​People who stutter are regularly interrupted. Our sentences our finished for us, we are talked over, and skirted in conversations. This can be terribly frustrating and disempowering, not the least because being regularly interrupted causes dysfluent people to internalize this oppression.  
 
Yet it is also noteworthy that Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) describes the stuttering event itself as an “interruption of speech” (e.g. Guitar 2014). At first glance this use of “interruption” seems straightforward. To interrupt someone else’s speech is (as the OED defines “interrupt”) to break the continuity of something in time, to hinder from proceeding with some action, as well as to hinder, stop, prevent, thwart. Yet there is something odd about this formulation when applied to ourselves. To follow out this line of thought, not only are we interrupted by others, but SLP discourse concludes that when we stutter we interrupt—ourselves?
 
What could this mean? Is it that they think we are interrupting language itself? If so—then whose language? Certainly not our language! I have always spoken with gaps, pauses, prolongations, and repetitions. A stutter is only an interruption of what we think language should sound like: “normally” fluent, able-bodied speech.[i] One might respond that stutterers interrupt the abstract structure of language and morphology—except that linguistics generally holds language to be both flexible and dynamic.[ii] Communication theory likewise suggests that communication is filled with redundancy and thus far more flexible than we fear.[iii] All this to say that the idea that stuttering is itself an “interruption” is actually far from self-evident, and in fact a much more political and complex statement than we’ve been taught to believe.[iv]
 
But what does it mean that we both interrupt and are interrupted? Is there a relation between these events? Do people interrupt us because our speech interrupts the script of fluency? Because we interrupt the linear and ceaseless flow of time and information? There is likely truth to the idea that interruptions are attempts to interrupt the dysfluent interruption—to get back to business as usual. But we can take this conversation in a different yet equally plausible direction: thinking about who gets interrupted leads to the question of who is interruptible.
 
Dysfluent speakers, women, queer and racialized voices don’t just happen to get interrupted; some voices are understood to be interruptible in a way that others are not. That is, the problem is not exactly that some voices are just louder or more authoritative than others and thus get heard, while other voices that break the (apparently fragile!) flow of speech or that have distinct features (such as “uptalk”) don’t demand attention. The issue, rather, is always power dynamics between marginalized and privileged peoples.     
 
For example, in November 1970, the Globe and Mail published a curious piece entitled “Stammer Becomes Fashionable: Essential Mark of the English Gentleman,” an exposé of a wildly counter-intuitive British phenomenon. The cultivation of a distinguished, yet fake, stammer is described as indicating good breeding and fashion. Speech impediments in the British Parliament were reportedly displayed commonly and unashamedly, and the article details stammering as a passport to elite circles, a means of holding a listener’s attention so one’s words are appreciated more. This strategy was developed early in certain private school traditions. “In the more extreme cases,” explains Oxford professor David Jenkins, “it’s a very visible affectation. It’s also a sign of complete self-assurance. You take your time, knowing you are master of the situation.”[v]
 
Stuttering in this case was oddly used to control conversations; the stutter that stretches time and makes others uncomfortable becomes a symbol demonstrating that social elites are masters of the situation—that they are not interruptible.
 
The irony is painful but offers an important lesson: dysfluent voices are not interrupted simply because stuttering “interrupts speech.” The issue, rather, is one’s position within relations of power. For the fashionable stammerer, stuttering became a manifestation and performance of high social status. Today, we are taught to limit our stuttering for the exact same purpose.
 
There are two broad conclusions we can draw from this reflection.
 
1) To understand interruption and dysfluency we must move past the SLP discourse of stuttering “interrupting speech” to think about power and ableism. If stuttering interrupts, it interrupts not speech nor communication but ableist norms of speech that are rooted within our social, cultural, political, and economic worlds. How can this power to interrupt be used critically to cultivate community and resistance? This question is important since the capacity to interrupt is always linked with power and is thus dangerous. For example, the French novelist and stutterer Patrick Modiano appeared on a prominent French television show; displaying his admiration for Modiano, Jacques Derrida later reflected that, “he’s managed to get people to accept that they need to be patient when he can't find his words. . . . There’s someone who has succeeded in transforming the public scene and forcing it to go at his own speed” (479). Derrida’s wording, “forcing [the audience] to go at his own speed,” is quite ambiguous. Is Modiano, like the fashionable stammerer, taking control of the conversation, interrupting fluency as a way to master conversation? Or is his interruption an invitation into a different rhythm and tempo that transforms the public scene? These are very different practices that lead towards very different politics. 
 
2) The example of the fashionable stammerer highlights the possibility that being interrupted—being interruptible—has little to do with the manner in which phonemes exit one’s mouth. It is of course true, as Chris Constantino argues in his Foucauldian work on passing-as-fluent, that fluent privilege can be emulated and used to leverage one’s social position—though as many of us know, truly passing as fluent is always precarious for the stutterer and often more stressful/dangerous than it’s worth. The fashionable stammerer is evidence that in a different social context, stuttering came to mean something else entirely, a sign of privilege rather than pity. It is evidence that fluency and normalcy are always stacked games played against marginalized peoples.
 
