Disability rights campaigner Kathleen (Katie) Ball died in Melbourne on June 25 from pneumonia at the age of 39. Katie was a qualified secondary teacher, a community development worker and a grassroots activist, who never shied away from taking direct action, whether it be in highlighting the social and sexual inequalities in the treatment of disabled people or protesting the logging of East Gippsland forests.
A disability rights campaigner from her late teens, Katie had Kugelberg Welander Syndrome (juvenile spinal muscular atrophy) and used an electric wheelchair for mobility.
Involved in the phone sex industry, she also taught the "politics of disablement" at the Kangan-Batman TAFE.
Katie was featured in the award-winning 1994 documentary film Untold Desires and her photos have been published in Picture magazine. She was featured on the ABC Radio National program, Earshot ("In the hoist with Katie Ball"), in 2000.
In 1998 at the ska TV Activist Awards, Katie accepted the Most Daring Action award on behalf of the Disability Liberation Front for the DSF's gate-crashing in September 1997 of the launch of the Disability Services Directory for the City of Brimbank by youth and community minister Denis Napthine.
Kate was a founding member of the DLF, which continues to campaign for rights for people with disabilities, and for funding to be used for services for greater access for people with disabilities.
She spoke at many forums and wrote a library-based dissertation on the sociological analysis of sexuality and the disability rights movement.
In a very candid essay titled "Who'd Fuck an Ableist", published in the US Disability Studies Quarterly (Fall 2002, Volume 22, No. 4). Katie explained her fascination with human sexuality and the extent of discrimination against the sexual expression of disabled people.
Katie leaves behind her loving partner Peter Vanderfeen and their two young children. She will be missed by many people in the social change movements whom she worked with and inspired.
[Abridged from Melbourne Indymedia]
From Green Left Weekly, July 7, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.