Episode 3 — Atlas Feigel: Queer Disabled Spaces, Access, and Community
In this episode, Charlie talks with Atlas Feigel, a disabled PhD student in Critical Medical Anthropology and co-director of Degenerates Collective, about navigating the U.S. health insurance system, medical gaslighting, and the politics of mobility aids. From bureaucratic barriers and dehumanizing policies to the question of who is “allowed” to use mobility aids, this is a wide-ranging conversation that bridges scholarship, lived experience, and organizing. Atlas also shares about his work with the queer and disabled DIY arts and mutual aid collective on Chicago’s South Side, and why building accessible community spaces outside capitalist institutions matters. This conversation reflects on what a crip future could look like when care is no longer gatekept and mobility is treated as a human right.
Learn more about Atlas & Degenerates Collective:
Instagram: @degenerates.collective
Watch the full episode:
Topics we discuss:
Navigating the U.S. health insurance system
Medical gaslighting and disability
Mobility aids and access politics
Queer and disabled community spaces
DIY care, mutual aid, and creativity
From genocide studies to Critical Medical Anthropology
Degenerates Collective and South Side Chicago
Imagining liberatory crip futures
Episode 3 Transcript:
Charlie: Well, hey everyone. I'm Charlie Moses. I am the founder of Sick Futures Collective and the host of this podcast, The Future is Sick. Today I'm talking with someone whose work I so so admire, and who is also part of our Sick Futures world, and that is Atlas Feigel. Atlas is a disabled PhD student studying the anthropology of disability at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and his research looks at how disabled communities create meaning and identity and care beyond medical institutions and frameworks, especially under capitalism. Atlas is based in Chicago where he also co-directs a queer disabled arts collective and community space, which we will talk plenty about today. And his work is really, truly the intersection of scholarship and activism and art and all of these many great things. So I'm really, really excited to talk with Atlas today about all of these many things… and all right – let's get into it.
Charlie: Atlas, hi! Welcome on.
Atlas: Hi, thanks for having me.
Charlie: Yeah, thanks so much for being here. I guess my first question is, cuz you're the first guest I've done the intro about in front of… and so I wanted to ask, like you know, when you hear yourself described, what identities or parts of you feel most central to you right now? Or if there's something that you're like, “Wasn't mentioned, but this is going on.”
Atlas: Oh man. I.. you know, everything that I try and do.. all my work is in service of trying to create queer disabled community. So I feel like that's the most central to me.
Charlie: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I definitely want to talk about Degenerates Collective. And I think maybe though, like before we get into it, thinking about kind of when you first started building community in that kind of grander capacity, or if it's just kind of something you've always done and are natural at doing and.. what would you say?
Atlas: I don't know that I'm particularly natural at doing it. Like most of my life, I've had really bad social anxiety up until a couple years ago. So um, you know, I've worked really hard to get to the point where I feel like I'm good at building community around me. But I think that I really, really like people and that's the big thing. Not everybody really likes people, and that drives my desire to create community even if I find people a little scary sometimes haha.
Charlie: Haha yeah, I can relate to that so much. I feel like for those of us who go down academic routes or critical routes or what have you, and especially when we're up against a lot within these systems and structures we're in, I think that that love for people, for a lot of us, like, it has to be there, like it's just so deeply necessary for our survival and ability to continue connecting, because connecting can get more challenging. But it reminds me of when we first met, because Atlas and I go to the same school, and we met at an intensive on campus, and I feel like we both just kind of gravitated toward each other and being like, "Okay, great. This is good." But I remember I was talking about somebody who I was dating, and I was like, "They are just not getting it." And you were like, "Yeah, I only involve myself romantically with people who are disabled because people who are not often times…”
Atlas: I can't do it.
Charlie: Yeah! No, totally.
Charlie: Yeah. I mean, was there a kind of.. a turning point for you when you were like, you know, it's best for community as other disabled people…
Atlas: I feel like it kind of went the opposite for me. I didn't ID as disabled until all the people around me were. I found that, you know, the people I was involving myself with were really understanding when I had to cancel plans, or I just wanted to do something chill, or I can't stay out all night all weekend and like, be okay. And naturally, like that filtered out a lot of people who didn't have the life experience of having those challenges. And then once I was IDing as disabled and I, you know, would have times when I was feeling better, I would go to do these things, you know, with people who weren't and then I'd flare up and people would just fall out of my life and I was like, I don't want to watch that happen over and over again.
Charlie: Yeah. No, it's so relatable, and I think that so many people listening can definitely relate to that feeling of being like, oh, I had to cancel three times in a row and now I can't seem to get my friendship back..
Atlas: Yeah.