To conclude, we are interrupted and seen as interruptible not due to the distinct characteristics of our voices and patterns of our speech but because stuttering has been framed as an interruption. We are interrupted because the power to interrupt belongs to those with social power and is seen as grotesque in our dysfluent bodies. The “fashionable stammerer” may have been a historical oddity, but social expectations around who gets to take up time when communicating remains coupled with privilege.
 
It is difficult to know the best response. Interruption is an incredibly complex event and practise marked by as many pitfalls as possibilities. One perhaps obvious response is to refuse the idea that disabled speech is an interruption of speech and communication. This is our dysfluent mode and rhythm of communicating. We neither aspire nor pretend to be fluent so at this level there is nothing to interrupt and nothing to be interrupted. We should, if we desire, finish our sentences and block visibly while others attempt to carry on the conversation without us. This would be a start.
 
But of course dysfluency is an interruption, just of a very different kind than imagined by SLP. Dysfluency transgresses ableist norms of what language should sound like, how social time should be occupied, and the place of disabled peoples within society (i.e. if not assimilated then cheerfully working towards a cure or rehabilitation). From this perspective we might begin to imagine how to use dysfluent interruption as a critical practise. How can interruption confront and transform communicative privilege and the ableism that structures our lives? How can dysfluency help to critically interrupt political norms and structures by which some people are deemed “interruptible”? If this is a much bigger challenge than refusing the idea that stuttering “interrupts speech” it is because the political reward is likewise far greater.

-Josh
​

[i] Both normalcy and fluency are fictions that quasi-exist in the way that statistical averages exist.

[ii] That stuttering stretches language and expresses variation is obvious; or, in theoretical terms, Deleuze might say that dysfluency composes a “minor grammar.”

[iii] Some communication contexts have little to no redundancy and are thus highly susceptible to interruption and error (for example, an air traffic controller). The point is that the vast majority of communicative relations could be reconfigured to make space for dysfluency if not governed by ableist protocols. Yet admittedly, what people likely mean is more straight-forward: stuttering interrupts the spontaneous or “natural” flow of meanings exchanged between people (as one of our commentators has said, stuttering can feel like being caught in a traffic jam in rush hour). This intuitive idea highlights an additional meaning of “interrupt”: stuttering seems to thwart our intended meanings and purposes within communicative events (as, of course, they unfold in fluent time). I am apparently a self-interrupting speaker. However, not only, as Zach has previously argued, might we find that we can stutter more “spontaneously” (in Chris Constantino’s terms) from a position of dysfluency pride and activism, but we must remember that language always unfolds in time, and communication is never instantaneous. The idea of being "thwarted" is, in this context, always framed by a fiction of fluency that does not exist.

[iv] At the same time, it is important to note that nearly all of these modes of interruption (which I have cast doubt upon) are precisely what SLP, a medical-industrial complex, has in mind when it frames dysfluency as an interruption. The stuttering event interrupts speech when considered linguistically, phonetically, communicatively, socially, temporally, economically, etc. etc. The fear of interruption is ubiquitous, perfectly evidenced in how SLP thinks about speech and its powers as incredibly fragile. Not only blocks and hesitations—the obvious candidates for an interruption—but repetitions, prolongations, and modulated flow of the voice are defined as interruptions. Why? Because they apparently carry no meaning and thus pose as, at best, an irritation and, at worst, a threat. However, as all of us have discovered when we’re among listeners that truly appreciate and make time for our voices, the voice, speech, language, and communication are far more robust and resilient than SLP seems to imagine.

[v] Israel Shenker, “Stammer Becomes Fashionable: Essential Mark of the English Gentleman,” The Globe and Mail, November, 1970, 12:12, Toronto.

In describing my experience with dysfluent activism, among the the first things I tell people is that the work I do is largely critical of speech pathology. I wish I didn't have to say this.

While I affirm the right of any person to seek therapy they choose for themselves, I am relieved that as a child I managed to avoid it. I'm not critical of speech pathology for the sake of being contradictory. I wish I could describe dysfluency and Did I Stutter and why I believe in this work outside its relation to speech pathology.

I want my work to be about speaking in my wild, untamed voice. I want to read poems in my untamed voice and revel in the fact that no one else sounds exactly like me. I want to meet other people with untamed voices and hear the worlds they’re building with their speech.

But my voice doesn't exist in a neutral political space. Speech pathology calls itself the expert on stuttering and tells me I shouldn’t be proud to be dysfluent. The largest stuttering organization in my country funds research on preventing voices like mine from existing in the future. At a self-help group meeting, I say "I like the way I sound more when I’m at my most dysfluent" and a fluent SLP reminds me that I don't speak for everyone in the room.

​I give instructions to an SLP at my workplace and they interrupt to tell me I can take all the time I need. I talk about stuttering and activism for an hour and after, a stranger from the audience asks if I've tried Lidcombe. Or hot marbles. Or singing my thoughts instead of speaking them.

