the mill blue collar workers.

Right?

My mom's a hairdresser.

My dad was an electrician.

They didn't really have an option to, like, provide me with, like, a ton of stuff.

So the expectations that I had were the same exact expectations that my older brother and sister had.

So, like, if they're carrying in the groceries I'm carrying in the groceries, if they're doing the laundry, I'm doing the laundry.

The expectation was set very clear that, like, I don't get out of things because I have a disability.

and there was just one really memorable day in my life where in third grade, I had just come back from having a surgery.

I used to walk.

Not well, let me be clear.

Like it was a spectacle in itself.

But I walked a lot.

And then I had surgery, so I had to come back to school in a wheelchair.

And I went to a I'll just, like, call it out.

Lakeshore Elementary.

And we were going to our music classroom, which was like on a ramp up.

It was clearly an addition to the school, I believe.

And our music teacher looked at me and said, I don't think it's safe for you to use that ramp.

You might hurt other students.

And I just thought that was like the most absurd thing I ever heard.

Like, I laughed, like, because I was, I don't know, 8 or 9.

And I knew that ramps were clearly for the purpose of access.

So, like, why would it be dangerous for me to use the ramp?

And she wasn't worried about my safety.

She wasn't worried about other people's safety.

>> What was the fear there that you that your wheelchair was gonna.

>> You would have to ask Miss Peebles, not me.

>> Oh, yeah.

>> Listen, it's been long enough that we could start naming names.

Why?

Why protect?

So then I went home.

I tried to tell this story to my dad.

Like, in laughter.

And he did not laugh.

he brought me to school the next day and asked to meet with the principal, and they said, well, the principal's busy.

And my dad said, oh, that's fine, I'll just get the Ada involved.

And suddenly my principal was available.

So many people were available to me and my dad.

ensured that I was in the meeting because I was required to be in every meeting that was about me 504 plans, everything.

Whether or not I understood what was happening, I was required to be there.

And so after the meeting, I asked my dad.

I was like, what is the Ada like that like clearly made people jump.

And he was like picture it like a bunch of lawyers in wheelchairs who don't take anything from anybody.

he may have used some other expletive words in there as well, but I was like, oh, I want to be the Ada.

That's not at all what the Ada Ada is.

The Americans with Disabilities Act, it's a law, not a lawyer.

But like that really planted the seed in for me that like, I could do this.

Like I could become a lawyer.

There's clearly other lawyers in wheelchairs, which never occurred to me before, but like, I could do something.

And that moment stuck with me for the rest of my life.

And then I went to law school.

>> Wow.

So, I mean, I, I think a lot about now that I have kids about like, what I'm going to take from my parents and what I'm maybe going to leave behind.

But what do you I mean, what did you learn from your parents that you definitely want to instill in your kids?

Especially you have daughters.

I mean, you have sons.

Like what is your what what kind of parent are you trying to be?

>> I think the greatest lesson I learned was from my dad.

he was again, like, just grease on his hands kind of man.

And I remember one day sitting there sorting bolts with him.

I just sat there sorting a bunch of bolts while he was fixing what I call hot boxes, which are meals that like places like Meals on Wheels, used to, like, keep meals warm when delivering them.

And so I like, had asked him, like, how much are you getting paid for this?

And he's like, oh, like, I'm not, I'm, I'm volunteering for this.

And I was irate.

I was like, I am sitting here in the cold in your warehouse sorting bolts, and you're doing this for free.

And he just looked at me and he said, if you're not here to make the world a better place than what are you doing here?

and he made me go home that night and make a graph, a chart out of, like, the average person, let's say, lives to be 80.

And so he made me color in how many years he had already lived and how many years I had.

And he said, like, you see all that white space, that's how much time we have left.

I don't have nearly as much time as you do.

You need to use that white space to make the world a better place, because that's all the time you have to do it.

And so I kept those, like charts for years.

And then my dad was murdered when I was 16, and I was so mad that, like, he didn't get all his white space.

And I really wanted to use my white space to just do good in the world.

