As a person with a physical disability, I’m often told by members of the LGBT community that I’m inspirational, a role model, and even a miracle (the latter one is most common at Latin gay bars). And while I don’t mind being told I’m any of those things if it’s genuine, sometimes the compliment sounds awkward.

Looking good is all about feeling good, and I was feeling great one San Francisco night when I ran into some childhood friends. My enthusiastic greetings were met with icy glances and cold words. Our meeting quickly went sour and they began to beat me. My face was their primary target, and each strike left me more hurt and confused. Bleeding and blinded, I was abandoned on the cement.

Before I was blind and a writer, I was a boy with many questions. Every other sentence began with a why, who or what, which drove my family mad.

At one time, the best news was hearing about a gay house party. I was 17, newly out, and feeling great about coming to terms with my sexuality. And while I had never been a wallflower during my short straight-pretending days, being immersed in a sea of gay boys my age somehow made me even more outgoing. With my crew, the same group of friends that years later would blind me, we made attending gay parties our thing. We swept through backyard gatherings that year, dressed in the flashiest clothes our mall jobs could afford.

A disability rights historical exhibit in Berkeley, CA

It’s a sad state of affairs that abled-bodied individuals have created a lot of the content about disabled people in popular culture. This is especially true in Hollywood, where most disabled characters are renditions of what someone imagines disability feels or looks like. Consequently, they have created a society where the disabled are dualistically romanticized and de-eroticized.

We all know that guide dogs provide the blind people they assist with freedom and independence. But what many may not realize is these amazingly smart dogs don’t work their entire lives. Like the rest of us, guide dogs reach a point in their career where the job becomes taxing or less interesting. Thus, they get to retire.

Church bells clanged at a distance as I waited for Adrianos in a San Francisco cafe. Running my fingers over my guide dog Oslo’s soft ears, I attempted to push my first date jitters away. I had met Adrianos at a meet up for martial artists. And outside the basic facts -- where he worked, lived, and the name of his dog -- I didn’t know anything else, which made wonder how he would deal with my blindness.

Intellectual disability is a condition characterized by significant limitation in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior. Formerly known as mental retardation, this disability manifests before age 18 and impacts the ability to communicate, socialize, and take care of oneself.

The journey to full-time employment can be filled with roadblocks -- especially if someone has a disability. According to a 2013 employment survey published on DisabilityStatistics.org, only 40.2 percent of working age people with visual impairments are employed – an alarming figure for a society with access to adaptive technology, and with various employment programs in place.

Monday, Oct. 19 marks the first day of early voting — even so, more than 2.5 million Floridians have already cast their vote by turning in their ballots by mail, according to the Florida Division of Elections.

As a Community Grand Marshal for the 2015 San Francisco Pride Parade, I spent the last month attending pride events all over San Francisco. With my guide dog, Oslo, I moseyed through festive crowds, shaking hands and giving hugs. And while I met tons of smart and funny people, there is one person that stood out from the bunch.

What are your thoughts on the 2015 Equality Act? SFGN’s “Speak OUT” is a weekly feature giving a regular voice to South Florida LGBT leaders.

Here's the feel-good story of the day!

Nothing arouses my senses quite like a lively party. In gay bars, there are a multitude of things that scream out, “It’s time! It’s time to relax and have fun!”

In February 2017, Leah Gardner attended a community dinner at the LightHouse of San Francisco’s headquarters on Market St. She was one of 20 or so people who sat around a table and listened to Laura Millar, the LightHouse’s new Sexuality Health Programs Coordinator, share her vision of having a contingent at the annual San Francisco Gay Pride Parade.

According to a 2012 Census report, 56.7 million Americans have a disability. This figure translates to roughly 19 percent of the population -- making people with disabilities the largest minority group in the country.

According to the Census Bureau, nearly 1 in 5 people have a disability. But despite the fact that people with disabilities make up almost 20 percent of the U.S. population, a 2016 report by the Ruderman Family Foundation states that 95 percent of characters in television with disabilities are played by able-bodied actors.

While sex and disability are two topics rarely discussed together in popular culture, thanks to dating and hookup websites, people with disabilities are finding communities where they can not only chat about sex, but also enjoy the occasional booty call.

Having a disability does not prevent anyone from being a capable and loving parent. Yet, it does present a set of unique challenges -- challenges that Nicole Schultz-Kass, a 37-year-old blind mother from Woodbury, MN, feels are often misconstrued by people.

To put it simply, dogs are amazing. Whether they are begging for food with those piercing eyes, or smothering you with wet kisses, they make it impossible not to smile.

People with communication disabilities, such as ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Down syndrome, aphasia caused by a stroke, and some forms of cerebral palsy and autism, are the most vulnerable during and after disasters like Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. In many cases, these individuals get separated from their helpers, lose access to their speech-generating devices and their low-tech tools, and get relocated to places where they are unable to receive the proper support.

Six Black transgender women have been found dead in the past two weeks. Three of them during Pride Month.