Speech pathology has hegemonic control over the topic of stuttering. It uses that control to tell me I could sound less broken if I give in and assimilate. Everything I do with my untamed voice and in the name of communicative diversity is critical of this power. Every word I speak is resistance.
-Erin

“Was I really dysfluent…?” the presenter whispered to her colleague as she sat back down in her seat. An innocent question on the face of it… a question, I found troubling, however, in the context in which I overheard it – the presenter was a (fluent) speech and language therapist returning from the podium having given a highly-polished presentation at an international stammering conference. The empathic part of me reached out to the fact that speech and language therapists are human and also fall prey to society’s worship of ‘fluency’ and pervasive narratives around ‘excellence’. However, the question also struck me as insidious. A speech and language therapist…? At an international stammering conference…? Wasn’t this of all places a forum where being dysfluent was totally ok…?
 
From a young age I’ve had a strong sense of social justice and the principles of respect and value for each individual have been highly important to me.  Feeling disrespected or seeing others be disrespectful has always made me angry. Fast-forward to my final year of postgraduate training to become a speech and language therapist here in the UK, when a tutor recommended a book that had just been published:  ‘Mustn’t Grumble’ (Keith, 1994) - a controversial collection of short stories and poems reflecting the varied facets of disabled women’s experience. How little did I know that it would challenge everything I was learning to the core.
 
Through this text, I uncovered a deep connection with the radical ideas underpinning the disabled people’s movement. The clearly articulated and angry stories of oppression and exclusion taught me that, from a social model perspective, people aren’t disabled because they have an impaired body, mind or means of communication, but because society places structural, environmental and attitudinal barriers in their way. Viewing disability as a civil rights and justice issue rather than a medical or therapeutic one resonated deeply - there was something refreshing, raw and alive about the social model and its open invitation to engage in a dialogue about difference that extended beyond the focus of loss and adjustment. However, it represented a direct challenge to the influential medical model, which has traditionally shaped the institutions within which speech and language therapists are trained and generally work in the UK and which perpetuates the historical focus on ‘deficit’ and the need for ‘therapeutic intervention’ by ‘trained, expert practitioners’. As a therapist-in-training, it was unsettling to discover the extent to which the social model contested the fundamental principles upon which therapy is based (Finkelstein, 1993; Oliver, 1993). Furthermore, as much therapeutic practice has traditionally focused on ‘normalisation’ and the ‘reduction or eradication of difference’, the social model revealed an intrinsic paradox; that the narrow focus of restoration therapy can only serve to reinforce and reaffirm social norms and stigma rather than acting as a vehicle through which these prevailing norms can be challenged and renegotiated (Oliver, 1996).  
 
As a speech and language therapist I’ve always worked in both the fields of stammering and brain injury. I believe my approach to therapy has benefited greatly from the cross-fertilisation of different ideas, theories and practices within these two fields. I was fortunate from early in my career to have ready access to forward-thinking therapists committed to engaging with the social model more actively (Parr et al., 1997; Pound et al., 2000; Parr et al, 2003; Felson Duchan & Byng, 2004). Through their pioneering work, many people with aphasia have been given a voice and role in defining the lived experience of aphasia and evaluating therapy services here in the UK. This has prompted a call for the focus of therapy to broaden and address the role that self-identity, society and social stigma play in making the processes of living with aphasia more challenging.
 
In contrast, I’ve been intrigued by how slowly the social model has been embraced within the stammering community. Indeed, the powerful influence of the medical model is still very apparent – as demonstrated by the growing interest in the neuroanatomical basis of stammering and fluency shaping approaches for young children that currently dominate conference programmes. However, in the spirit of client autonomy and choice, no matter how dominant, the medical model is only one lens through which stammering and stammering therapy can be viewed. The social model clearly illustrates how prevailing norms, language and stereotypes can go unchallenged, become internalised and, therefore, self-oppressive. This is of particular relevance to stammering and enables us to re-consider and re-define where the ‘problem’ of stammering is located.
 
I’m delighted to see a growing number of people who stammer engaging directly with the disability activist movement: The Did I Stutter? Project, members of the British Stammering Association and the Employers Stammering Network (ESN) to name but a few. Also, that stammering therapists are starting to engage in these conversations too (e.g. Michael Boyle, Chris Constantino). Positioning the stammering therapy discourse within the broader disability discourse offers a means of revising and extending the boundaries of thinking about stammering and stammering therapy.
 
So what might this mean for stammering therapists? Naturally, I can only speak from personal experience. The following is a reflection on how engagement with the social model has enriched and informed my philosophy of therapy and how I embody theory in practice.
 
The social model has encouraged me to embrace ideas that promote thinking against the grain. It’s pushed me to critically examine my attitudes, beliefs and assumptions about otherness, difference and disability and how these have been shaped over time. This in turn has challenged me to actively reflect on and question my personal motives for the work that I do and to articulate my philosophy of therapy more clearly and transparently with clients. For me, stammering therapy is about reducing social- and self-oppression through the recognition, removal or negotiation of structural, physical and attitudinal barriers in order for people to live choice-fully and stammer openly, confidently and without shame.
 