Charlie: ..or whatever it might be. Which is really.. that's how it was for me with being queer. Like it was like years before I was like, "Oooh, why have all my friends been gay for my entire life?? That's.. that's why. Okay, cool. That there we go.”Aafter, you know, years of growing up Catholic and just repressing all of that forever.
Atlas: Mhm.
Charlie: But yeah, it is kind of that moment because I know for myself, I didn't identify as being disabled until relatively recently because there's just so much pressure on us not to. It's like, you know, that once you do, it's like well you're not coming back from it. And also like, it just societally where you know, the chance of you kind of getting erased and bullied and everything else just like grows exponentially which is exhausting.
Atlas: And um, you know like I grew up with people who did have disabilities but didn't really ID publicly as disabled, not with that kind of language. So when my health started to get worse, I started to go like, “Oh no see, I'm just I'm bad at walking far distances. I'm bad at being awake all day,” which is disability. It's that I don't have the ability to do those things. But it never really clicked for me until a couple of years ago, when I started using mobility aids, that, you know, maybe this was not just I like a personal moral failing.
Charlie: Yeah, no kidding. And it's like, I think this is something that doesn't get talked about much is that for a lot of people who become disabled at some point in their lives, and weren't before, or didn't identify as it before, that it's like you don't really realize what you're standing in for a while for a lot of us. It isn't like, “Oh I got sick once and now…” You know, for me it took over a decade. It was like oh I've used my cane off and on for a decade. Right. Okay, Chuck. Like, get with it. Here we are.
Atlas: For real.
Charlie: Yeah. But it's so.. it is so true that it takes, you know, multiple health events or getting mobility aids or having more than one mobility aid or whatever it might be to, you know, be like, "Oh, this is something." And then there's the work of accepting that identity, which I was like, “I don't know if I can do it!.”
Atlas: Yeah. I also just like, I'm not an ER spoonie. I have never been like, “Oh this is a health event that I should go to the hospital about,” until like later after I've dealt with it. So I feel like a lot of people are like “Oh I've been to the ER three times this year. Maybe I have a problem.” But I haven't ever done that. So I was like, well if I don't have to go to the hospital like it's probably fine.
Charlie: Yeah, like if it's not like a critical in-the-moment emergency versus the chronic pain and, you know, the symptoms that go on forever and flare up and taper off and flare up and…
Atlas: Yeah. And looking back and being like, "Oh no, that was an ER moment." haha
Charlie: Haha yeah, for sure. We're like, "What was I doing? Why?"
Atlas: I was like, "I'm just going to go to bed, I guess."
Charlie: Yeah. Like, "Please keep breathing." I feel like the amount of times I go to bed being like,
"Please keep breathing tonight..” is I don't even know what the ratio is at this point. It's.. lately it's a lot.
Atlas: For real.
Charlie: Yeah. I mean, and not to dig too personal, but you've been dealing with just the most exhausting health insurance blockages.
Atlas: Yeah. I'm trying to tread the line here because I'm lowkey getting legally involved with my insurance company at this point, but I have been waiting 57 days to get my desperately needed medication approved at this point, and calling every day, and I keep track of every call. It's been a huge nightmare. There's a lot of kinds of medical trauma, and I haven't spent a lot of time in the hospital in terms of like like physical disability, but every single day I talk to this company, and they gaslight me… and I think it's really important to note, because I don't hear about this that often, that like, it is just like being re-dipped into that traumatizing environment every single day. I'm more frustrated and upset and angry with my insurance company than I am with my own body at this point, which is probably some growth on my part, but also like, yeah.
Charlie: Yeah. It's saying something. It's.. I mean, that's wild. It's.. but not surprising, but just exhausting that, you know, in the US, and in so many countries, trying to get the treatment that has been prescribed to us becomes nearly impossible. And I think that that's trying to express the many, many different ways that the systems are like, “We’d just rather not have you here,” is exhausting. I mean, it's just like.. the list just like goes on forever. Again like treading the line, and you know, don't say anything you can't, I mean the process of taking legal action against a health insurance company I imagine is so taxing.
Atlas: You know, the big problem for me at this point is like, I just don't have the spoons to do it. So, I just have to wait until they give me the medication that I need to be able to have the spoons to deal with them, which sucks. It's bad. Tthis is the second time this has happened to me. The first time I.. it took about, I want to say, about 6 weeks for me to get the medication approved. And these are really, really standard treatments. Like I've had some treatments that have been a little bit off-label and that I understand having difficulty with insurance, but this is an extremely standard treatment. So..
Charlie: Oh my god, can I ask what their primary reason for denying it is – that it's just like, “Not medically necessary,” or whatever?
