Gem Turner Is Laughing In The Face Of Ableism

In this episode, disabled comedian Gem Turner shares an empowering perspective on living with disability. She talks about using humour to challenge preconceived notions, finding confidence through posting viral videos, and getting real about the daily realities for many disabled people.

Key Moments:

- [1:23] Gem explains how she started posting videos to "fight back" against being patronised and infantilised.

- [4:56] The exhausting expectation to be an "angelic, funny disabled person."

- [8:34] Phones are our safety.

- [10:45] Dealing with hateful comments from trolls on TikTok.

- [13:23] On internalized ableism and feeling conflicted sharing "negative" experiences.

- [16:12] Living with constant chronic pain from disabilities.

- [18:34] Gem's #1 most hated question strangers ask about her wheelchair.

Connect with Gem Turner:TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gem_turner_

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gem_turner/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gem_turner

Website: https://www.gemturner.com/about

Connect with Peta:

Instagram: @petahooke

Website: www.icantstandpodcast.com

Email: icantstandpodcast@gmail.com

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Episode Transcript: 00:00:02

Peta: Hello, and welcome to the I Can't Stand Podcast, the podcast that explores what it's like to live with disability. I'm Peta Hooke, I have Cerebral Palsy, and I'm your host. Every week I sit down with a person with. A disability who's lived experiences and perspectives are reshaping how disability is viewed and understood, not just within our community, but. By non disabled people too. This week, I'm joined by Internet sensation Gem Turner. Gem opens up about the balance between sharing her truth online, navigating internalized ablism, and the realities of dealing with trolls. So, without any further ado, let's get into it.

00:01:00

Gem: I'm Gem Turner and I'm an online advocate and disabled person. That was a terrible introduction. I'm sorry. I didn't know whether you want a short or along, so I went with short.

00:01:17

Peta: Gem for people who don't know who you are. As you say you're online, you're really give an insight into disability life in such a funny and relatable way from a disabled perspective that clearly it's very educational for non disabled people. Why did you start posting online and how is your content evolved over time?

00:01:41

Gem: Oh? That's a good question. I guess the one reason why was I was so fed up with this idea of the first impression that non disabled people had of me was so the opposite of who I am. You just want to show felt like I can, I can think, I can talk, I can I can do things, And they. Just talked to you like hello, are you okay?

00:02:08

Gem: And I'm like, I haven't talked to a new puppy like that, never mind, you know, a thirty year old. So I started to kind of put that first impression out there to almost fight back with the infantilization and the you know, just general patronizing, and I guess over time it's evolved into something actually really empowering now, so yeah, I guess it's like creating content with two angles. It's for disabled people to feel let alone, but it's also to non disabled people, but in a really gentle way that's almost like I'm just going to let you know and you can do whatever you want with that information.

00:02:56

Peta: I love it, and I've watched basically your whole TikTok. So I hope you're monetized over there in the UK, unlike us Here in Australia. So I hope you're doing well on that side. Because your content is so fantastic. I will link everything in the description. People should definitely go check it out. Has posting content changed you and your perspective of your disability based on not only the feedback but also you expressing yourself in this creative way and it resonating so well clearly with your audience.

00:03:31

Gem: Yes, it has changed me. I think it's whereas before it was at the start, it was like just to prove myself. It was a very one goal situation, whereas now, you know, I'm getting comments constantly saying you should be on stage, you should be you know, you should be a comedian and that's so like, first of all, I'm like, oh my god, Sandra, stop. But then I'm like, actually, yeah, I would love to do this. And I think that, you know, evolution of what I've been doing has given me that confidence that actually I'm not just someone who's ranting and roving, but maybe entertaining as well.

00:04:14

Peta: And I think that's why your content from me personally does so well, because in the end, this is just my own internal sort of compus. If you like, you attract more people with honey than vinegar. And that's so with your content, you're educating but also in a friendly way. It's never comes across angry or aggressive.