To this end, the social model has taught me the importance of transforming social relationships and power dynamics, which involves being willing to get out of the therapy room and into the real world context. I’m currently involved in co-developing and -facilitating a corporate training programme in conjunction with a business leader from the Employers Stammering Network (ESN) and therapists from City Lit. The ESN is an organised initiative, which together with the British Stammering Association, is working to change society’s understanding of and attitudes towards stammering in the UK workplace. Following the success of a pilot project last year, we are now rolling out a more extensive programme of workshops for employees who stammer, managers and HR departments. Watch this space!
 
The social model has taught me the power of language and to be mindful of how I talk about and frame stammering. I consistently avoid using binary oppositions (e.g. ‘good’/’bad’) that place stammering on the negative pole and reinforce fluency as the gold standard in an on-going commitment to not reinforce ableism. I also avoid framing stammering as ‘a defect’, ‘impediment’ or ‘disorder’ and openly question others’ use of such language. In addition, the social model has taught me to respect personal language preferences in others (e.g. person-first or identity-first language, such as ‘person who stammers’ or ‘stammerer’), the political stance that language of identity can represent and the perils of unquestioningly applying a broad linguistic standard (e.g. PWS).
 
Engaging clients in conversations about the contrasting ways difference is understood in society and the different ways stammering can therefore be defined is central to my approach to therapy. I frequently witness how liberating an understanding of the social model can be as it shifts the focus away from ‘what is wrong with me’ to critically examining ‘what is wrong with the broader system in which I live’. Being explicit and transparent about my philosophy of therapy also enables clients to make more informed decisions about what they feel might be helpful at a particular point of time. There is no ‘one size fits all’ in stammering therapy, so offering a range of approaches and recognising that people’s therapy preferences change over time affords greater client autonomy. I balance idealism with realism; whilst the growing number of radical stammering communities are re-visioning stammering and the future, it will inevitably take time for this important work to impact the day-to-day reality for everyone who stammers. Therapy, therefore, involves the delicate balancing act of offering access to these radical communities and their vision whilst also working from where people are at. That said, the social model has also taught me greater humility, an appreciation that many people live well with stammering outside of therapy and to therefore not view the need for therapy as automatic.
 
I have found that introducing people to Michael Boyle’s research into stigma and self-stigma as well as the concept of internalised oppression offers a different way of bringing about changes in attitude. Additionally, introducing people to stammering activism and dysfluency pride offers people an opportunity to explore and discover new identities and communities. Social media is a powerful mechanism for bringing people together, so I try to stay current and signpost diverse resources and communities via Twitter and Facebook. Additionally, in keeping with the belief that the ‘personal can become political’ I regularly encourage people to blog, vlog, write articles, get involved in student and therapist training as well as co-presenting at conferences. A number of clients have since gone on to campaign more actively through organised public speaking events, the production of documentaries and the creation of peer groups and other political platforms for people to join together as a collective and challenge prevailing negative attitudes and misconceptions about stammering.
 
I’m so very grateful that a book recommendation opened my eyes to the social model and the disabled people’s movement so early in my career. It has affirmed the importance of staying open to a plurality of ideas and theories as well as the value of exploring views that deviate from conventional thought and practice. While this has resulted in a career path that hasn’t always been straightforward to navigate, it’s undoubtedly shaped a path that has been more colourful, creative and enriching as a result.
 
Returning to the therapist I overheard at the international stammering conference… to me, what remains so deeply insidious in their query is what has not yet been questioned and what, therefore, remains out of awareness and unexamined. This strikes me as perilous not only for the individual therapist concerned, but, if representative of the majority, for stammering therapy and the stammering community at large.
 
-Sam Simpson


References:
 
Felson Duchan J. & Byng S. (2004). Challenging Aphasia Therapies: Broadening the Discourse and Extending the Boundaries. Psychology Press, New York.
 
Finkelstein V. (1993) Disability: a social challenge or an administrative responsibility? In Swain J., Finkelstein V., French S. & Oliver M. (eds) Disabling Barriers – Enabling Environments. Sage Publications Ltd, London
 
Keith L. (1994). Mustn’t Grumble: Writing by Disabled Women. The Women’s Press, London.
 
Oliver M. (1993) Disability and dependency: a creation of industrial societies? In Swain J., Finkelstein V., French S. & Oliver M. (eds) Disabling Barriers – Enabling Environments. Sage Publications Ltd, London
 
Oliver M. (1996). A sociology of disability or a disablist sociology? In Barton L. (ed) Disability and Society: Emerging Issues and Insights. Longman, London
 
Parr S., Byng S. & Gilpin S. with Ireland C. (1997) Talking about Aphasia. Open University Press, Berkshire.
 
Pound C., Parr, S., Lindsay J. & Woolf C. (2000). Beyond Aphasia: Therapies for Living with Communication Disability. Winslow Press Ltd., Oxon.
 
Parr S., Duchan J. & Pound C. (2003). Aphasia Inside Out: Reflections on Communication Disability. Open University Press, Berkshire. 