Atlas: They keep coming back and telling me different things is what keeps happening. I tried to get approved for Humira which is a really standard treatment for a lot of autoimmune disorders, in November, and you know, they told me that the pre-approval wasn't correct, that we had the wrong fax number, that like.. too many pens were prescribed to me, that the dosage was wrong… and I was like, you know, you're not a doctor, but you know, and I'm fighting through this, and you know, I went through this like all the end of November and all of December, and then January 2nd, they called me and they said, "Hey, Humira is no longer covered under your formulary." So, that made me deeply suspicious. This also happened last time when I was trying to get Stelara, which is another biologic medication covered, where I'd been fighting for about a month, and then I got an email saying, "Hey, our 6 month formulary change just happened, and Stelara is no longer covered under your formulary." You know, I think insurance is evil, but I understand that they don't want to cover these super expensive brand-name medications, but if they could even tell me that that's the problem, that would be really helpful.
Charlie: Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, instead of like weird blanket statement denials that are jumping all over the place.
Atlas: Like if they were just like, "Hey, you need to get on a bio similar." I would have been like, "That sucks, but I can deal with that,” so that I'm not spending 50 days fighting for a medication that they're never ever going to give me you know.
Charlie: I mean, yeah that's the thing, is that it's like insurance companies are notoriously not known for being transparent, but at least to have the information, like the true information of the denial so that you can move forward and get treatment, especially for autoimmune treatment. It's like… autoimmune treatment is such broad-brushstroke treatment because there are no specific treatments for autoimmune diseases at this point anyway, because of the people that autoimmune diseases primarily affect, and why there isn't research dollars for autoimmune disease, but yeah, it's like that's… those are very standard medications for autoimmune disease treatment… oh goddd.
Atlas: A lot of people, even people who aren't disabled, know that Humira exists because it's that common, you know.
Charlie: Yeah.. right. And like, not to name any names, but does this company rhyme with True Dross, True Pieled?
Atlas: Yes.
Charlie: Hahaha okay, cool! Yeah um, yeah, ridiculous. I mean, absolutely ridiculous. They know what they're doing, and it's unfortunate that what they're choosing to do is deny people life-saving medication.
Atlas: You know, a part that I found to be really disheartening is that up until I turned 26, I was on my parents’…
Charlie: True Dross True…
Atlas: On my parents’ insurance with the same company, and it was through their Michigan branch, and I never had any problems with them, and they covered a lot of care that a lot of other companies would have denied. I know that to be true, and then when I transferred off of their insurance after turning 26, and got the same company's insurance in Illinois, which was recommended to me by a hired insurance navigator, not even like one of those free ones, the care was so incredibly much worse, which is very concerning to me that, you know, they function so differently across states.
Charlie: God. Yeah. No kidding. To have the same company, but regionally, and it just might be that one branch is not on top of it.
Atlas: Cuz I looked, and like when I looked, the brand of insurance in Michigan had like a 3.5 rating, which is pretty good for an insurance company out of five. And when I looked at the Illinois branch, it was 1.6, so people have this experience constantly. I'm not really sure what the deal is there.
Charlie: Yeah, no kidding. And I mean, you know, for anybody listening, if you work in health insurance and want to chime in – feedback welcome, because this is fascinating. I mean, the way that it's…
Atlas: Yeah.
Charlie: Yeah, I just remember moving from Houston, TX back home to Portland, OR, and you know, in Houston, TX you have the Texas Medical Center, and it's like, any specialist under the sun, there's 300 of them, you know, and it was just the best care I've ever… the quickest, the best, the most responsive, the most knowledgeable care I'd ever received. And then coming back home and being like, "We have a shortage of all doctors." Being like, "Okay, cool, great." And was told that in order to get my lupus medication, my autoimmune medication, because I couldn't find a doctor, I couldn't even get a PCP, they were like, "Oh, you're just going to have to go to the ER to get your prescriptions refilled."
Atlas: Oh, wow.
Charlie: I was like, "What?!" And they were like, "Yeah, you know, if there aren't any doctors available, these are the options." And I was like, "I have insurance. Like, what is this?"
Atlas: That's ridiculous. I have not heard of that before.
Charlie: Yeah, it was wild. It was wild. But yeah, it's like navigating the regional impact of these systems, and especially looking at like rural versus city and the shortage of doctors, or, you know, fewer health insurance plans and all that. But I also want to talk to you about mobility aids too, because relatively recently you became a wheelchair user, and we've talked a little bit about it.. but flying with a wheelchair. I really.. I want to.. God, I want to get into it.
Atlas: Oh gosh. I have actually.. so I have done like wheelchair assistance through the airport where they, you know, use their wheelchairs, because I am terrified to fly with my wheelchair, because the statistics of how many wheelchairs get destroyed in airports is just completely unfathomable,
right?