>> I'm so sorry.

>> Oh, I sometimes drop that on people accidentally.

My bad.

Like, yeah, you didn't kill him.

It's okay.

>> That's.

I know, but I'm still I'm still sorry.

That's horrific and traumatizing.

>> It was rough.

>> It sounds like he definitely left an impression on you.

I mean, the white space graph, it's like I can visualize it in my head.

>> Yeah, it was like the white space I like to this day.

I often think, like, how much white space do I have?

Like, and what am I doing with it?

>> And that's driven you, that's been sort of your guiding principle.

>> That's my guiding principle.

And that's what I often tell my kids is like, if you're not here to make the world a better place, then what are you doing here?

And so that will help them remember, like, oh, even if that's not my litter, I should pick it up.

And so we use it in small things first and then hopefully it'll be like building blocks as they continue to grow.

>> All right.

Well we're going to talk a little bit more about what it takes to to live your life in such a way, especially now in 2025.

But first, we're going to just take a really quick break.

When we get back, we'll talk more with Stephanie Woodward.

>> I'm Megan Mack coming up in our second hour, a preview of the One Take Documentary series at the Little Theater.

It's back this week and the screenings include six different shorts with a range of themes, from exploring identity to bedtime stories and more.

We talk with the filmmakers about their films, how they were created, and the state of documentary filmmaking.

In 2025.

That's next on the show.

Talk to you, then.

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Learn more at excellus.

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>> This is Connections I'm Veronica Volk filling in for Evan Dawson.

I'm here with Stephanie Woodward.

She's a disability rights attorney and the CEO of the Empower Her Network.

Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us.

We have an email here from a listener, Rick.

I remember when I first met your guest, Stephanie Woodward.

She was enrolling at Saint John Fisher College, and she participated in a summer whitewater rafting trip with her fellow first year students.

What impressed me was her fierce determination to participate with minimum interference from the rest of us in the group.

Her grit and determination are not new.

I wonder if she can share a bit more about how she developed the grit she so regularly displayed as a college student, and what she would recommend to others about how to develop resilience in the face of life's inevitable challenges.

Thank you for your comment, Rick.

>> Thanks, Rick.

I think I know the Rick.

I would gosh, I don't know how you develop grit.

I think that your choices are to let the world define you or to show the world the definition you have made of yourself.

And that's what I've always tried to do.

Because if I let the world define me, do you know how small I would be right now?

Like I wouldn't be living my dream?

I'd tell my husband all the time, like we are living my childhood dreams like.

And not everyone gets to say that.

Like my house has three Christmas trees in it because, like.

>> Why not?

>> When I was little, I said, I want more Christmas trees.

Like.

And if I lived by other people's definitions, I don't think I would be a lawyer right now.

there are people with my same exact disability whose families have put them into congregate care settings.

Not because they're not capable, but because their families have determined that they're not capable.

And they believed their families.

Because when the world around you tells you you can't do something, you start to believe them.

So I'm so grateful that my parents didn't tell me that I was incapable and didn't let me believe that when other people said that, they said, no, go do your laundry.

Like, that's not going to work here.

I know it's downstairs and you can't walk, but you can scoot your butt.

so I think that it's instilled from a very young age, and I was determined to keep it as I continued to grow, because I'm a Taurus, so the stubborn nature in me wants to do life on my terms.

>> That tracks.

Yeah, yeah, I'm getting Taurus.

you know, I'm thinking about how if we were having this conversation ten years ago, it might be very different environment for people with disabilities, particularly in the activism space.

Can you talk a little bit about what it's like for you now as somebody who's publicly not just advocating for people with disabilities, but you're, you know, you're out there with your family.

I mean, have you felt a difference since our current presidential administration has sort of come out and said some really disparaging things about people with disabilities?

>> Oh my gosh, absolutely.

You can feel the difference.

I think the biggest difference is people aren't afraid to show who they truly are now, like, there are still incredibly good people in this world, but the people who were quiet before because they knew that perhaps they didn't have the kindest things to say.

