Shane Burcaw: Sometimes Advocacy Begins with Curiosity
When most people picture disability advocacy, they imagine protests, court cases, policy changes, or campaigns demanding equal rights. Those forms of advocacy matter. They have transformed the disability rights movement. But sometimes change begins somewhere much quieter. Sometimes it begins with a joke. A conversation. A YouTube video. Or two people simply living their lives.
That is what makes Shane Burcaw's work so remarkable.
Changing Minds One Conversation at a Time
Some people change minds by telling us we're wrong. Others change minds by making us curious enough to question ourselves. I think that's what makes Shane Burcaw's advocacy so distinctive.
As an author, speaker, co-founder of the nonprofit Laughing At My Nightmare, and co-creator of the YouTube channel Squirmy and Grubs with his wife, Hannah Aylward, Shane has spent years inviting people into conversations about disability through the lens of ordinary life. Relationships. Caregiving. Travel. Healthcare. Marriage. Humour.
The conversations themselves aren't extraordinary. The assumptions they quietly dismantle are.
One of the most striking examples came from a Dr. Phil episode featuring another interabled couple.¹ Rather than approaching their relationship with curiosity, it was often approached with suspicion. Questions that most non-disabled couples would never be asked suddenly became acceptable simply because one partner was disabled.
Watching it, I wasn't just struck by the questions. I was struck by what happens when assumptions replace curiosity.
Shane could have responded with anger alone. Instead, throughout his work, he has consistently done something much harder. He invites people into conversations that allow them to discover their own assumptions. And that's where change begins.
Curiosity Creates Room for New Possibilities
One of the things I've noticed while watching Shane's work is that curiosity seems to go both directions. He invites viewers to question their assumptions about disability. But he also models curiosity himself.
In one video, Shane described an interaction at a veterinary clinic that initially felt dismissive.² Later, after hearing from veterinary professionals who offered another perspective, he publicly reconsidered what might have happened in a follow-up video.³ That stood out to me. Not because it proved the interaction wasn't ableism. And not because disabled people should assume every difficult interaction has an innocent explanation. But because it demonstrated something different.
Curiosity doesn't require certainty. It simply leaves room for new information. Perhaps that's what makes curiosity so powerful. It isn't about ignoring past experiences. It's about refusing to let certainty become the only lens through which we interpret new ones.
That feels especially important because so many disabled people have spent years navigating environments where barriers, dismissal, and low expectations are common experiences. Sometimes those experiences are exactly what they appear to be. Sometimes they aren't.
Assumptions ask for certainty. Curiosity asks for understanding.
What This Means in Therapy
One of the things I appreciate most about Shane's advocacy is that it isn't driven by certainty. It's driven by curiosity.
As a disability-affirmative therapist, I think that's an important distinction. Many disabled clients have spent years navigating environments where they had to anticipate barriers before they appeared. Accessibility. Healthcare. Employment. Travel. Public attitudes.
That constant scanning isn't simply a habit. For many people, it's a nervous system adapting to repeated experiences of being dismissed, underestimated, or excluded. Therapy doesn't ask someone to stop noticing those patterns. Nor does it assume every difficult interaction is discrimination.
Just as importantly, Disability-Affirmative Therapy doesn't ask disabled people to prove what happened before responding with compassion. Many have spent years doing exactly that. Explaining. Justifying. Replaying conversations. Wondering whether they were "overreacting." Looking for enough evidence that someone else might finally believe them.
Disability-Affirmative Therapy begins somewhere different. It begins with the understanding that your experiences deserve compassion, whether or not you've found the words, the proof, or the certainty to explain them. From there, we can explore them together.
What Shane Changed for Me
When I first started this advocate series, I thought meaningful disability advocacy looked a certain way. Not because I'm a fan of conflict. But after 35 years of living with disability, I'd come to believe that meaningful change usually began with someone willing to push. To challenge. To organize. To fight. Every accessible entrance. Every accommodation. Every policy. Every right.
It often felt as though progress only came because someone refused to stop pushing.
Part of what I hoped this series would do was remind disabled people that they weren't alone in doing that work. Then I started paying closer attention to Shane Burcaw's work. He didn't change my mind about whether advocacy is hard. He changed my mind about how change can happen. Sometimes change begins with a protest. Sometimes it begins with a policy. Sometimes it begins with a lawsuit. And sometimes it begins with a conversation that makes someone pause long enough to question an assumption they've carried for years.
I think that's advocacy too.
If you're looking for disability-affirmative therapy in BC, I provide virtual counselling for teens and adults with physical disabilities, chronic illness, medical trauma, and advocacy fatigue. Learn more about Disability-Affirmative Therapy
Notes
¹ Dr. Phil. "You Can Be His Caregiver, Or You Can Be His Lover; You Can't Be Both," Dr. Phil Tells Guest. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9B5hwx6gp8
² Squirmy and Grubs. "Was This Random Lady Rude To Shane? Opinions Needed!" YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlBEAgMeUnA
³ Squirmy and Grubs. "Was Shane Rich When We Met? Finances REVEALED!" YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCvocvRyCqk&t=2s
Further Reading & Resources
Books by Shane Burcaw
Burcaw, S. (2014). Laughing at My Nightmare. Roaring Brook Press.
Burcaw, S. (2019). Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse. Roaring Brook Press.
Burcaw, S. (2022). Not So Different: What You Really Want to Ask About Having a Disability. Roaring Brook Press.
Organization
Laughing At My Nightmare. https://laughingatmynightmare.com/