Earlier this month Kylie Simmons was detained at the Atlanta International Airport when a customs agent reported her dysfluent speech as suspicious. Customs agents accused Simmons of dishonesty based on her speech when responding to questions, and also of lying about being dysfluent.

Simmons’ treatment by customs enforcement is rooted in the misconception that stuttering is indicative of dishonesty and non-compliance, but is also influenced by institutional racism. An intersectional analysis of this incident must acknowledge the key differences in the experiences of white dysfluent people and dysfluent people of color.

Customs enforcement, the TSA, and regional transit security organizations are agents of state-sanctioned violence against bodies they deem suspicious based on appearance, movement, and communication. Most commonly these are people of color, trans people, disabled people, immigrants, and non-native English speakers. With the justification of promoting national security, law enforcement detains, injures, and kills people perceived as suspicious. In responding to incidents such as the treatment of Kylie Simmons, it is critical to examine not only Simmons’ unequal treatment but also the role of race and disability working together in the state’s policing of its citizens.

The fear of suspicious bodies and their threat to national security is spread through “See Something, Say Something” campaigns, which encourage citizens to police each other in transit and other public spaces. These campaigns are effective in maintaining a continuous state of fear, and an understanding that it is one’s civic duty to scrutinize the actions of others in order to prevent acts of terrorism.

As a disabled, gender nonconforming person who travels often with various mobility aids and medical devices, I have experienced ableism in navigating transit systems including the TSA and customs enforcement. However, when I share my stories of discrimination, it is from a place of racial privilege. As a white person, I can speak out on police brutality with relative confidence that I will not be arrested or killed for being perceived as suspicious, and that neither national security nor the suspiciousness of my body will be used to justify my death at the hands of the state.

In responding to Simmons’ treatment, I am calling for more than awareness about stuttering, or different training for airport staff. Simple outrage at this incident reveals privilege--since such discrimination happens all the time to racialized bodies that appear non-compliant. In solidarity with Black Lives Matter, I am calling for the abolition of customs enforcement, and an end to the state-sanctioned violence against suspicious bodies.

-Erin

Earlier this month I went on a stuttering pilgrimage to Laughlin, Nevada to a smoke-filled casino to eat cheap buffets and see stuttering idol/country singer Mel Tillis. When picking up my tickets, I saw a sign reading, “Mel Tillis press conference at 2:30.” Having met other important people who were integral in my development as a comedian (Dick Gregory, Joan Rivers, Dave Chapelle, and Janeane Garofalo), I knew I had to meet the man who introduced stuttering to the masses in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Beyond stuttering, he is an amazing singer-songwriter who received the 2012 medal of honor from President Obama. He’s a legend and meant so many things to me. So I attended the press conference. Also, knowing that he was a country singer, I figured he would be warm and accessible—plus, hey! We both stutter!
 
I was correct. He was lovely. At the press conference, I was able to tell him what he meant to me as a person who stutters. I thanked him for stuttering openly at a time when the expectation was not to embrace our divergent speech, but to hide it (video at http://tinyurl.com/hp3hvdb). Throughout the 24 hours I was at the casino, I received hugs from those who heard me testify. One of the hugs came from a woman who had an adult daughter who stuttered. She told me, “When my daughter started stuttering, we told her to slow down. But the speech therapist told us not to do that and just let her talk.” Although we only discussed the advice her daughter received and how she “grew out of her stuttering,” I felt the woman’s spirit and affection toward me. The bond between us was facilitated by Mr. Tillis’ openness about his speech and how it facilitated my own openness. 
 
At the press conference, I noticed Mr. Tillis halting on a sound at the beginning of a sentence and he hit the table. Of course, it was in the context of what he was saying, but I knew it was a secondary (a trick many of us use to get out a word—you should see me make a phone call. I am practically punching out the coffee tables to facilitate my fluency). I practically cried when I saw my own speech patterns reflected in someone I held in such high regard! I got to see Mel Tillis do a secondary, and it was within the first minute of his press conference! Throughout the press conference as well as the show, he stated how his speech has improved and that he found techniques to facilitate fluency. He also talked about Minnie Pearl encouraging him to use his voice (see video: http://tinyurl.com/gpg48ks). When he spoke, I could tell when he was using these tricks. I, of course, didn’t hear fluency; I heard stuttering and I felt like I was home. At the end of the show, I had him sign a T-shirt I bought and reminded him that I was the comedian he met earlier. Again, he was gracious. As I walked away he asked, “Did you notice I didn’t stutter much?” I, of course, longed for the stutter and looked for it the entire time. I replied, “You stuttered enough to show you were legit.”
 
I was pretty gleeful to have gone to the show and had this experience. I even noticed that I started having feelings for Mr. Tillis. That’s right, they were those kinds of feelings. For an older guy he is good looking: he kind of has an Alan Alda thing going on (which Mr. Tillis would probably hate to hear, but in my book, it is a compliment). I don’t usually go for older men, and money and power aren't turn ons for me. (You should see some of the guys I have gone out with to get the full impact of that statement.)
 