Charlie: Yeah. What.. Do you remember what the numbers are? I mean, it's thousand.. it's like thousands and thousands?
Atlas: It's thousands. It's thousands every year. It's crazy, and you know, I'm kind of.. you know, silver linings here: my insurance won't cover me having a wheelchair, and I can't afford a nice, like, personal wheelchair. So, the one I have is only like $100, and I bought it from the internet. So, at least I'm only out $100 if they destroy my chair. It would it would suck. I mean, to be clear, my plan is to fly in February with my chair out to California, and it would suck if they destroy my chair, and it would suck if I was out there without it. But at least I'm not out $2,000 if they do.
Charlie: Yeah. I mean, cuz for a lot of people, it's like having motorized devices are so.. they're so expensive.
Atlas: Yeah.
Charlie: Any motorized mobility aid, and then you're like risking.. I mean, and then just the treatment you get being on the plane of like not being able to get up out of your seat and not having assistance with that if you need to use the bathroom or anything.
Atlas: I'm lucky enough to be like personally fairly ambulatory, but yeah, like it's just I don't know how you get the courage and the wherewithal to fly on an airplane if you aren't ambulatory at all, or you need an electric wheelchair that's big and heavy. I would like to have an electric wheelchair. Unfortunately, the cheapest ones that exist are like $2,000. So, I just sort of, I go back and forth between my legs and my arms to try and give myself the most longevity possible. But..
Charlie: No, it's wise. I mean, and yeah, the cost is astronomical, and insurance companies always only cover so much.
Atlas: Yeah.
Charlie: And then yeah, will deny it if you are ambulatory, which you know, like you do have the ability to move on your feet a little bit, but it doesn't.. it's not like you can walk multiple city blocks across San Francisco.
Atlas: Haha no, certainly not. Yeah and they just.. trying to get them to cover for something like an autoimmune disease that causes mobility impairment is like almost impossible to even start out with, you know.
Charlie: No, absolutely. I mean, even trying to.. I was talking with my PCP because I've been homebound for a month and a half now, and I was prescribed a walker through occupational therapy in the hospital, which is fine, but I don't have the endurance to stand up for more than 2 minutes at this point. That's, like, our goal.
Atlas: That's real.
Charlie: Right? You know, it's like my like physical therapist and occupational therapists are like, aim for two minutes on your feet. And I'm like, okay. But like with the walker, you know.. like with some arm support and everything else.. and there's so much push back and I think so much of it has to do do with that like “overcome” rhetoric of like, “But you can overcome it, but you know if you just try harder or build up muscle mass,” or whatever. And it's like, that's not what this is. Like chronic illness fatigue has nothing to do with..
Atlas: Yeah, I also think this has to do a lot with insurance companies like are very shortsighted when it comes to a lot of this stuff. Like I think a lot about, like, if I have a medical emergency because you won't give me my medication or I fall on my head because I don't have a wheelchair, you're going to end up paying out a whole lot more to the ER than you would to just maintain my health. I'm like, if I fall down on the concrete and I have to get surgery, you know, like that's going to suck a whole lot more for you guys. Like it's not even in your best interest.
Charlie: Oh, absolutely. And that's like.. I feel like that's like insurance 101 is fall prevention. Like wouldn't you want to follow through on fall prevention? Because that's a big thing that gets talked about in any healthcare setting, is making sure that people aren't falling. Yeah, my tangent I went on was that my PCP was like, “I don't want to give you a wheelchair because people get stuck in those things, and I want you to try your best to not,” you know, and it's like, well that's all well and good, but I can't go outside really.
Atlas: Yeah. Like this deconditioning rhetoric.
Charlie: Yeah.
Atlas: I'm like, actually I'm gonna decondition a whole lot faster if I can't go outside, you know?
Charlie: Right.
Atlas: And you know, there are studies – the studies have shown that people who have mobility impairments and don't have mobility aids end up deconditioning far worse. It's ridiculous that like this language or deconditioning is being used so incorrectly even by medical professionals. Like
it's one thing when it's in the insurance company, it's another thing when I go to a doctor and the doctor says, “No, you're probably better just staying in your house all the time than using a wheelchair to go out and do something."
Charlie: Yeah. Do anything.. like interact with people and the world.. It is really strange. It is strange to have that feedback from health care professionals, from doctors who went through massive amounts of education and training and everything else, and to be in a place where you're like, "This will be very helpful,” but insurance will deny it because the doctor won't sign off on it." And then you're like, "Okay, then what do I have access to?" Which is a $100 wheelchair on the internet, which is still very helpful, but it doesn't do all of the things that would be the most supportive for most people.
