Jessica Kellgren-Fozard on disability and LGBTQ+ advocacy: ‘I wanted to share that hope’ (EXCLUSIVE)
The creator has been honoured at the 2026 PEUGEOT Attitude PRIDE Awards Europe, supported by British Airways
Reaching a million subscribers on YouTube is impressive but doing it with content focused on LGBTQ+ and disability advocacy is no everyday achievement. With over a thousand videos and millions of views, Jessica Kellgren-Fozard uses her platform to educate and inspire, while always remaining her authentic self. This is why we are recognising her at the PEUGEOT Attitude PRIDE Awards Europe, supported by British Airways.
Kellgren-Fozard grew up with the Quaker belief in “radical equality”. “We have an intrinsic worthiness within us that makes us all completely equal,” is a lesson she was taught early in life, she explains. And in Quaker school, she learnt that you can love anyone, and the notion of gender is freer as well.
In this environment, no coming out moment was required. “I told my parents when I was four that I was going to marry Rogue from the animated X-Men. And they were like, ‘OK, good luck with that. She’s not real, but sure.’”
Growing up without fear
Although she was surrounded by a world of acceptance, her own body was challenging her.
“As a child, I constantly struggled with my body just not doing the things that I expected it to do,” she says.
She had falls and scrapes that left her bleeding and with severely torn ligaments. Then, in her late teens, she had a medical event where both her arms were paralysed. In hospital, she had several tests, including a lumbar puncture that went wrong, causing a leak in spinal fluid. As a result, she had to spend almost two years on bedrest. But Kellgren-Fozard is no quitter.
“It was very difficult. And in that time I really spent a lot of time thinking forwards and thinking that I will get out of this,” she remembers. “If I was able to get out the other side, what I wanted to do was to be able to reach back to people who were in that position and to share that hope with them.”
One good outcome from this period was that the reason for her health issues was revealed.
Putting a name to the symptoms
“We finally got a diagnosis that I’m actually missing a gene,” explains Kellgren-Fozard. “I have a condition called hereditary neuropathy with liability to pressure palsies, or HNPP, which means that there are holes in the myelin sheath around my nerves, so my nerves can get easily damaged by pressure on them.
“I have Ehlers-Danlos syndromes as well, which means that all of my connective tissues are… we’ll just go with weird. And that affects my organs and my heart,” she continues, before finishing with, “and I have scoliosis and deafness as a symptom.”
After earning a Bachelor of Arts in film and screen studies from the University of Brighton and working for a local TV station, Kellgren-Fozard started making YouTube videos and quickly realised that authentic content about her disabilities really connected with people.
“My most popular video is still ‘Why I don’t sound deaf,’” she says, referring to a video with over 10 million views. “It’s something that I struggle with a lot, but it’s a struggle that isn’t necessarily understood or seen as a difficulty. Because I lost my hearing as a teenager, I have a lot of muscle memory [with] my voice, and I try and keep it that way.”
Jessica Kellgren-Fozard’s full interview appears in issue 371 of Attitude magazine, on sale in print and digital now. Order Attitude magazine issue 371 in print now, or in digital on the links below on Apple News+ and the Attitude app.