Combatting Ableism through the Disability Culture Lab with Meier Galblum Haigh

James Berges 00:01 
Every form of oppression is disabling. That's a powerful insight from today's guest, who's working to shift the narrative around disability from fear and pity to one of solidarity and liberation. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 00:15 
We don't just fight ableism by saying, you know, disabled people deserve to be able to access restaurants and deserve to be able to access childcare and deserve to be able to access an education and deserve jobs and deserve, you know, equal representation in government and deserve equal access to the vote, which we do. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 00:32 
We also say disabled people deserve to love ourselves and disabled people deserve unity and disabled people deserve to have pride in existing in the world. 

Mai Ling Chan 00:40 
Welcome to the Exceptional Leaders podcast. I'm Mai Ling Chan and together with James Berges, we're getting you top tips and resources for building and scaling your disability-focused offerings straight from the forefront of disability advocacy and leadership. 

James Berges 00:59 
On this final interview of 2024, we're hosting a conversation that's reshaping how we think and talk about disability. 

Mai Ling Chan 01:07 
Yep, that's right. Our guest is Meier Galblum Haigh, founder of the Disability Culture Lab. With 15 years of expertise in media and movement building, Myer brings a unique perspective to one of the most underfunded yet critical aspects of disability justice, narrative change. 

James Berges 01:22 
You know, Mai Ling, what struck me in your interview as a beautiful interview, how the lab is tackling this from both a systemic and personal level, and with less than 0.1%, not even 1%, but 0.1% of all philanthropic funding going to disability initiatives and even less dedicated to changing public perception, they're filling a vital gap in the movement. 

Mai Ling Chan 01:46 
It's so true. Absolutely. Meier isn't just talking about change. They're modeling it through innovative organizational practices like 32-hour work weeks and comprehensive benefits that really support disabled employees. 

James Berges 01:59 
Yeah, and Mai Ling, I just came back from my little Europe tour working remotely there. And speaking of work weeks, this is related because I was thinking of how even just culturally, we view not only disability differently in different cultures, but even work-life balance. 

James Berges 02:15 
And I just got back from Spain a couple of days ago. So if my voice sounds a little froggy, it's because I had a little cold. But it's fascinating to see how different the culture is there. While I can't speak to Spain's disability legislation, I've noticed something striking, that there are so many more older adults independently navigating these ancient cobblestone streets. 

James Berges 02:36 
And they're using accessible public transit and living full lives well into their advanced years. And it makes you wonder what we could learn from societies that prioritize infrastructure and work-life balance over maybe work and independent individualism at all costs. 

Mai Ling Chan 02:55 
Oh, I love that. And I highly recommend international travel. I mean, I just came back from India and Dubai. And, you know, I know, James, that you're going somewhere, what, at least two, three times a year and immersively living somewhere, right? 

James Berges 03:06 
Yeah, totally. I try to slow travel and not be a super tourist. I jokingly laugh when I hear American accents or British accents. I'm a better tourist than them. I'm more engaged with the locals. 

Mai Ling Chan 03:21 
competitive even on vacation. 

James Berges 03:24 
Yeah, exactly. I wouldn't go to that tourist trap. I ain't better than you. That's awesome. 

Mai Ling Chan 03:30 
Yeah, so all of this actually really ties into what our listeners are going to discover in this episode, talking about unpacking complex layers of ableism from institutional barriers to internalized discrimination, why we're shifting the narrative and why that's so crucial as a form of direct support, and how combining strategic communications with cultural change can really transform public perception. 

Mai Ling Chan 03:54 
And then something that we all should be focused on is what does it really mean to build disability-friendly workplaces? So, whether our listener, you're part of the disability community, an ally, or someone interested in social justice, this conversation will really bring some vital insights into creating a more equitable and accessible future. 

James Berges 04:13 
100%. And before we completely say bye to 2024, stay tuned for our final, final episode, which won't be an interview, but it will be Mei Ling and I going through the hits of 2024. We're going, we're deep diving, we're curating the highlights of all of our, of the greatest messages and main ideas from the podcast interviews from all the exceptional leaders that we've interviewed in 2024. 

James Berges 04:37 
So if you don't listen to anything else, maybe you're going through a food coma, you're in between that weird phase between the holidays and New Year's and you're in limbo. This will be like that montage they see of the year while the ball drops in New York city. 

