Skating is For Everyone

And blaming tragedy on the disabled is for no one

This is not going to be my greatest post but I have to put this somewhere and I am angry and I am depressed and I have a bunch of half started posts about my cuticles and my to do lists and how much I hate fascism but let’s get into something personal here.

Repeat after me: disabled people are not tragic and they do not cause tragedy.

After last week’s totally preventable and fatal collision between a regional jet and a Black Hawk helicopter just minutes before landing at Reagan International Airport, the world watched as Donald Trump tried to pin the blame on DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion), in particular, the hiring of disabled people by the previous administration. He claimed that aiming for diversity lowered the standards of the workforce.

Come on now. We know this is utter bullshit.

Not only was that as nonsensical as the tragedy itself, it also does nothing to console the families and friends and community of the victims. Like me. Six of the dead were from the Boston figure skating community, where yes, elite skaters train daily, but additionally, community members go to great lengths to remind other members that skating is for everyone. All are not only welcome, but encouraged to participate.

Typically, figure skating is an expensive sport, which can mean that as skaters train longer and harder it becomes more challenging to participate. However, there are recent efforts like Figure Skating in Harlem and Diversify Ice to ensure that skating can be available to Black and brown skaters who struggle to afford ice time and the cost of coaching, adaptive skating programs are cropping up everywhere for disabled skaters, and adult skating communities are becoming more and more robust.

The Skating Club of Boston (SCOB), the place where my family are and the six Boston skating folks were members, is a unique place: a three-rink facility that was designed for figure skaters from beginners to the most elite, training for world and Olympic medals. It is home to 1100 members, including my family of four. I will be the first to admit that it can be a super intimidating place because it’s not your typical rink that’s mainly for hockey with a few hours a day for figure skating. But once you get past that and realize how welcoming everyone is and how nobody cares what you’re doing as long as you observe the rules of the club and the ice, you can be an adult doing Learn to Skate, a six-year-old homeschooled kid spending all day every day at the rink, or anything in between, and everyone is just as kind to you.

We joined for my older daughter, a fourteen-year-old dedicated skater who trains there six to seven days a week. Synchronized skating is her sport of choice. She currently skates on Hayden Synchro’s intermediate team, which trains half-time at SCOB. The Skating Club of Boston owns the novice, junior, and senior level Hayden teams. My daughter also skates on SCOB’s Theatre on Ice novice-level team, and she trains at SCOB with her coaches every day after school and on weekends working on singles as well.

My younger daughter is disabled. She used to be able to walk with a walker, but she lost much of her mobility during the pandemic when schools and rehabilitation centers closed and she had no physical therapy for two years. She had surgery on her legs in 2023 to lengthen her Achilles tendons. After that, we asked her to pick an activity to keep her legs strong, and she chose adaptive skating to be more like her sister. Now she skates twice a week and skates on SCOB’s Theatre on Ice adaptive team. She loves to compete and perform in her costumes and makeup and to be part of a group.

I am an adult skater at 52 years old, coming back to the ice after decades away, and I practice three to four days a week with one coaching session per week. My progress is slow but steady. I also recently joined SCOB’s Theatre on Ice adult team and it brings me tremendous joy to do now what I was not able to do as a child.

My husband has skates too and likes to join us for public sessions or to help our younger daughter when she wants to practice without a coach. He is our number one skating chauffeur and he never misses a show or local competition.

We all progress at different rates and often compete against each other but between lessons and competitions, we are all friends in a tight-knit community, supporting each other, spending time with each other between sessions, at competitions and shows, traveling with each other, practicing with each other, showing up for each other. With increased diversity efforts and seeing different faces, different ages, a rainbow of genders and sexualities, and now different abilities on the ice, the sport is pushed in new directions and space is made for new levels of athletes previously not thought possible. Both my daughters could compete in multiple disciplines if they wanted to, and so could I. There are categories for all levels of adults (even 50+!). Skating is hard — the hardest thing I have ever done — but it is also fun! It’s not just about making it all the way to the Olympics, though it might be for a select and talented few, like those who died last week.

My family knew the coaches and the skaters from our club who were on that plane and for us, Trump’s pointing fingers at DEI and disabled workers is falling on deaf ears. It won’t bring these special humans back and it doesn’t console anyone. Some of these children were people of color. Some were transracial, international adoptees. The coaches were immigrants. All people like those Trump is trying to cast out right now. All of them were people who saw the goodness in everyone at our club because we had a single thing in common: the love of skating. Jinna and Spencer were children with bright, artistic, ridiculously talented futures and Vadim and Genia were coaches who brought out the same in other children. Flames needlessly extinguished.

The skating community is small and bonded. We support each other, irrespective of our skating goals. And right now we are coming together irrespective of politics, because the untimely death of children should not be a political issue, it’s one we can all agree should never happen no matter what. We will heal and we will keep going. But we need you too. All of you. All are welcome in the skating world as skaters or as spectators. Come join us. See what we are capable of.

And yes it’s awful and tragic and horrible, of course it is. So a real leader takes responsibility. A real leader apologizes. They stand and weep with the families, and acknowledge that the Black Hawk helicopter never should have been where it was, and explain why there was only one air traffic controller working during the hours when there should have been two. They admit that everything about this was wrong. They don’t blame other people. And they certainly don’t blame the previous administration’s efforts to hire a more diverse workforce, especially imaginary disabled people. That’s adding insult to injury. Who does he think his audience is? Not us. By behaving this way, it’s just so much worse. Because in addition to explaining to my children that children and coaches and parents they saw every day had to die in this terrible way instead of getting to grow old like most of us will, and helping my younger child not hyper-fixate on the even less pleasant aspects of these particular deaths, I also had to once again explain that what they’re hearing outside our community about the cause of the crash is incorrect and that these anti-DEI efforts are wrong and racist and ableist and misogynistic and, let’s face it, another excuse for radical neo-Nazistic decision-making that no one will be able to chalk up to just another “awkward gesture.”