00:04:36

Gem: Yeah yeah, And I used to say that. I used to say, like, I don't I don't lecture people, and you know, I just do it in a in a gentle way, and I'm really proud of that. But I also, now i'm getting older, I'm going to like this internalized ableism situation and I'm like, oh, like, am I protecting other people's piece instead of my own? So now I'm trying to like be as honest as I can. Still have that humuor, but also have vulnerable videos as well in between that kind of are a bit more serious. You know, being that angelic, funny disabled person all the time is actually very exhausting, really tiring, and I've just got to be careful not to put it into this pretty package that's you know, our gems entertaining and hilarious. So all disabled people should be entertaining and hilarious. Because actually, I've got every right, just as you have as anyone, to say, do you know what, I've had a really shit day today. The hard line for me is you know, I'll get called inspiration at inspirational as will you, I am guessing for just going out, and you know, we can laugh and we can be like and I go, I can't believe you just said that. But behind closed doors, the truth is, and I you know, I don't like saying this because it feeds into it. But it has taken a lot to get outside. But not because of my disabled body. It's because, you know, travel is really difficult. You know, I've had to make sure I can get to the place that I meet to I don't know, you know, the accessible route. So all the things that's quote unquote inspirational as the things that is caused mostly by society, you know, there are some pain elements and stuff that I've got to deal with. Yes, it's so hard not to go online and be like, oh, I'm so proud of myself for doing this, And I did it the other week about I was just making a cup of tea and I was like, I'm so proud of myself that I've got to the point where I can make a cup of tea and do things. But if I put that online, the Barbers of the world will be like, oh, you're so lovely. It's it's exhausting. Sometimes it's fun, but it's also like, look, look what's what it's like.

00:07:16

Peta: It is exhausting. And that's why I really admire you doing the content because like for those of us online, we know it's not as easy as it looks. Putting yourself out there is a really big deal. Whether you've done it a hundred times or just the once, it doesn't seem to matter because you're getting new followers all the time, different perspectives that you take you on, and your phone's quite an intimate device, like you have it with you all day every day, and you have these strangers giving opinions. How do you feel about your relationship with social media and how do you manage that, particularly around what you share and what you don't and also fatigue of having to do it.

00:08:00

Gem: I think you're right in that we have our phones with us all the time, but the hard thing for me as well is that my phone equals safety. So yeah, why everyone my non disabled family, will you know, put their phone in the living room. Let's say they might go out for a walk and whatever. We can't do that because we need to be able to contact people. So That's the first thing is that like, not only are we, you know, addicted to our phones, but we need it. So I've had to really put extra steps in to navigate that because if I don't, I'm just obsessed. I have Do not Disturb on all the time, and then I actively kind of make sure I go online, post what I want to post, reply, and then stop. I have like three good hours a day where you know, I've got good energy to film and post. I try and be the most rested me, the realist me, so that it's less energy and I can just be as authentic as I can.

00:09:24

Peta: As you go through the world as a disabled person. I guess because I'm so part of the disability community now, I sort of forget how far we have to go when it comes to non disabled people who've never met disabled people before. But even I was at a party and someone I've known all my life said to me, as a compliment, I don't see your disability. I have not heard that statement for years, But are we really still saying that? Like really, And they didn't understand why I was so offended.

00:09:58

Gem: Yeah, it's I just don't I don't get it. I just don't get it. And I think that's the hard I think what you said there about people who know you, that's the hardest bit for me, because I'm like, you know me. You know that I have got a great life. I'm happy most of the time. Don't get me wrong, you know we all have shit days. But like, if you don't see my disability, you're not seeing me, Like you know I've got a bloody what fourteen stone if not mar chair? You olwausily do see it. You just think it's a compliment because we're told that disability is not a good thing. But we've worked hard to get to this point and disability is a huge part of that. Have you got a line that you say now if someone says that to all, I.

00:10:54

Peta: Used to say something really clever, but now I just say, you're really discrediting what I've gone through even today to just be here, like, of course you see my disability, like my wheelchair isn't a disappearing cloak like a Harry Potter, Like are you serious? And for me, when I meet strangers, I think the most infuriating thing if that's what people who I love and adore say to me. If I meet a stranger, I think the worst thing that they can do is infantilize me. I don't know why sitting down in a wheelchair makes me a child, but it does. And it's really it. It's awful.