James Berges 04:53 
And it's going to be a great like insight, chock full of insights and very dense and meaty, meatier than any holiday dinner. 

Mai Ling Chan 05:03 
Unless you're a vegetarian. 

James Berges 05:05 
Unless you're a vegetarian, I don't mean to exclude you, but you're going to be in a food coma. You won't be in an information coma. It'll feel vitalizing and rejuvenating. But aside from that, for now, let's dive in and explore how Meyer and the Disability Culture Lab are transforming how we value disability in our society, one story at a time. 

Mai Ling Chan 05:30 
So here we are at the final interview for 2024, and I'm so excited to be bringing on Meier Galblum Haigh. They need to be here today speaking with us and teaching us all about their journey with the Disability Culture Lab. 

Mai Ling Chan 05:43 
They are doing such important work, and I really hope that you take a moment to lean in and be a part of this episode with us. Welcome, Meier. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 05:51 
Thank you so much, I'm so excited to be here. And Mai, thank you so much for having me. 

Mai Ling Chan 05:57 
Yeah. I think we've been trying to get together for a while. We talked early summer, I think, and pushed it off to the end of the year, but this is fantastic. Here's a little surprise. You're our last guest for 2024. 

Mai Ling Chan 06:10 
Wow. I feel so honored. Thank you. Yeah. We saved the best for last. Don't tell anybody else. I'll take it. That's so funny. We have a lot of great topics to talk about, and we're going to start with the big one, which is Disability Culture Lab. 

Mai Ling Chan 06:24 
Could you tell us a little bit about that first before we get into it? 

Meier Galblum Haigh 06:27 
Yes, I would love to. So the Disability Culture Lab is a new nonprofit disability media and narrative lab. And our mission is to shift the narrative on disability from fear and pity to solidarity and liberation. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 06:42 
And we exist to fight ableism and celebrate disabled people and disability culture. 

Mai Ling Chan 06:49 
Thank you. And just for our listener, and for myself too, because I'm still learning, and I love to keep saying that. And if I make any errors during this conversation, please feel free to help me, right? 

Mai Ling Chan 06:59 
Yes. So help us with the vocabulary. You said a couple of words in there, and the one that I picked up on was ableism. Yes. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 07:06 
Ableism is a system of oppression, and just like other isms, it affects us in all sorts of different ways. So there's, you know, disabled people face discrimination in all sorts of different ways. We face institutional discrimination. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 07:23 
We face interpersonal discrimination. So person-to-person discrimination. We face systemic discrimination. So, you know, from systems, not just from like individual institutions like universities, but from like the systems all around us and the ways that we sort of like set up all of the ways that we live. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 07:42 
And then we face internal discrimination, just to be frank, in the ways that we think about ourselves and the ways that we go about our days. We feel about our own bodies. And that can be really difficult because when it comes to disability, you know, every form of oppression is disabling, right? 

Meier Galblum Haigh 07:59 
You know, when you think about misogyny, for example, and you think about patriarchy, you say, okay, you know, what does it mean to be a woman in America today? And you look at abortion bans and you look at interpersonal violence and you say, okay, so someone gets disabled by pregnancy or they get disabled by, you know, a violent partner. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 08:22 
And then what happens, right? They face not only by becoming disabled by those things, discrimination by, you know, from workplaces, discrimination from family members, discrimination from, you know, various systems trying to get in, you know, access things like DMVs, access things like restaurants, access, you know, all these different, you know, groceries, childcare, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 08:51 
When they ask, what am I worth, you know, or, you know, and that's, that's the really insidious thing about ableism, is that every form of oppression is disabling. And then you end up in this place where you're disabled by work, you're disabled by transphobia, you're disabled by racist cops, or you're disabled by workplaces that don't value us or our labor or put their profits before our personal safety. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 09:19 
And then what happens? You're stuck with not only the systems around you and trying to survive, but also with yourself and all these systems that say you have less value as a person if you're disabled. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 09:29 
And that's ableism. It's not just a thing that's out there that hurts you. It's also yourself that you have to unlearn. And so we don't just fight ableism by saying, you know, disabled people deserve to be able to access restaurants and deserve to be able to access childcare and deserve to be able to access an education and deserve jobs and deserve, you know, equal representation in government and deserve equal access to the vote, 

Meier Galblum Haigh 09:56 
which we do. We also say disabled people deserve to love ourselves and disabled people deserve unity and disabled people deserve to have pride in existing in the world. And we deserve to be like celebrated and to be able to exist with dignity and joy and liberation and solidarity, just like everyone else does. 