They're not quiet anymore, and they're causing harm all over.

So particularly in the work I do, we work to uplift and empower girls and women with disabilities.

And when the president of the United States is blaming disabled people for plane crashes without any evidence that any disabled person was even involved.

but saying that hiring disabled people somehow caused air traffic controllers to not prevent a helicopter and a plane crashing.

And that was just the start of it.

>> Right.

And in blaming sort of di.

>> And blaming hiring disabled people as we're working to try to tell youth with disabilities, you can do anything, you can work in any field you want.

Now you're hearing the president say that actually, no, you you shouldn't be hired.

And if you are hired, you're not hired because of the skill and the talent you have.

You are only hired because you were disabled and you were here to fill a number.

Like that's just not true.

And you're tearing down like the confidence of real people.

And then we have RFK saying things like, autistic people will never live happy lives.

First of all, what a load of it.

Like.

I sure I'm not allowed to say the words I want to say on the radio, but.

>> Keep it clean here on on public media.

>> Yeah, but like that's so untrue there.

Autistic people living beautiful, fulfilling lives every single day.

But to say that they'll never play sports, they'll never have families like untrue.

My my one of my triplets godparents are both autistic and they're a very loving couple living a great life.

but this harms because now I have real parents of autistic kids questioning their capabilities.

Like it's not just about cutting funding, which there's way too much of that going on as well.

It's about truly making our world believe that disabled people are not capable and not capable of doing things, but also not worthy of space.

And that is scary.

>> And those I mean, we can talk about the policy and the funding cuts all day, but I want to stay with the attitudes, because when you talk about some of the discrimination that people come to your videos with these preconceived ideas about what people with disabilities are capable of, I mean, that comes from a long history of discrimination against people with disabilities.

Can you talk a little bit, abbreviated version about how why, what happened for people to internalize some of these ideas about the abilities or, or lack thereof of people with disabilities?

>> I mean, we come from a world where there's literally centuries of discrimination against disabled people.

and I would say since like the 70s and 80s, like, we've really worked really hard as a community to dispel all of these rumors and myths and stereotypes and stigmas.

And we were making great progress.

We were demonstrating that we are capable, great workers, we are good parents.

We are good members of society, and accommodations are not.

These wild, expensive, ridiculous things.

We are not asking for special things.

And I think we were making great progress.

We were starting to see more disability representation in the world.

We were starting to see more employers hired disabled people.

COVID was truly great for us because people realized that working from home is not like this special thing that is impossible to do.

but with these new stereotypes, not new, I guess.

Renewed stereotypes.

Not only is society starting to believe them again and rolling us back 3040 years, but disabled people are starting to internalize that ableism now too, and putting their own restrictions on their lives based on what society is telling them they're capable of, and that's not a world I want to live in.

I don't want to live in a world where people are afraid to have kids because they don't think they're capable, and that someone's just going to call CPS on them anyway, because that truly is something that has happened for years that like, you will get state or government involvement in parenting when the parent is a person with a disability.

Because of this idea that they might not be capable, not any demonstrated proof that they're not capable.

But we were starting to move past that.

We were starting to see some foster systems actually train on disability.

And like, we do not remove kids just because of disability, but now because of these reignited stereotypes, disabled people are like starting to limit themselves and question themselves.

And I'm like, no.

First of all, it's hard enough when the rest of the world questions you.

You shouldn't internalize that.

And question your own capabilities.

That's really problematic.

But I see it in my social media comments all the time that people like other people who say like, can't believe you have kids.

I'm going to call CPS on you.

And I'm like, great.

They come to my house monthly anyway to check on my two older boys.

They've already seen that we are capable, but the thing is, like, I'm a lawyer, I know my rights.

I'm very confident.

My husband and I know we're capable.

Not every disabled person is in that position, and it's not fair that we are creating a society now that they have to question their every move.

>> right.

And not just in parenting young children, but also in starting a family.

I mean, people have a lot of opinions about sex and relationships for people with disabilities.

>> Oh, we're not allowed to have sex and have relationships.

