Jessica Kellgren-Fozard urges LGBTQ+ allies to ‘listen’ for Disability Pride Month (EXCLUSIVE)
The Attitude Pride Award winner urged allies "to accept, to understand, and to really take to heart the message of the queer community"
By Aaron Sugg
Social media sensation Jessica Kellgren-Fozard has urged LGBTQ+ allies to “listen” while marking Disability Pride Month 2026 at the PEUGEOT Attitude PRIDE Awards Europe, supported by British Airways.
With over a million subscribers on YouTube, the deaf advocate was honoured at the 10th anniversary of the Attitude Pride Awards and spoke candidly about her experiences as a disabled lesbian woman.
Speaking to Attitude on the red carpet at Chancery Rosewood, London, Kellgren-Fozard asked allies to take into consideration experiences they may not have had themselves.
“Listen to our voices and our experiences and to not question” – Jessica Kellgren-Fozard advising allies to the disabled and queer community
“I think that the best thing an ally can ever do for the queer community is to just listen to our voices and our experiences and to not question,” Kellgren-Fozard told Attitude.
“I think it’s very easy to question an experience that you haven’t had, to want to know more about, but in a way that’s sometimes a little too probing. So just to accept, to understand, and to really take to heart the message in the queer community.”
Visibility is close to her heart, as she told Attitude: “Growing up, I didn’t really see any positive representation of either disabled people or queer people. There wasn’t any happiness within that representation. It was just terrible things are going to happen to you because you’re queer.”
“You can live with disability in a positive way” – Kellgren-Fozard on using her online platform for change
“I really want to use my platform to spread queer joy, and also to spread the idea that you can live with disability in a positive way.”
Drawing on statistics from the Movement Advancement Project, she added: “One third of the queer community have a disability, and it’s such an important group of people that we need to remind them that we can feel that happiness as well.”
Kellgren-Fozard’s story is nothing short of acclaim-worthy. She became deaf at the age of 15 due to Hereditary Neuropathy with Liability to Pressure Palsy (HNPP), a genetic nerve condition.
Kellgren-Fozard’s award-winning story
What makes her journey to internet stardom even more inspiring is that she experienced falls and scrapes that left her bleeding and with severely torn ligaments.
In her late teens, she experienced a medical event where both of her arms became paralysed. In hospital, she underwent several tests, including a lumbar puncture that went wrong, causing a leak of spinal fluid. As a result, she had to spend almost two years on bed rest near the age of 17.
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.