Atlas: Yeah. And I mean, there are things that are dangerous about it. My wheelchair that I use right now, it doesn't have treads on the tires. So, it falls down curb cuts – that's just, you know, access is so lacking.
Charlie: Big time. I mean, I want to get into Degenerates Collective a little bit because it's so important that we have these places that we can be in order to actually have the connection and the interaction and not deteriorate at such an epic rate. But, you know, the kind of the background of it, when it got started, goals for the future, just anything you want to jump off to share about it?
Atlas: So, we started, Degenerates Collective with Degenerates Markets that we were doing, to support people in our lives who had artisan work that was unsellable in like a normal market environment. And we very much fell into this with a lot of, you know, effort and commitment. We were like, "Oh, let's do this market. Let's like try and help our friend make sure that they have their rent,” and it worked really well. So, we did it again, and then one time we were like, what if we did a magazine? And then we did that and that went well, and now you know, I'm in the print shop now. We have our own print shop. You know when we got a space to be permanent for this work it was really, really important to us that it be accessible for disabled people because all three of us who run this organization, we are all disabled and mobility impaired. And Chicago, where we operate, there are far fewer accessible venues than a lot of people would think. We had a really hard time finding venues that were accessible to people using any kind of mobility aid or would let us say people have to wear masks. So when we hold events, they're always mask required, and you know, we got this space and it's here. It's really unaffordable to get a space that's disability accessible. So we bought and set up our own ramp which was a huge pain. We would like to have a better situation but it works. And we're doing this all without a lot of of money to invest in it. The bathroom was not… like doing the measurements, a standard wheelchair could not fit in it because there was a big bathtub right in the middle of it, so we were like, "Okay," and so we took a sledgehammer to it, or more specifically, our able-bodied partners took a sledge sledgehammer to it and we got that out, and it still doesn't look perfect, but now there's space to roll in there, which is what we want. It's just been a godsend, you know, like I can't make it out to a lot of the types of queer events that I want to, but having it at my work and so close to where I live, it makes.. it is life-changing for me. Being able to do this as a job is life-changing for me. Like, I haven't been able to work a normal job in years.
Charlie: Yeah.
Atlas: You know, I'm lucky enough to have different ways of supporting myself, but it does give me something to do that makes me feel accomplished and also is able to support myself and work with a community that I really, really care about. And I've pivoted more into focusing on the disability access part of the the work here, and representation in our media. I just want people to see themselves places where they didn't think that they could go, you know.
Charlie: Amazing. I mean, totally and completely crucial. And also to recognize that there's that big gap that needs to be filled in Chicago, which is surprising because most people would assume, you know, big city, there are lots of requirements that would make it so that places have to be ADA accessible, but no, not the case. And so wonderful that in setting out to do this you were like, "Oh, okay. This is really, really needed then, and we got to make it happen." And yeah, like the effort and the work it takes to install a ramp, any kind of ramp, is so much.
Atlas: And you know, like a a big part of this is, you know, there are a lot of like big corporate or like government sponsored types of buildings that are required to be ADA accessible, but liberatory spaces, queer spaces, spaces for minorities, spaces where you build community with people who do work that isn't recognized as important, those are spaces that don't have a lot of money – spaces that are DIY. And it totally makes sense that these spaces like can't afford or exist in places that have this kind of accessibility.
Charlie: Yeah, majorly. Cuz again, it's.. the resourcing is so bleak at this point. But the amount of stuff that you have been able to do is so incredible. And again, it's just like, you know, it's so much about community and it's so much about people who have direct stake in the work that they're doing. who could recognize that this is really truly valuable, necessary, and crucial to the survival of my people… what are some examples of things you've put together in the past and what are you planning for the future? What's it.. what's it looking like?
Atlas: So, you know, we do these markets, which were our original big thing, where we have queer artists sell their work that, you know, is otherwise unsellable, unpublishable, as it were. And we like to have community events here. We pretty much always, when it's like a community mutual aid or support type of event, we always offer our space for free. We're not always able to support these events, you know, as much as we support an event that other kinds of events, but we do like to be able to offer a space especially on the south side, which is so underinvested in. And so we've had things like book swaps. We had a rave here a few weeks ago. We have, you know, different workshop type events. We had a whole weekend filled with disability themed screenings and workshops this July. You know, right now we're doing a lot to put together this press so that we can print more stuff. So our event planning has been less, but we take.. we have had a couple of art shows here which have been really cool. We often do trades with people. We did a trade with somebody who wanted to do a workshop here and then they are going to help us paint our bathroom because they're able-bodied, and, you know, it's really nice to have full control over the space. We also.. because we recognize our privilege, the three of us who run this organization right now, even though we are queer and disabled, we are white, we always offer our space free for people of color who want to run or have events in the space, and we always try to work with Windy City Boot Blacks and things like that, which are all POC run communities. So yeah, this is all the stuff that we've done. We have more markets planned for the future. Honestly, 2026 is the year we're launching a bigger type of press preference, so having events is less.. planning our own events is less on our radar, but we're always accepting or looking at types of events. And not everything is right for us. We do live in a residential neighborhood – things that are loud and late at night are not often perfect for us, but we hope to have more mutual aid type events. We hope to have more types of workshops and speaker series. We'd really love to have a type of workshop that helps people apply for government aid because that can be really hard not only to understand but also executive functioning wise. Like these are the things that we're looking at doing this next year. So there's always stuff going on.