So why was I feeling all tingly? Then I remembered how I have felt for the hundreds of stutterers I have met in my life. I was experiencing yet another stuttering crush. A stuttering crush is the loving feeling and admiration/attraction one feels for a fellow Stutterer. It is the feeling of coming home. It is feeling free of isolation in finding people who are like you. Author bell hooks (she doesn’t capitalize her name) talks about this feeling in her book Teaching to Transgress. She introduced me to the Southern saying, “My tongue is in my friend’s mouth,” which works so well on so many levels for this example! For those of us who stutter, we don’t see ourselves reflected in our everyday lives. Our experiences, our dysfluencies, and everything we think and feel is often experienced in isolation. For me, seeing Mr. Tillis talk about his experiences and having these be received by a fluent audience kinda made me cry. He was talking about my experience, and it was being well received. Of course, his coping mechanism about his speech is to have people laugh with him instead of at him. This contrasts my own attitude of laughing at and mocking the people who laugh at me. Perhaps it is a generational thing! Nonetheless, he was speaking part of my experience, which made me love him and gave me tingly stuttering butterflies in my tummy. I was able to identify this feeling because I had already experienced these.
 
I remember crushing on Billy Bibbit in the movie One Flew of the Cuckoos Nest (sadly not the best image for a young person who stutters). I remember crushing on Stuttering John from the Howard Stern show. I remember any given number of crushes on any given number of Stutterers, some who might be reading this now. I know that the next person who stutters that I meet, I might be crushing on them as well. Most of us who stutter are all seventh grade girls when it comes to meeting people who reflect our experiences. Instead of “boy crazy” we are “stutter crazy.” It is the expression of love and community we have for one another. Sometimes it escalates into romance or marriages (we have seen plenty of that at stuttering conferences). Sometimes it simply manifests in the love we have for each other and the need for fellowship. Mel Tillis opened himself up to be a reflection of how I speak and my experiences.  
 
So of course I totally crushed on an 83 year old man. He’s Mel frickin’ Tillis!

-Nina G

​
From January to July 2016 Nina will be donating a portion of her speaking engagements to the National Stuttering Association’s scholarship fund to help pay for individuals to attend the conference. 

On December 25, StutterTalk posted a fantastic podcast, led by their B Team, regarding Did I Stutter. It contained an hour of thoughtful conversation on the four main tenants of Did I Stutter as listed on our front page. I highly recommend listening to the issues discussed, and hope it will lead to even more conversation about disability rights within the stuttering community.

The podcast raised many points worth further discussion (and indeed many that have already been tackled and nuanced on this blog), but one in particular caught my attention as worthy of further comment, since it involved the very heart of what Did I Stutter is about.

The piece of the conversation I want to focus on begins at 4:25 in response to the first point on Did I Stutter’s page, where the readers are put off by Did I Stutter’s bold claim to know what stuttering is. Did I Stutter writes:

“we understand disability and stuttering not as an individual defect, but first and foremost as a social discrimination against certain forms of human speaking.”

By and large, the B Team seems to find this claim and its explanation reductive. Questions are raised about whether focusing on society/ableism discounts the experience and struggle of the person stuttering, the role of internalized ableism, and whether calling stuttering a matter of discrimination is “painting this concept with a wide brush stroke.” Caryn Herring in particular found herself defensive regarding the strength of the claim: “it’s telling me ‘this is what this is, and this is what I should feel.’”

The questions raised are mostly issues this blog has expanded on, and are certainly still open to continued discussion and molding. What struck me in listening, however, was how strongly the Team pushed back against Did I Stutter making a claim to know “what stuttering is.”

It struck me as odd, because I can think of very few stuttering organizations that don’t make a bold claim to know what stuttering is on their websites.

Here’s just a sampling:

• "Stuttering is a communication disorder involving disruptions, or “disfluencies,” in a person’s speech."  National Stuttering Association (NSA)
• "Stuttering affects the fluency of speech. It begins during childhood and, in some cases, lasts throughout life. The disorder is characterized by disruptions in the production of speech sounds, also called ‘disfluencies.’" American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
• “Stuttering is a communication disorder in which the flow of speech is broken by repetitions (li-li-like this), prolongations (lllllike this), or abnormal stoppages (no sound) of sounds and syllables.” The Stuttering Foundation
• “Stuttering is a complex communication disorder that affects approximately 1% of the population (over 68 million people) and 3 million Americans.” FRIENDS
• “Stuttering is a complex and often-misunderstood communication disorder that can cause interruptions in a person’s speech.” Stuttering Association for the Young (SAY)

​These are by and large wonderful organizations, and the majority of these definitions go on to discuss not only the various manifestations of stuttered speech (repetitions, prolongations, etc.), but the social and lifestyle impacts of stuttering. My point is simply that every one of them is making a bold truth claim about “what stuttering is.” What’s more, every one of them is agreeing that stuttering is foremost a disorder. Stuttering is being presented outright as a medical/biological/pathological problem contained within an individual’s body. I can’t think of a more direct way of telling a person who stutters what their stutter is and how they should feel about it.