>> I want to talk about that.

Like Infantilization.

I don't know if I'm saying that.

Right.

But just the, you know, the the, the sort of like, just don't want to think about it or talk about it when it comes to people with disabilities, having children.

>> There's this huge assumption that, like, disabled people just don't engage in relationships that are romantic.

We do not have sex.

We must not have an interest in it.

Or even worse, that someone would be doing us a favor by engaging in a relationship with us.

When I dated able bodied men who did not have an outward facing disability that the world could see, the amount of people who would go up to them and say, like, wow, that's so incredible of you to date her.

Like, as if they should get a prize.

And I'm like, I'm the prize, I'm the prize.

My friend.

I am an excellent partner.

Like, do not give my boyfriend a trophy for dating me.

I am the trophy my friend.

Like, do not act as if they are doing me a favor.

but that is something that is certainly spread.

And that's also how we see a lot more violence against girls with disabilities, particularly, we see a lot of girls with disabilities.

Well, girls, women with disabilities experience 2 to 4 times more sexual assaults and violence against them than non-disabled women.

and oftentimes when we try to pursue justice, we're not believed or our cases are not put forward.

they're not pursued.

And in some cases that I have been involved in, the perpetrator would say like, well, I was doing her a favor.

No one else was going to have sex with her.

I'm like, you don't do anyone a favor by sexually assaulting them.

>> Wow.

I'm you know, I'm really.

I'm glad that we're having this conversation, because I think that for a lot of us it it's easy to focus on on the progress and the positives and the strides that the disability community has made in civil rights activism.

But this I mean, this is just making me realize that there is a lot there's a lot further for all of us to go to create like a truly inclusive world where a woman who is the victim of sexual assault does not have to worry about being blamed for that because of a disability that she has.

>> Our world has a lot further to go, and our current administration isn't bringing us forward.

They're just bringing us back.

>> Well, I mean, and it also it occurs to me that women a lot of your work, like I said, centers around this.

The the intersection between gender and disability.

And you talk about women being more vulnerable to violence.

I mean, and let's talk about what some of the ways that that plays out inside of relationships, too.

I mean, if you're a woman with a disability who, you know, whether you want to start a family or not, you're in a relationship with somebody it if you are dating somebody who's able bodied or you are in a position where you want to marry somebody who does not have a disability, I mean, how does that affect the power dynamic of a relationship?

And what are some of the ways that, like, your work, can help empower those women to be more autonomous and independent?

>> Oh my goodness.

There's so many ways.

So like, first of all, we could get into it.

Or people could watch the other podcast coming.

>> Out in January 2020, 2026.

>> Yeah.

Where we talked about, essentially the marriage penalty and how there is not marriage equality right now because disabled people cannot get married without losing benefits that they rely on.

But we'll leave that for another moment.

but when it comes to things like domestic violence and assault, when you're in a relationship with someone that you're relying on because you might lose your benefits, let's say you get married and you lose your benefits.

So you now no longer have the medical insurance that covered your attendance services, and you're relying on your partner to do that.

If they are abusing you in any way, like how do you get away from that if they're also the person that helps you get dressed every morning?

we've seen it in doctor's offices where doctors, I'm sure.

Hopefully you're familiar with the doctor asking you, like, is everything safe at home?

They'll ask the disabled person when their attendant is in the room with them, whether their attendant is a family member or a paid worker.

If that person in the room with them is the one causing the abuse, how could they possibly answer that honestly?

And we see this all of the time.

There's just so many ways and so many intricacies to these issues.

And so disability and power network, we provide safe spaces both virtually and in person, where first of all, we talk about these issues.

We recognize them so that people don't think that what they're experiencing is an anomaly, that that it's only them that's ever gone through this and that they're ashamed to talk about it, because there is a lot of shame when it comes to abuse and relationships.

And like that, someone's going to shame you for picking the wrong person, right?

Disability or not.

but we create these spaces where we can talk about it safely.

We teach young girls how to recognize these red flags early on before they enter into relationships.