Charlie: This is amazing. Yeah, it's kind of covering every bucket or department of potential need that we can kind of anticipate, which is fantastic and totally makes sense to not have super loud into the night events going on, which.. Yeah, and no one wants to get shut down.
Atlas: Yeah, but like someone needs to be able to host these events and not make them $2,000 for the space, you know? That's what we most often get reached out to about – people who are like, I wanted to use this space that's super accessible, but they wanted $1,500 for three hours of time and we're trying to raise money for this person's surgery, or whatever. And we're like, “Yeah, no don't give up all of that.” Like things are hard, money is hard, things aren't affordable. So,
Charlie: Yeah, absolutely. It really is.. it's so much about kind of creating and developing our own economies that we can operate and exist within, because right, like for what Degenerates Collective is trying to do, it would be completely counterintuitive to participate in this specific capitalist structure of $500 an hour for a rental for an event space and yada yada yada. And it's like, we're not a corporate business.
Atlas: Yeah.
Charlie: I think.. like, well, I think the other questions I want to ask, and part of it is about you and your background, or like growing up, or you as a kid and kind of what's influenced your trajectory and where you are, or like, you know, influenced your decisions to do your masters and to do your PhD and all that good stuff.
Atlas: So, in terms of my education, I decided at 11 years old that I wanted to work in studying genocide, which is young to do that, and makes people very uncomfortable, fun fact. So, I went to college and got my history degree, and then I was like, okay, well, next step is get my master's degree in this more specific thing, which was.. it was nice to feel like I had a direction for a really long time. Then I got my degree in that and then a couple of things happened – one of which is the economy and the ability of teaching and working for a university as a profession became much, much worse over the course of right around before and after 2020. You know those years things got so much worse, and there were only adjunct positions available, and even those were really, really competitive, especially for somebody just getting out of their master's degree. Also, I kind of became too disabled to do jobs. That meant I have to go to work every day, you know, for a year. It was my first year that I ever wasn't in school. So, I did K through 12, then college, then masters all in a row. And every time I went to a new thing, I said, "Oh, I should have taken a year off between." And then proceeded to not do that. So, for a year, I tried, you know, working and stuff. And that really made me realize that I just couldn't work a full-time job where I was on my feet. I had been at these schools where I was able to do a lot of stuff online, so I hadn't really noticed as much. I was like, "Oh, I just don't go out that much. It's fine." and then I was like, "Oh, I actually.. like I can't.
I'm disabled. I need to figure out another option." So, I thought for a while, and I met with my.. I don't know what she is to me, my husband's aunt. So, whatever that is. And we talked a bit, and she was like, "I really think you should consider doing doing a PhD." And I said, "Do you think so? Because I've been thinking about it." And then I was like, "Am I just, you know.. is that I feel like I should be in the workforce by now?" And she was sort of like, "Why?" And I was like, "That's a really good question."
Charlie: Haha that's a great question, yeah.
Atlas: So I decided to come and do this. And I was so sure, you know.. I showed up to the first intensive in the program and I was like, “I know exactly what I want to do. I want to write about this,” and the like department head in the program was like, “Just so you know, many people come in here and they say they know exactly what they're going to do and that never happens.” And I was like, that's ridiculous. I have been on the same path since I was 11 years old. I'm never going to change what I'm going to do. Then I got six months in and I was like, “Oh no, I think I want to change what I want to talk about.” So yeah, that's that. In terms of like community building, I grew up with a really small family. Like I have my parents and my brother, which is not particularly small for like a nuclear family, but both of my parents only have one sibling. You know, I had my grandparents and some second cousins and stuff like that, but it was small and it was scattered. And so building a community that could support me especially as I needed people to help me as I became queer as a young adult became super important, and I have to thank for that a lot my the Jewish community I grew up with. I grew up in a secular humanist Jewish community, so that focused on values of humanism and carrying on tradition without becoming too staunch in how we conduct ourselves, and allowing room to change and grow. And that deinformed so much of how I think about what family is. I've never really thought of family as just the people who are bloodrelated to me because these people were my family growing up. And yeah, I just have always felt so strongly that we can build these bonds with each other. It doesn't have to be something inherent. So that’s a lot of where my values and my drive for community building comes from originally.
