What it means to see disability as culture (ASL)
John Loepke argues that viewing disability as culture fosters connections and encourages more support for disabled people.
CBC – Canadian Regional Division
For more than a decade, Christian “CeeCe” Walley’s periods have been what she calls “hell on earth.”
Her symptoms began within her first few menstrual cycles at age 12. She sat in agony, staring at the classroom clock, counting down the minutes until the bell rang. Wally’s mother had given him ibuprofen to ease the pain, but Wally said it was effective at high doses. However, by the time I entered college, the pain was so severe that I was unable to get out of bed and was missing classes.
She called the school’s accommodations office and was told that period pain did not require accommodation. As her attendance continued to fluctuate, her concerned professor informed her that she might have endometriosis. Endometriosis is a chronic reproductive health condition that affects one in ten women in the United States.
Wally had never heard of this condition before. No doctor had ever mentioned this before, she says. But years later, in 2025, she won the first case in North Carolina to recognize endometriosis as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Worley, now 27, has reached a nearly six-figure settlement in his disability discrimination lawsuit against the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS). She was employed by the state as a juvenile court counselor trainee.
In her amended complaint, Wally alleges that NCDPS failed to respond to her under the ADA after she disclosed her endometriosis symptoms and requested accommodations in May 2022.
What is endometriosis?
Endometriosis is an inflammatory disease in which tissue similar to the endometrium grows outside the uterus. According to John Hopkins Medicine, symptoms include chronic pain, pelvic floor dysfunction, poor bladder health, back pain, pain during sexual intercourse, and in some cases, infertility. Endometriosis is one of the most common gynecological conditions, and women in the United States suffer from endometriosis symptoms for an average of 10 years before being diagnosed.
Wally’s endometriosis went undiagnosed for years, even after her professor told her about the condition. She married at 19 and a year later, she and her husband began struggling with infertility. She said that because she was overweight at the time, her fertility specialist focused on weight loss rather than looking into other explanations for her menstrual pain.
But as the months passed, work issues made it impossible to deny her medical problems. Wally had taken sick leave for her fertility treatment appointment and asked her employer if she could work remotely on the first day of her monthly menstrual cycle. Worley said her boss told her she was taking too much sick leave, which she said showed a “poor work ethic.” She said she was told that “no accommodations would be made” and that further discussion of the matter would result in “disciplinary action up to and including termination.” She was worried that she would not be promoted to Juvenile Court Counselor at the end of the two-year training program.
Feeling that she had no choice, she began drafting her resignation letter. She gave a week’s notice so the last day would be right before the start of her next menstrual cycle. Her last day was May 19, 2022.
She defended herself in court. The verdict surprised everyone.
Worley filed a complaint with the Employment Services Department, but was initially unsuccessful.
“I felt defeated because I felt like this institution was going to be against me and all the other institutions were going to be against me,” she says. However, she appealed that claim and won nearly a year later.
She then became interested in pursuing charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and consulted various lawyers, who told her she would lose the case.
“Lawyers said the laws around endometriosis and the ADA are not well-developed. There are too many interpretations,” she says. “So it really seemed like a losing battle at first.”
However, Wally decided to represent himself.
“I knew I wasn’t alone in this fight, and I knew there were hundreds of other women going through the same thing,” she says. “If ever there was a time to make a change, it might be now.”
Despite that motivation, she didn’t expect to win. This settlement came as a surprise to her as well. But she says the verdict is more important than just her experience.
This was the first ruling in North Carolina to recognize endometriosis as an ADA disability.
“Not only does it validate the experience of hundreds of millions of women that this pain is real, but it gives them something to look at legally,” she says. “When they’re in the human resources office, they can say, ‘This is something we can do under the ADA, but what can we do in my situation?’