Mai Ling Chan 10:15 
This could be an entire session itself and I hope that you are out there using your voice to educate. And for our listener, I know that this is a lot of information, I'm sure it's not the first time you're hearing it, but hopefully this is helping you as it is also helping me to get a broader understanding because there's a lot of pieces in here. 

Mai Ling Chan 10:32 
So Meyer also talked about accessibility, right? And not being able to walk in the front door at a coffee shop or having to go around back because that's the only accessible door. These are pieces of that that we experience but we don't pay attention to. 

Mai Ling Chan 10:48 
And I'm going to put this into a more simplistic way, the ableism there is that the people that can walk and open the front door and walk in are able to go in the front door. But people that can't, they have to go around the side and access a different way. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 11:02 
or can't get it at all, you know, I really want. Can't get it at all, yeah. The best pastry place in my neighborhood, you know, has stairs and there is no back entrance that's accessible. But one day I just really wanted those pastries and they didn't have a working phone number either. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 11:16 
And I literally just sat and stared until somebody met my eyes because I wanted those pastries, but I'm on wheels, you know? And I wanted those fricking pastries and the stairs were such that I couldn't even bang on the window, like the stairs stopped me from knocking and they had no phone, but God, you should see these reviews. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 11:39 
I wanted a fricking Danish. 

Mai Ling Chan 11:42 
Yes, and I believe, and I'm so sorry I can't remember the person's name. They went wildfire because they wanted a slice of pizza and couldn't get in, and so they put it out on social media. Do you remember that story? 

Mai Ling Chan 11:54 
They were using a wheelchair and could not access the pizza place. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 11:58 
I could talk to you about how I also can't access my daughter's school or it's difficult for me to like, you know, I've driven four hours to try to vote because I live in downtown Washington DC and it takes a long time. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 12:07 
But sometimes you're just having a bad day and you want a pastry and those little acts of ableism actually affect your dignity just as much. 

Mai Ling Chan 12:14 
It's so important, so important. Okay, you also talked about like self-love, and I shared, and I've been sharing on the podcast that I have a late diagnosis of ADHD as a woman, and it has changed my life. 

Mai Ling Chan 12:26 
And talk about self-love, oh my gosh, I've been beating myself up for years. And the things that I will say, like what is wrong with me? Why can't I do this in the same amount of time that someone else can do it? 

Mai Ling Chan 12:36 
You know, why does it take me 17 steps? Like what, I kept comparing myself and being so hard on myself. And you know, I don't know how that comes into the ableism, but I realize how ableistic I think a lot of times. 

Mai Ling Chan 12:48 
You know, and I put all of these parameters on myself because it's the culture. So, okay, the big question here is, how is the disability culture lab different from other support organizations that are specific for disability? 

Meier Galblum Haigh 13:01 
Yeah, well, first, I just want to say welcome to the disability community. We love to have you with your with your late diagnosis to what makes us different. First of all, we need everything all hands on deck in the disability community from mutual aid to big picture narrative change. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 13:18 
The disability culture lab is focused on narrative change. We want to shift the way people think about disability. And while we love mutual aid and we love direct support organizations, that's not our particular niche or role within the movement. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 13:34 
Our role is shifting hearts and minds. And we believe deeply that we aren't going to see solidarity and liberation without a huge shift in the way that people think disability. And we aren't going to achieve the kind of system change that we want to see or the kind of big policy wins that we want to see unless there's a huge shift in the way that people think about disabled people, about ourselves and about each other. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 13:59 
And that includes not just disabled people, but also non-disabled people. 

Mai Ling Chan 14:05 
Who can become disabled at any time? You know, they don't live in glass houses. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 14:09 
people call them pre disabled. So, you know, everyone, you know, is either destined for a life of disability or a tragic early death, probably. So, you know, it is in everyone's best interest to be a part of this movement to shift the narrative on disability. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 14:25 
But it's, it's something that just isn't there right now, you know, it's it has not been something that has been a focus in philanthropy disability received, I think it receives, I believe it's point 1% of all philanthropic funding right now. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 14:38 
It's a very small, minuscule amount of philanthropic funding. And of that, the amount that goes to social justice is even smaller within disability, most of that goes to direct support work. And of that, the amount that goes to actually shifting the narrative is even smaller minuscule. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 14:55 
And we believe that that's really essential to change the conditions for how we live. And in the meantime, obviously, you know, we keep us safe and that direct support and that mutual aid is incredibly important. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 15:05 
But we're playing our role to start shifting that narrative so that we can create the conditions for change. Thank you 

Mai Ling Chan 15:14 
If you're like me, you can't get enough of books, podcasts, blogs, and other ways to find out how to create, grow, and scale. That's why I brought together 43 disability-focused leaders to give you more of what you're looking for. 