Given this climate, it is no wonder that Did I Stutter’s contrary claim that stuttering is absolutely not a medical or pathological disorder, but is rather a social discrimination, is indeed a new and unique statement. My point is simply that what is new about Did I Stutter’s claim is its content, not the fact that they would boldly claim to know what stuttering is. Indeed, medical professionals, SLPs, self-help organizations and the world at large have been telling us stuttering is a disorder in equally bold terms for all our lives.

Following the disability rights movement and the decades of research it has produced, Did I Stutter is refusing to reduce social differences to medical disorders, or let the language of “conditions” and “pathologies” define how we relate to our bodies. I understand the defensiveness that comes from being told what stuttering is, because it is that same defensiveness that fueled Did I Stutter’s opposing claim. I for one am tired and insulted by hearing stuttering voices referred to as disorders, and am grateful to read stuttering boldly defined as something else entirely. It is time for the world to start accepting that there is truly nothing wrong with stuttering.

-Charis

I love finding dysfluency in the world—stumbling across words and people who move with a delightful rhythm. Being the one discovered can, however, be awkward: feeling somewhat like a freak show. Last week I had two back-to-back yet very different encounters with dysfluency.
 
Encounter #1: I have an awkward hour to pass before a medical appointment, so I stop to work at a Starbucks attached to a Chapters that I have only been to once or twice. I order my eggnog latte, stuttering as one does, and as the barista listens with a poised sharpie she asks: “It’s Josh right?” I smile and play it cool while I’m actually thinking “How the hell do you remember my name?!” Oh right, I’m the stutterer.     
 
Encounter #2: Two hours later I meet my parents at another coffee shop across the city. As we leave I stop to ask about an electric grinder for sale behind the counter. The barista, not the same one who earlier took our orders, opens his mouth and answers my stutter with one of his own. A dysfluent dance opens between us as we discuss the pros and cons of this mid-range grinder. I leave without the coffee grinder yet with a smile—fortunate to have stumbled upon dysfluency in a fluent world. 
 
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: I apparently spend too much time at coffee shops. Beyond this fact, there seems to be something really different about these two encounters. In the first experience I was identified as that guy who stutterers through my dysfluency. The first thing that popped into my head were the opening lines of “Honest Speech,” where Erin remarks: “The barn owl communicates with its mates and offspring using a complex system of hissing, screeching, squawking, and facial muscle manipulation / Survival is dependent upon creating a voice so unique it can be recognized by loved ones in an instant.” Was I an owl perched in a Starbucks line?
 
The first intuition is yes, however the issue is complicated. My unique hissings and squawks reveal me to be a singular being that others can recognize. Yet there is an important difference between being recognized as a singular being as opposed to identified a type of person—that is, “a stutterer.” The second is an identity, a subject of a usually medicalized discourse. A “stutterer” is an identity that our culture understands because it is an identity that they have created and thus control. There is nothing unique nor singular about being a “stutterer.” I have been identified as a “stutterer” through my speech many times, and this is almost always an act of erasing dysfluency, of reducing it and myself to an identity that can be understood and managed.
 
In the capitalist context of a Starbucks line, calling me “Josh” seems to be recognizing my singularity rather than my identity as a “stutterer.” What caused the barista to remember me? My unique voice or the fact that I was a stutterer? These options are of course not mutually exclusive, but it may be helpful to consider the context. Baristas write names on coffee cups to give the feeling of connection. This feeling is part of the experience you pay for. In more fancy coffee shops, I have been told, the person behind the till writes down a distinguishing characteristic on the order—e.g. black coat, red hair—so that the other baristas can look directly at you when calling your name. As if that latte was made with care just for you. Calling anyone by name in this context is a calculated play at recognizing our singularity. Whether or not the barista last week identified me in my dysfluent singularity, rather than “that stutterer,” is ultimately beside the point.
 
Compare this to the second encounter. The wonderful thing about encountering dysfluency as dysfluency is the lack of need to make sense of it by labelling it. We were not two stutterers engaged in a halting act of communication, but an unexpected eruption of dysfluency in the world. There is far more dysfluency in the world than most people would like to admit. In fact, the idea of a “fluent world” is a fiction that can only be maintained through a sustained effort of covering up and smoothing over dysfluency. Encountering dysfluency enlivens me because of its honesty. As Erin says, “The sstuttering is the most honest part of me.” This is true not because stuttering represents some deep and authentic truth about who I am—a stutterer—but because the dysfluency of my voice “is how I know I still have a voice, I am still -being heard.” I participate in the world dysfluently and help to create a dysfluent world through my unique squawks and screeches. It is in these specific actions that I can be recognized; these squawks do not point to a general truth about my (medical and social) identity as a “stutterer.” They rather point to me here in this specific and fleeting moment.  
 
Desiring and expecting dysfluency in the world is perhaps a far better model than the way stuttering is used to label us. We don’t need to find and join with other “stutterers,” we need collectively to create a more dysfluent world.  