Charlie: It's so wonderful to, you know, from an early age to have the understanding that family isn't just blood relation or your married-into the family – that family is like whomever you choose to let in as family and to be supports for yourself and for each other, one another.. because it.. Yeah, again it's like another of the many things we need for survival, especially when you come from a smaller family and you're like, we got to get more people in here if we're stayin’ afloat and we're going to be able to get through this, especially adolescence and teen years, like let's bring it in. And so relatable about starting grad school or starting a PhD program and being like, “Well, I've been doing this forever, so we're obviously gonna keep doing that.” And then, and I remember the head of our department too being like, “When I started my PhD, I started being like, I do not want to talk about this thing that affected me so heavily,” and then it ended up being the very thing that he did his dissertation on, and all he focused on on his PhD. But yeah, I mean, big question is why genocide at 11?
Atlas: This is some deep lore. So I went to a elementary and middle school that was very non-traditional. It was project-based and they had very creative ways of meeting the criteria the state set out for them. Shout out to Honey Creek Community School.
Charlie: Oh, haha amazing.
Atlas: So we had this.. you know, when I was in sixth grade and I went to Sunday school, which is very different than what a lot of people think of Sunday school as, it was a cultural and historical understanding of my Jewish heritage, and sixth grade was, you know, I go to Sundays and learn about the Holocaust basically. So it was something that was in my head, and then in school we covered the Khmer Rouge which is not something you usually cover in middle school, and I just became very entranced with it, and I'm not really sure what it was about it, and it just kind of stuck with me. I think a lot of it is like, you know, some level of the way that communities fight fascism – how people come together to resist and continue to build and sustain their own culture even when they're told they're not wanted. So, I've looked at these things from a lot of different angles at this point. And I think it's the combination of that and that like I've got a strong stomach for this stuff. Not everybody does. That's not to toot my own horn – that's just to say I've always kind of been like, well, somebody needs to be doing this and it doesn't like.. like it bothers me, but it doesn't make me want to crawl out of my skin the way a lot of people do. So, that's sort of why.
Charlie: Oh, I think that it's such a good point because it's true that not everybody has the kind of like tough hide that is required to delve into genocide deeply for two years straight. It's.. yeah, I feel like it's not necessarily something acquired but can be a lot to do with just like your disposition as a person, then I can see very much how shifting your PhD focus into critical medical anthropology would make sense because it's like.. I feel like disability is like the slowb burn genocide of any civilization really.
Atlas: I mean I've done a fair amount in my academic life before going getting into my PhD of writing about disability as a class being targeted by genocidal like nations and things like that, especially like deaf people during the Holocaust. Very interesting thing to think about. But my master's degree, my you know, thesis was about burial rights cuz I've always been very interested in that kind of thing. And that was my intention coming into the PhD program was also to write about that. But I've shifted more towards disability and critical medical anthropology. So..
Charlie: Incredible. Gosh, yeah. Thinking about burial rights just generally, and then in countries that are, you know, essentially doing genocide. It's got to be fascinating.
Atlas: Yeah, it was It was really interesting. It was dark. There were things that got to me. Things
things still do get to me.
Charlie: Gosh, yeah. No, I can relate. And that.. I did for my master's.. I did a comparative politics, political science degree and was focusing on war for a majority of it, but then focused on the LGBTQ kind of subset of war in countries and what people are going through. It's like really you look at any any community within a within a country or a region or a city or county, and if that place is experiencing something, an atrocity, then you look at the people who have already been facing atrocity and then you're getting the double serving of it.
Atlas: And you know, these types of global minority groups do end up being a specific focus too. I always like to remind people we always think, you know, 11 million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust.. or 6 million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust, but 11 million people were targeted and killed in total. That's like another 5 million people that were not accounting for.
Charlie: Oh gosh. Just absolutely wild. Right. And the parts of history that aren't necessarily recreated or voiced or talked about in the same way. That the Holocaust has.. what we see in the media and that we understand or that we're taught in school.
Atlas: And and you know, I've written a fair amount as well about the idea that these things don't get covered because we're still doing them. Like it's not okay to, you know, in the US it's not okay to be anti-Semitic anymore, you know, like people are, but that's not polite behavior, but you're still allowed to be abbleist, you know?
