Conference Program

Although the right to Independent Living was formally recognised in Italy through the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) via Law no. 18/2009, which commits the State to guarantee “freedom of choice and full participation in the community” (Art. 19), this right remains largely unmet. According to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, services supporting Independent Living in Italy remain highly fragmented and characterised by strong regional disparities, with a persistent reliance on familistic care models that limit disabled people’s autonomy and opportunities for self-determination (FRA, 2022).
Within contemporary contexts marked by ableist and cisheteropatriarchal norms, care arrangements become a crucial site where bodies are regulated and democratic participation is negotiated. Familistic systems of care often function as dispositifs of surveillance and control that restrict disabled people’s capacity to inhabit social spaces as autonomous subjects.
For LGBTQ+ disabled people, these dynamics take on particular significance. Research shows that LGBTQ+ individuals frequently experience discrimination or silence within family contexts, which may become even more constraining when family members are also primary caregivers (European Commission, 2020). Recent studies further demonstrate that LGBTQ+ disabled people often encounter infantilisation, censorship and discrimination within care systems, directly affecting their capacity to express sexual and relational identities (Abbott et al., 2025; Kempapidis et al., 2024; Smith et al., 2025).
This paper draws on a qualitative research project investigating the intersectional discrimination experienced by LGBTQIAP+ disabled people (Centrone & Costantino, 2025). Through semi-structured interviews, the study explores how different care arrangements shape the possibility of self-determination, focusing specifically on the role of personal assistance as a practice of freedom and crip self-determination (Centrone, 2025; Costantino, Centrone & Bocci, 2025).
The analysis examines how the difference between accessing non-familial personal assistance and depending on family caregivers affects individuals’ ability to express their sexual identity, build relationships and inhabit their bodies in self-determined ways. Within a crip epistemological framework that interrogates the co-extensivity between compulsory able-bodiedness (McRuer, 2006) and normative regimes regulating sexuality and intimacy, the paper analyses how familistic care systems may reproduce forms of control, invisibility and segregation.
The central argument is that the possibility of choosing and training one’s personal assistant constitutes a material condition of freedom and a prerequisite for the full expression of the self. Personal assistance, in this perspective, can function not only as a support service but also as a political infrastructure enabling democratic participation and relational autonomy.
Reframing care through a crip perspective therefore allows us to understand personal assistance as a form of embodied resistance to ableist and cisheteronormative regimes of care. By foregrounding interdependence and collective responsibility, crip care practices open possibilities for reimagining autonomy, desire and participation beyond familistic and institutional models, enabling disabled LGBTQ+ bodies to emerge as political and relational subjects.