Mai Ling Chan 15:26 
You will hear their stories in three best-selling books, which focus on general offerings, augmentative and alternative communication, and speech-language pathology. I invite you to search for Becoming an Exceptional Leader on Amazon, so you can learn intimate startup pearls of wisdom, and keep growing your brilliant idea. 

Mai Ling Chan 15:46 
Now, let's get back to our amazing interview. This podcast is about spotlighting exceptional leaders, so people that are in this specific space. I would love to know, how did you first visualize bringing this community together and creating this opportunity? 

Meier Galblum Haigh 16:03 
Yeah. I mean, a lot of this comes from, I think, like any new thing, my personal story, and also an incredible community. You know, we spoke about this when we first talked in the early summer. It's not just a me project. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 16:15 
We have an incredible community of folks that came together to make this a reality. But the vision really came together over a lot of time. You know, I grew up invisibly disabled. I've been invisibly disabled my whole life by chronic illness, but I've only been visibly disabled for around five years. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 16:32 
I live life on mostly on wheels outside of the house and then crutches sometimes for very, very short distances. And that transition was really transformative for me from being invisibly to visibly disabled. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 16:44 
But as somebody who was invisibly disabled, you know, my life was very dramatically shaped by disability as a kid. I was very much shaped by stories that were told about me by folks who were not disabled. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 16:57 
And I really believed for a very long time that I was the wrong kind of sick, the wrong kind of disabled, that there was something wrong with me that needed to be fixed. And that somehow if I worked hard enough, or I did something right, and I performed, you know, in the right way that I could somehow fix it. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 17:23 
And the truth was that there was nothing I could do. And as I talked to more and more and more disabled people, I realized that almost everyone I know in the disability community gets these same stories from non-disabled people of an unattainable kind of mythical disabled person that never existed, you know, of a right kind of sick that is unattainable, basically, a right kind of disabled that's completely unattainable. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 17:50 
And I think I've known for a very long time that there is a big narrative problem that we were facing in that way. And I've worked at this intersection of media and movement building for about 15 years. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 18:03 
And I was running my own firm doing social justice PR for about five years called Megaphone Strategies. And, you know, we worked for a lot of different social justice groups, you know, ranging from Deb Haaland, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland's first congressional race. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 18:17 
And I was so honored to work with her to build up her national media profile to helping watch Stacey Abrams first campaign for governor and working with groups like the Working Families Party and move on passing legislation with the Working Families Party for paid leave and paid sick days and fair scheduling and lots of other things and the Ford Foundation, the Kresge Foundation. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 18:39 
We had this incredible team of folks working to and she the people working to shift the narrative on women of color and politics. And we had this big mission of trying to diversify the media and politics using PR as a tool. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 18:52 
And as a big part of that, I was trying to convince all these different social justice groups to include disability in a lot of their work. And that was very difficult work, to be frank. But five years in, I got in a really serious car accident and I got a really serious TBI. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 19:08 
And that really changed things for me. And my daughter had been born one month before the car accident. And so I had a brand new little girl who was one month old and pretty serious TBI. And I had been running this co running this firm for, you know, four and a half years and I had to go back to my team and say, what do we want to do? 

Meier Galblum Haigh 19:37 
And we discussed whether they wanted to make it into a co-op or whether we wanted to close and it was the middle of the COVID pandemic and we decided to close. And so I took off a year to do brain rehab. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 19:51 
And when I came back, I started my transition to life on wheels and I started imagining what it would look like to work more closely in the disability community. And I started this process of kind of sitting down with a lot of disabled leaders. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 20:04 
And I realized very quickly that just getting a job might not be the thing because there's this huge narrative gap and I thought it was maybe just me. And then I realized there was this huge communications funding gap and that they both really met. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 20:17 
And I really never wanted to found a thing again, but then I found there's this huge hole in our movement. And I talked to just dozens of leaders and I was like, okay, we don't really need another comms person. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 20:34 
Like we have an infrastructure gap. And what I realized is a lot of groups said we need help, not just with one person to help us with comms, but this big narrative change gap and also like a bigger strategic communication support across a lot of organizations, not one. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 20:51 
And so that's when we started building a team because it's really not a one person problem. It took generations to get this bad. And it's a big group project. 