Charlie: Right, that's.. I mean, and that's another fascinating thing to me is that, especially in colleges, and I feel like in undergrad, it's like you can take courses having to do with many other communities that are facing oppression, but disability studies is.. It’s rare that you find it at all. And when you do it’s maybe like a class, like one elective that's at like 6:00pm at night or something, you know.
Atlas: Yeah, I'm excited to see more programs pop up. There's a university near me that has a disability studies program now, which I think is very cool, because that shouldn't only be like a medical program, you know? It should be anthropology, it should be history, it should be soft sciences, as I call them, as well, you know? There's culture there. It's not just flaying bodies open.
Charlie: Yeah, gosh absolutely. Well, and I'm just catching the time, which always shocks me to be like, "Oh, it's been an hour." Okay. I wanted to ask the the final question I like to wrap with – is that of crip futurism, or you know, wondering, when you think of or imagine liberatory futures for people who are disabled, what do they feel like? What do they look like? What do they sound like? Like what does this world resemble?
Atlas: I think a lot about having cultural flexibility. Capitalist cultures tend to be extremely rigid and obviously like, I think a lot about a future without capitalism, but you know, on a most basic level, like having flexibility and not focusing so much on how much disabled people cost our community, how like time off, insurance, like whatever a future where we normalize that everybody needs help sometimes. And I think that's like so basic, but like so necessary. One thing I think about pretty often is, and that I don't hear people talk about, is I think that you should just be able to use a mobility aid if you want. People talk all the time about how, “Oh do you really need a wheelchair? Do you need a cane?” Like, “I don't believe that this person needs to be able to be in a wheelchair all the time.” And I'm like, why is it important that I'm disabled enough to be in a wheelchair? Why shouldn't I.. just like.. if I want to use a wheelchair, I should be able to. It should be accessible. Like thinking about it like you have to have a qualification is not helpful. Like use a cane as a fashion statement. You don't need to need it to walk, you know?
Charlie: Yeah, I'm thinking of this in like metaphors of cars. It's like, not everybody who drives a truck needs a truck. Necessarily. Maybe they just like it and that's enough.
Atlas: Exactly. Yeah, like maybe this person, they ran a marathon last week and their legs hurt and they just want to go to the grocery store. Like, if things were accessible the way they should be accessible, if we didn't think of accessibility as like an extra thing.. as like a thing that put everybody out, like these things wouldn't be considered like, “Oh man, I really have to go out of my way for this person because they feel like they need this mobility aid.” I think the future is mobility as fashion. I think the future is queering every aspect of the way we think about mobility and disability, and it doesn't have to be normal, but it does have to be possible. You know, that's how I feel – like thinking within the framework of a capitalist and nationalist society is never going to help us get to the sick future that we want.
Charlie: Yeah, no, I so appreciate that, and hearing the word “normal” as we're talking about all of this, I'm like, what a stupid word.
Atlas: Yeah, for real.
Charlie: Yeah, like the word “normal” is so detrimental in so many ways. It's like.. it's not about that at all. It's being able to have this world that is totally inclusive of disability, of being queer, of using mobility aids to your heart's content.
Atlas: Yeah, and of not getting asked about your personal medical information. That's another thing I would like to tack on, is that when I'm using my cane, nobody should be coming up and asking me what's wrong with me, you know?
Charlie: I knooooow, urgh, it’s so bad. Yeah, no, exhausting. It's so bizarre. But yeah, like wooonderful – a future that incorporates these things. Yes, please. It has been so wonderful talking with you and having a good one-to-one conversation for the first time in a bit.
Atlas: Yeah, it's been a minute. But yeah, thank you so much for having me. This has been fun.
Charlie: Good, I'm glad. Well, I'll talk to you soon. I may or may not see you in February. We'll see how it goes for both of us.
Atlas: True. Yeah, alright.
Charlie: Alright, Atlas. I'll talk to you soon!
Atlas: Talk to you soon – bye.
Charlie: Bye!
Oh my gosh, that was such a rich conversation. That was so great. Atlas is so great. Just the way he thinks and creates and researches and lives. My god. Talking with him, it really just like.. I don't know.. it reminds me that disabled knowledge really is worldbuilding knowledge. And that our communities have always been inventing these different ways of care and culture and survival beyond these other systems that weren't designed for us. If you want to learn more about Atlas and his work with Degenerates Collective, you can check the episode description, and the episode transcript for links and details. Thank you so much for listening to The Future is Sick. This podcast is an experiment in sick time, in storytelling, and imagining together. If you enjoyed this episode, it really helps to share it, to follow the show, and to invite folks into the conversation. You can find transcripts and more episodes at sickfuturescollective.org/podcast. So until next time, take care, rest when you need to, and remember, The Future is Sick. Bye!