Indonesia has adopted a new regulation aimed at reducing the extra costs disabled people face, guaranteeing discounts across nine sectors, including health care, transportation and assistive devices. But disabled Indonesians say fees and administrative hurdles involved in obtaining the documents needed to access those rights could leave some people behind. As the government begins implementing the policy, advocates are calling for disability assessments to be free and accessible.

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In Kenya, queer and disabled people are finding common ground around questions of identity, access, family, and belonging. Ahead of a Nairobi event exploring where disability and queerness intersect, organizers and participants talk about the communities they have found and the spaces they are trying to create. “Queer people and disabled people share way more than they think they do,” says one organizer. The event will use storytelling, art, performance, and what its organizers call “queer joy” to start a conversation they say is long overdue.

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In Malaysia, disability exclusion is rarely one dramatic denial. More often, writes Beatrice Leong, it is “a series of ordinary delays” — inaccessible schools, symbolic consultations, policies without enforcement, and a system that asks disabled people to wait patiently for dignity and belonging. Blending personal reflection with political analysis, Leong examines what happens when inclusion is promised repeatedly, but justice never fully arrives.

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The ADA’s influence extends far beyond the United States. It helped shape a growing international approach to disability rights that eventually contributed to the development of the CRPD. But global disability movements have also expanded on ideas that U.S. law has yet to fully embrace. “I think many U.S. disability rights activists were surprised to find out how much we could learn from the international community,” says Eric Rosenthal, founder and executive director of Disability Rights International.

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As Nigeria’s growing insecurity crisis spreads, disabled people face barriers that can make escaping violence far more difficult. Across the country, they describe inaccessible emergency warnings, challenges reaching safety, disrupted livelihoods, and limited access to assistance during times of crisis. Their stories reveal how conflict is experienced differently when mobility, communication, and support cannot be taken for granted and how disability is too often overlooked in emergency planning and response.

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After years of failed treatments for complex PTSD, Marian Siljeholm followed an unlikely lead into the underground world of MDMA-assisted therapy. What began as a search for healing became a journey through the science of trauma, the politics of prohibition, and the hidden global network of people risking their freedom to help others reclaim their lives. Their stories would change her own. As Marian writes, “The next morning, I woke with a thought as real as the bed: This is the first day of my life.”

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