Mai Ling Chan 21:01 
effects. There's so much in there. I am so happy to hear that you've been involved at the advocacy and obviously the political level, just so essential. And we have just come out of the presidential elections. 

Mai Ling Chan 21:13 
And we're not going to get into that on this show. But there's absolutely an interweaving requirement there. And it's excellent to know that you have been in that place and you are actually strategically connected. 

Mai Ling Chan 21:27 
So fantastic. So good to hear. I did have a note to ask you about the Proteus Fund. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 21:33 
Oh, yes, so and then I should say so one of the first things we did, you know, we got first we got we secured some really incredible founding funders. We were so honored to have support from the Ford Foundation and MacArthur Foundation that helped us with our founding. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 21:48 
And they helped us connect with Proteus fund I had an old old friend from, you know, decade back in the movement who worked at Proteus fund, but getting a fiscal sponsor sometimes takes lots of connects. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 21:58 
And I had some I had a big checklist, you know, because my first PR firm was actually fiscally sponsored also when we were fiscally sponsored at an organization at dream core. Van Jones is nonprofit arm who helped us get up and running for our first PR firm. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 22:14 
And so it was my first road show with with fiscal sponsorships and we had a big list of things that we were looking for. And, you know, one of my big concerns with the progressive movement right now is I think that the progressive movement itself is disabling our our top talent over and over again on repeat. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 22:35 
And I think the work that's happening on the left is so critically important. We have this massive in this moment, especially, you know, we have this critical resistance work to do. But I think we lost a lot of our best people in the first Trump presidency, just to be frank, burning out in resistance work, you know, working, you know, 70, 80, 90 hour weeks doing this very emotionally intensive work. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 23:01 
And also, you know, when you're doing work at the intersection of your own identity and your own trauma and you're working these intense hours, folks were just burning out over and over and over again with health care that was insufficient with paid leave that was insufficient with hours that were overwhelming. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 23:16 
And so I had this checklist of things I was looking for, which was, you know, I wanted to be able to do a 32 hour work week. I love this four day work week thing. But I'm going to be frank for disabled folks and for caregivers. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 23:27 
I'm a big fan of the 32 hour work week because I think the flexibility that it allows for caregivers makes more sense to move your 32 hours around rather than trying to fit the same thing into a set number of days. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 23:38 
I wanted to be able to and not every organization can do that because a lot of health care companies tie their benefits to 40 hour work weeks. I needed a fiscal sponsor that had already negotiated benefits down to start at either 20 or 30 hours and ideally 20 so that if we had disabled staff who needed to drop down at some point that they would be able to still be covered. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 24:00 
Yeah, to have a full time job at 32 hours but that we had flexibility for the realities of disabled bodies working in movement work because that I think it really starts there to have infrastructure that can support the reality of being disabled. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 24:15 
I needed a fiscal sponsor that had paid leave infrastructure. I needed a fiscal sponsor that had care infrastructure so produce fund also. So there, there are social justice fund produce fund. They're a funder themselves but they also fiscally sponsor and they had health care that did that supported trans care, mental health care and also IVF. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 24:40 
And I think that those were all really essential parts of social justice care because you know I've had friends in the social justice space that went into just extreme debt, trying to start families who are queer, you know, taking out $30,000 loans for IVF. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 24:56 
And that also doesn't feel like social justice to me, you know, taking out these big loans for trans care and these states that don't have care available for transitions and that's life saving care IVF is life saving care trans care is life saving care mental health care is life saving care. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 25:14 
So all those things are on my fiscal sponsor list and Proteus fund had that and that's how I ended up there. 

Mai Ling Chan 25:21 
Excellent. And you are a 501c3, correct? The big group. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 25:25 
Proteus Fund has a 501c3 and then Proteus Action League is a 501c4. So we have a fiscally sponsored 501c3 with Disability Culture Lab and Disability Culture Lab Action, which is our partner political organization, is fiscally sponsored through Proteus Action League. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 25:42 
Oh, interesting. They're fighting for the forearm. So we have two companion organizations. 

