How Zach Anner Changed the Stories We Tell About Disability

When most of us learn about disability, we don’t realize we’re learning. We’re watching television. Reading books. Scrolling social media. Listening to comedians.

Long before we meet a disabled person, we’ve already absorbed countless stories about what disabled life is supposed to look like. Usually, those stories aren’t intentionally harmful. They’re simply incomplete.

Disabled people are often portrayed as inspirational. Or tragic. Or courageous. Or defined almost entirely by their disability. We rarely get to see them simply… living. Funny. Flawed. Dating. Working. Being sarcastic. Being wonderfully ordinary.

I think that’s what Zach Anner has spent his career changing. Not by pretending disability doesn’t matter. But by refusing to let it become the whole story.

Giving Disability More Than One Story

Long before Zach Anner hosted travel shows, wrote for television or interviewed Oprah, he already knew the kind of stories he wanted to tell.

In his audition for Oprah’s search for a new television host, he imagined creating a travel show for people who had never believed travel was possible for them.¹ Not a show about planning the perfect vacation. A show about figuring things out when everything goes wrong.

Years later, when Oprah asked why he wanted his own show, his answer was simple. He wanted to “give a voice to a population that really hasn’t had one.”² That idea has quietly shaped everything he has created since.

“I Am So Many Things Before I Am a Person in a Wheelchair”

During that same interview, Oprah asked Zach what he thought was the biggest misconception about people with disabilities. His answer was immediate. People assume disabled people are helpless. That their personalities are defined by their disabilities. Then he said something that captures so much of his work: “I am so many things before I am a person in a wheelchair… Get to know the person. The chair is incidental.”²

I don’t think he was asking people to ignore disability. He was challenging the idea that disability should become the only story we tell about someone. Reading his memoir, If at Birth You Don’t Succeed, made that philosophy even clearer.

After interviewing Oprah, he later learned that she had been moved to tears by their conversation. While he was deeply touched by her kindness, he also wondered whether part of her emotional response reflected an assumption that his life must have been much harder than it actually was.³ He wasn’t denying that cerebral palsy had shaped his life. He was reminding us that it wasn’t the whole story. He reflected on growing up with a loving family and acknowledged the many forms of privilege that had shaped his life, including being a white, middle-class American man.³

His disability mattered. It just wasn’t the only thing that mattered. That willingness to hold complexity instead of reaching for a familiar narrative feels central to everything he creates.

The Scene I Keep Coming Back To

One of my favourite examples appears near the end of the first season of Speechless. Throughout the season, the DiMeo family is relentless in their determination to help JJ, a teenager with cerebral palsy, navigate a world full of barriers. They advocate fiercely. Challenge assumptions. Teach him to advocate for himself. As viewers, we begin believing what they believe: If another barrier appears, they’ll find a way around it.

Then, near the end of the season, everything changes. In “C-H—CHEATER,” JJ overhears his parents having a quiet conversation about the future.⁴ Not about the next inaccessible school. Or the next accommodation. Or the next problem they can solve. For the first time, they’re facing something they don’t know how to fix.

What happens when they’re gone? Will JJ be able to live independently? Will his siblings need to care for him?

I don’t see this as a moment when his parents stop believing in him. I see it as a moment when even two people who have spent years refusing to let barriers define their son’s future suddenly reach the edge of what they’ve been able to imagine.

The scene is heartbreaking because it isn’t about a lack of love. It’s about uncertainty. And as I watched it, I realized I had quietly reached that same edge alongside them.

One episode later, in “R-U-N—RUNAWAY,” Maya unexpectedly meets Lee, an adult with cerebral palsy played by Zach Anner.⁵ Lee isn’t climbing a mountain. He isn’t delivering an inspirational speech. He’s hanging out at a casino. Driving home with his girlfriend. Living his life.

Before he can disappear, Maya literally follows him home because she wants JJ to meet him.⁵ Lee responds with classic Zach humour: “Not a special needs mom! It’s really late for one of you guys!”⁵ It’s funny. Unexpected. A little awkward. And wonderfully ordinary.

Then something subtle happens. Lee doesn’t solve Maya’s fears. He simply gives her another way of imagining disabled adulthood. Not a guarantee. Not a promise. Just another possibility. Sometimes that’s enough.

The Stories We Inherit

As a disability-affirmative therapist, Zach’s work reminds me to pay attention not only to the stories my clients carry about themselves, but also to the stories I might unconsciously carry about disability.

I think therapists need those stories too. Like everyone else, we’re not immune to the limited narratives about disability that exist throughout society. If we’re not paying attention, those stories can quietly shape what we notice, what we expect and even the questions we ask.

Disability-affirmative therapy isn’t about pretending disability doesn’t shape someone’s life. It’s about becoming curious when the stories we’ve inherited begin to shape what we believe is possible—for our clients and, sometimes, for ourselves.

Maya didn’t suddenly believe in JJ more after meeting Lee. She simply had another way of imagining what disabled adulthood could look like. Because sometimes what we’re able to imagine for someone else’s future says more about the stories we’ve inherited than the person in front of us.

Zach’s work reminds me that one authentic story can expand what’s possible—not by changing the person in front of us, but by expanding the possibilities we can imagine alongside them.

Zach’s Legacy

After appearing as Lee, Zach joined the writing staff of Speechless, helping shape the stories that followed.⁶ To me, that feels like the perfect continuation of everything he had already been trying to do. He didn’t just want disabled people to appear on television. He wanted disabled people helping decide what stories would be told. Because when disabled people become storytellers, disability doesn’t disappear. It simply stops being the only thing the audience sees.

Perhaps that’s why Zach’s work has resonated with so many people. He never asked us to ignore disability. He simply invited us to stop treating it as the only story worth telling.

And when we tell richer stories about disability, we also make room to imagine richer futures.

Notes

1. Zach Anner, “Zach’s Oprah Audition,” YouTube video. In the audition, Anner proposes a travel series for people who may not have imagined themselves travelling and describes a show centred on navigating adventures when plans go wrong.

2. “Zach Anner Interviews Oprah,” YouTube video. The quotations about giving a voice to an underrepresented population, misconceptions of helplessness and being “so many things” before being a wheelchair user are taken from this interview.

3. Zach Anner, If at Birth You Don’t Succeed: My Adventures with Disaster and Destiny (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2016), 122–123.

4. Speechless, Season 1, Episode 19, “C-H—CHEATER,” ABC, originally aired April 19, 2017. The conversation in which JJ overhears his parents discussing his future occurs at approximately 20:20–20:24.

5. Speechless, Season 1, Episode 20, “R-U-N—RUNAWAY,” directed by Claire Scanlon, written by Mark Kunerth, ABC, originally aired April 26, 2017. Zach Anner guest stars as Lee. The scenes discussed, including Maya’s encounter with Lee and Lee’s conversation with JJ and the DiMeos, occur at approximately 14:58–20:30.

6. Zach Anner’s writing credits for Seasons 2 and 3 of Speechless. This citation should be finalized using official episode or production credits before publication.

References

Anner, Z. (2016). If at birth you don’t succeed: My adventures with disaster and destiny. Henry Holt and Company.

Anner, Z. “Zach’s Oprah Audition.” YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_35KKa3b1c

“Zach Anner Interviews Oprah.” YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDaf3fe9NT0

Speechless. ABC Television, 2016–2019.