-Josh

In art, and especially in writing, disability is commonly used as a metaphor. As a poet, I have heard countless instances in which fluent people use ‘stutter’ figuratively in their work. It happens at least once in most readings and shows. A poet says “love stutters when it gets nervous” or “the kid with the stutter like a skipping record” or “the insistent stutter of my longing” or “the kid’s hands forgot how history stutters new names.”

These poets are not referencing dysfluent speech in the same way I do. Rather, they use ‘stutter’ to convey information about a character. Metaphors rely on a shared understanding of a concept, and the lines quoted above only make sense within this context. When a fluent poet says stutter they are referencing the collective understanding that stuttering is indicative of anxiety, dishonesty, incapacity, or inferiority. These analogies persist because stereotypes about dysfluency are so widely shared and firmly held. The writer uses stutter as a metaphor because they know it will concisely and illustratively communicate their intended concept.

This is not limited to dysfluency; other disabled voices and bodies are common objects in writing. Almost every abled writer I know has at some point appropriated the language of disability in their work, referring to surprise as paralyzing, fear as crippling, or blindness as ignorant, or comparing capitalism to cancer.  Employing references to disability as metaphor relies on a collective understanding that disabled bodies are broken, inferior, less valuable, and that they appropriate for use as objects of comparison.

It is important to note that the appropriation of disability occurs by abled writers, who are positively sanctioned for objectifying disabled voices. Disabled speakers writing about themselves and their experiences are less-positively sanctioned. A cliché phrase in poetry slam when facing a particularly challenging competition is “do your cancer poem!”, meaning pull out your best work. Almost never is this a poet who has cancer, but instead a poem about someone else who has died of cancer. This type of cancer poem typically scores very well.

Abled writers who use my voice as a metaphor interpret it differently than I do. They aren’t thinking about dysfluency as an identity at all, because they aren’t thinking about dysfluent people. They are looking to describe a nervous character and they settle on ‘stutter’ or they are writing about an abnormal rhythm and are reminded of the way our speech catches in their ears. Using ‘stutter’ as an analogy separates our speech from our bodies, strips it of meaning and nuance, and reduces it to stereotypical repetitions and elongations.

Even when the use of stuttering is not directly pejorative – when it is compared to something other than a nervous child, or used in an original way – the decoupling of dysfluency from speech and from the person is incredibly problematic. Fluent writers do not understand the social components of dysfluency, the way that dysfluent people relate to our speech, or the ways that they are complicit in perpetuating stereotypes. Their intention has nothing to do with my voice, but their word choice is born out of ableism and speech discrimination. In critiquing writers who appropriate disability, I am challenging the power that abled writers hold over disability narratives.  

-Erin

A big thanks to everyone who participated in #SpeechDiscriminationIs to raise awareness of speech discrimination! Check out some of the posts on our tumblr and twitter. My personal reflection on the day is posted here.

If you didn’t get a chance to post your story of speech discrimination yesterday, feel free to join in now on whatever social media you use, or in the comments below.
​
-Josh

​October 22 is International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD). Every year this day brings a lot of press to the topic of stuttering, though what it is asking the world to be aware of is often left vague and open to interpretation. It can be used to remind people that stuttering exists, what stuttering is (and isn’t), or how to interact more respectfully with people who stutter.

This year, we’d like to use ISAD to raise awareness about Speech Discrimination.

Anyone with a stutter, speech impediment, or communicative disability has experienced discrimination because of their speech. Whether you have been cut off or ignored in conversation, not offered accommodations in your school or workplace, or denied jobs, education, promotions, or leadership roles because of your voice, speech discrimination is an insidious and ever-present aspect of living with a communicative disability. It is harmful, it is ableist, and it is wrong.

What’s more, many of those without disabled speech don’t even know that speech discrimination happens, or that they can be responsible for it.

Let’s change this.

We invite stutterers and others with communicative disabilities to join us on October 22 with the hashtag #SpeechDiscriminationIs

Share your stories of how you have been discriminated against because of your voice. Point out the ableist standards, policies, and practices in your workplace or social circle. Let’s tell our twitter followers and facebook friends in no uncertain terms what Speech Discrimination Is, and let’s make sure they understand that it is absolutely not okay.
 
Here’s ten to get things started:
​
#SpeechDiscriminationIs not giving me jobs where I’ll have to speak to customers because you think my voice will embarrass you.
#SpeechDiscriminationIs the media only including characters who speak like me if they’re portrayed as quiet and scared.
#SpeechDiscriminationIs the teacher who asked me to sit down a third of the way through my presentation because my time was up.
#SpeechDiscriminationIs the coworker who asked me to repeat myself four times because he was too lazy to try to pay attention.
#SpeechDiscriminationIs the ADA making workplace discrimination illegal but only enforceable by complicated and expensive legal action.
#SpeechDiscriminationIs complimenting me on how much “better” I sound on days I stutter less, as though my normal voice isn’t good enough
#SpeechDiscriminationIs asking my partner to speak for me.
#SpeechDiscriminationIs why I spent years too scared to raise my hand in class.
#SpeechDiscriminationIs assuming that your way of speaking is inherently better or more desirable than mine.
#SpeechDiscriminationIs telling me that I couldn’t possibly love my voice the way it is.