I was relieved that Mich Ciurria controlled the peer-review process for the forthcoming special issue of Feminist Philosophy Quarterly that they guest edited. The reviewer reports that I received, although I did not agree with all the remarks made therein, were instructive and convinced me to expand upon and rearrange claims in the submission in ways that made the overall argument and the motivational assumptions on which it relies more cogent and cohesive.

This very positive experience contrasted with my previous experience of the FPQ reviewing process, in which the identity of one of the two reviewers who had been assigned to referee my submission seemed readily and unfortunately available to me; that is, I was (and remain) almost certain that a particular disabled man in philosophy who is not qualified to my adjudicate my work (nor the work of many other disabled feminist philosophers of disability) had been asked to review my submission.

The former situation arose in large part, I want to argue, because nondisabled feminist philosophers do not understand how gender and disability are co-constituted and are co-constitutive with other apparatuses of power. Time and again, for instance, nondisabled feminist philosophers validate and affirm disabled cismen publicly (institutionally, privately, and so on) in ways that detrimentally affect disabled ciswomen, disabled trans people, and disabled nonbinary people, either directly or downstream.

For example, one of these disabled cismen, who has far less experience with publishing in philosophy than me, was incredibly difficult to work with on The Bloomsbury Guide to Philosophy of Disability, repeatedly condescended to me over the course of the production process, and generally approached it with a remarkable sense of entitlement, refusing to acknowledge my epistemic authority with respect (to him and) to the subject matter and the publishing process, even as he made evident his inexperience with the process.

It’s frustrating to me that nondisabled feminist philosophers do not recognize and understand the oppressive and exaggerated ways in which epistemic authority and acknowledgement are attributed to and conferred upon disabled white cismale philosophers as they are analogously and similarly attributed to and conferred upon their nondisabled white cismale counterparts, betraying their solidarity with disabled feminist philosophers who identify as cis or transwomen, or as nonbinary. Yet, if, for example, I were asked to name, say, the ten disabled philosophers who produce the most philosophically interesting, original, innovative, and transformative work on disability at present, no disabled cis white male would qualify for the roster. Our critical work on disability seems eminently and evidently superior to theirs.

But you probably won’t take my word for it; and it would be worthwhile for you to ask yourself why you won’t do so.

In the question period following my presentation to the Eastern APA last week, I was asked “why disability?,” that is, why my work focuses on disability and how it co-constitutes and intersects with other axes of power rather than focuses on intersectionality per se. The question was part of its own answer; that is, the continued failure to perceive, recognize, understand, and acknowledge the mutual constitution and reinforcement of disability and other apparatuses of power (including gender) is why attention to intersectionality per se would be theoretically, politically, epistemically, and philosophically premature and directed attention to disability remains, at present, imperative.