Mai Ling Chan 25:48 
Nice. Again, for our listener, just hearing these creative ways to structure your business, this is just fantastic. Rather than just having one, whether it's Inc., LLC, sole proprietor, or nonprofit. 

Mai Ling Chan 26:00 
They have different arms connected to the main organization. Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that. Again, there's just so much great information here. The thing is, how do we continue to stay involved next steps to follow you? 

Meier Galblum Haigh 26:18 
Yes, that would be amazing. You can go to disabilityculturelab.org and sign up for our email list. We would love to have you. We're also on Instagram at Disability Culture Lab. We would love to see you there. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 26:31 
We're now on Blue Sky at Disability Culture Lab. It's a new one. I know, we're coming up. 

Mai Ling Chan 26:37 
Yeah, and just again for our listener. I just heard about blue sky through my disability community channel So can you share a little bit about that? 

Meier Galblum Haigh 26:46 
Yes. Well, as folks know, Twitter or X, I suppose, is the user calling it or the billionaires are calling it, depending on your preference. His own by Elon Musk, who very heavily weighed in on this election with, you know, tens of millions of dollars of anti-trans ads and just brutal, brutal anti-trans ads because he has a really deep hatred for his own trans child, which is just really painful for many of us in the trans community, 

Meier Galblum Haigh 27:17 
really in all social justice spaces and a lot of folks who just care about democracy. And so a lot of folks are starting to migrate off of X, which is very difficult because the disability community has been deeply rooted in X for a long, long time. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 27:31 
So many of us are trying to create starter packs for blue sky, which are these little lists that have, you know, little like names of top 25 people to follow. So you can go to the disco disability community starter packs to help get you started and follow 25 people. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 27:47 
If you announce on your other platforms, you're going, there's really a big migration happening right now. So it's easier to kind of get a lot of followers very quickly. So we're there and we're also on LinkedIn at disability culture lab. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 27:59 
We're finding LinkedIn is getting a little more popular. We haven't fully left X and Twitter yet. But we're kind of trying to make that migration because it's just, I mean, really, that's your money, anything you're doing to support X is really going towards just millions and millions and millions of dollars of anti-trans. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 28:17 
I can't say I have the money for a Tesla. So I haven't been concerned about my support going to Elon Musk. And then I'm personally at MG Hague on most platforms. So you there too. And I would love to add folks are looking for amazing holiday gifts that we just launched our amazing new merch store. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 28:39 
So if you love disability community and disabled people, and you are looking for some fun gifts for the holidays, we just launched our fabulous new merch store at disability culture lab.org with Jen White Johnson, who's an incredible Afro Latina artist. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 28:57 
And you can find all that fabulous merch at the disability culture lab.org. 

Mai Ling Chan 29:02 
Excellent. You are the perfect person to have helped educate us on this new Blue Sky platform. So thank you. And for our listener, I'm there already because I did follow somebody who was credible and she said to go there, so I did. 

Mai Ling Chan 29:14 
So I'm at Mayling Chan, so if you want to find me there. But yes, I love the pack idea. And I will be doing that also, is doing my list of who you should follow related to my platforms and things. So I love it. 

Mai Ling Chan 29:26 
Thank you so much. This has been very educational. I hope that our listener has learned some pearls of wisdom and also additional information to help broaden the understanding of this changing the narrative, which we have been working on for years. 

Mai Ling Chan 29:41 
But I can say there are still people like myself that I feel like I'm still in the learning stage. And so I'm so grateful for the time and energy, the vision and all of the work that you're putting in. 

Mai Ling Chan 29:53 
Just so grateful to you. Thank you. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 29:55 
Thank you. I'm so grateful to you, Mae, for taking the time to talk with me today. It's just it's been a real pleasure and I really look forward to staying in touch. And thank you to everyone who's listening. 

Meier Galblum Haigh 30:06 
I really appreciate your time and I look forward to hopefully being in touch with many of you. 

Mai Ling Chan 30:13 
Excellent. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this episode and invite you to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and share the show with people you think will find value from it. This helps the show a lot. 

Mai Ling Chan 30:25 
Or have a great guest referral, reach out to us at xleaders at gmail.com. 

James Berges 30:31 
And if you want exclusive tips on becoming an exceptional leader, deliver straight to your inbox, just go to exceptionalleaders.com and sign up for our mailing list. Thanks for listening.