We talk with older women about like, if you're in this, like, how can we safely get out of this?

How can we be in a world where we feel empowered to get out of it, and you feel like you are worthy of a better space in your life, and you're worthy of whether or not you have another partner in the future.

You're worthy of not being with that partner.

>> Can I ask you, what is your what's the connection between sort of the outdoor camping and the the the connection with nature and the advocacy work in, in the empower her network.

Like, what's the connection there for you?

>> Okay, so every program that we run, we I think we're on 11 programs now, which is wild.

Every single program that we run is about confidence building, connection building.

and skill building.

And we always try to put mentoring in everything that we do.

So for me, when it comes to being in the wilderness, first of all, it was our very first program that we launched, and it really takes every stereotype that you have about disabled women and tears it apart, like camping is not particularly seen as a female centric activity.

you think of Boy Scouts when you think of camping.

You don't think about women doing that.

You certainly don't think about disabled women being out in the woods, in areas where there is no cell phone service, not sleeping in tents because we're too cool for that.

We sleep in open air lean tos.

>> So what's an open air lean to?

>> So picture like a cabin.

>> This is even more rustic than I that.

>> Is missing a wall.

Okay, so you have three walls around you that is maybe as big as the table that we have in this room.

Three walls and a slanted roof and the fourth wall is open.

So if it's raining, you're experiencing the rain, if there are mosquitoes and boy, are there mosquitoes, you're experiencing it all.

If a bear comes through, the bear can come and snuggle with you like we bring these girls out into the wilderness.

>> Well, I hope the bear won't come snuggle.

>> Well, if it's a nice bear, we'll see.

knock on wood, we haven't had any bears yet, but we do camp in Long Lake, New York, which in their little logo is bears.

So that should speak to, you know, the community around but we we take them into the woods because we want to show them that every stereotype that people have about disabled women, you can basically get rid of just with that one camping trip.

And if we start, that is our starting point, showing them that you are capable of roughing it in the woods with people you don't know without your cell phone.

Some of them have traveled from places as far as like Washington state.

You traveled here, you're surviving here.

You learned how to build a fire.

You learned how to make your own food on the fire.

There is nothing from stopping you from going home and making your own dinner.

And so if you can survive in the woods, you can not only survive in a boardroom, you can lead that boardroom because you are capable of anything.

So we really work to take those stereotypes about disabled women being incapable in all of this, the only people who are allowed in the camp are disabled people, so we don't have medical staff on site.

If you have a g-tube, we're helping you with your g-tube you need help in the shower.

We're community.

We're helping you, and you're seeing what you're capable of and what your community is capable of, and learning that interdependence is not a bad thing.

and you're also learning how to direct your support without feeling bad about yourself.

You don't have to apologize for needing help, but you can ask for help in a gracious way.

Could you please help me put my shirt on?

Like.

But you don't have to apologize for needing that help.

So it really builds that confidence, shows you that you're not a burden.

You are worthy.

And then they work on this community project, which is so cool.

They each get to choose something that is meaningful to them, and it just has to relate back to emergency preparedness and response in some way.

So one of our girls worked with Willow and helped Willow become more accessible because domestic violence in her eyes was an emergency that needed to be responded to in the disability community.

another one did the very first research paper in the nation on how ill prepared school districts are to help students with disabilities during active shootings.

And she won an award from doctor Jill Biden for being one of 13 girls in our nation leading change.

>> So that's incredible.

We'll have to get a link to that.

And, Stephanie, tell us where we can find more information about Empower Her.

>> Yeah, you can find us on our website at disability Empowher.

Org there's an H in there.

and on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook.

>> And where can people follow you on TikTok if they want to see your videos?

>> triplets.

And that is not wheelchair.

Despite what everyone thinks.

>> Excellent.

All right.

Stephanie Woodward, thank you so much for joining me.

You can hear more in our upcoming podcast called the Move to Include podcast that's hosted by Noelle Evans.

And it's coming out next month.

We've got more Connections coming up next.

Thank you.

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