00:11:36

Gem: Yeah, oh it's honestly. I've got this one person right who's quite local, and every time I see her, she'll like grab my hand, sure, like grab my cheeks and they're like, hello, godeous, And I'm just like, at what point can I be an asshole? Because if someone grabbed her face, what would she do? I don't think she very happy. WA's it when it's that thing of being especially as a smaller person as well, I've got that added kind of being infantalized as well as patronized. And yeah, it's just I still, at the age of thirty two, struggle with how to deal with that because it's it's not only you know, communication, it's physical. It's like pats on my head and you know, we're not able to run off or you know, I've got to look at the surroundings and think can I get out? So yeah, that's something that I'll never get used to.

00:12:42

Peta: I don't think, as I always say, and my girlfriend said to me, now because my life is a bit chaot. I'm not gonna lie, but like, well, at least it's content, and for you it's the same, right.

00:12:56

Gem: Yes, exactly, And you know, on TikTok, I get money for it. So basically, I said to my therapist the other day, the trolls are actually paying for my life. So there's quite a liberating feeling with but so you know, keep it coming.

00:13:16

Peta: And do you find that your content performs differently on Instagram versus TikTok and do you have more trolls on one versus the other?

00:13:25

Gem: Instagram is like my safe community, like I've built that from follower to follower people I feel like people, I'd say ninety nine percent of people completely get mass into humor. They know my sarcasm because like the other week, I posted, you know, a skit about an influencer that meta disabled person and it was just satire and you know, saying which would be grateful because you might you know, be disabled or whatever, and looks only like two percent, but commented being like, you're so right, We've got to be grateful for what we've got. And I'm like, you don't know my content, like you don't, you don't get the joke. But then people were replying to that comment being like, no, she's being sarcastic. So I've got that nice community now where people actually jump in and help me as well, which I really appreciate, whereas TikTok, Oh my god, it's like jumping into a deep sea and not knowing what's going to come and get you, because obviously the algorithm's very different. It's like, you know, you've got your followers, but it's mostly anybody and anyone. And I've actually stopped doing TikTok lives. I've done two or three and it's it's not for me. It's too much because you don't just get you know, people who are being a bit silly. It's it's hate. It's full on disability, ignorance. You know, you're being alive on a camera and you're looking at oh my god, what is that?

00:15:18

Gem: You know, it's like I personally can't do a poker face and carry on being like this is my cup of tea. I think that's the hardest thing. It's that reminder that there's not just ignorant people. There's nasty people who will take one look at you and decide that that's their little activity for the day, and you know it's not worth it, I don't think.

00:15:47

Peta: But to me, that just really illustrates and I maybe braves the wrong word. That illustrates how brave it is to put yourself out there like this, Jim, to have the confidence and courage to do it, because I think that's what stopped me for so long, that you can't control how people perceive you, and they are so upfront, like there's no peas and queues and politeness on totial media.

00:16:15

Gem: One of my first videos that went viral on tiktop was about two years ago. So Weatherspoons is a pub in the UK. It's like a chain. The demographic of the Weatherspoons is about fifty year old men that are white bald and I've got England football top on. But that's the kind of you know situation. But they do a really good all day breakfast, so I love going and you can order the food on your phone and they will bring it to you, so it's very accessible. So I just did a video one day with me and my mom and I just said, oh, this is what me and mom do when we come to a restaurant or a cafe. We'll look round and then I'll pick out which area looks good for my chair and for a hearing as well, so I've got hearing aids. The comments which are so vile, like sexual, like you know, comparing me to like aliens and eta and just every hurtful thing you could think of, and I just thought, this is so sad that as a disabled person, as a disabled woman, I'm just because I'm happy and I'm posting that I've gone to somewhere and had a nice breakfast. You don't like it, you can do like a filter words, so you can choose, which is, by the way, horrible activity in itself, because I have to then regurgitate all the awful stuff that people have said in the past and put it all into a little box. But it's been so worth it because now I've put in all the usual comments, so now I can at least go on to TikTok and not see those really hateful, hurtful but I'll just trigger on and you know, as a little person, you know, you get called midget a lot, and it's those types of mixed with sexual comments as well. So yeah, I think now I've done that activity it's stopped those kind of hateful slurs.

00:18:40

Peta: I did mine quite a few years ago, so it might have changed. But when I did mine, there were actually lists online that you could just copy and paste, so then I didn't have to think of all the horrible things that they could say about me.

00:18:54

Gem: Oh why didn't I do that? I just went through it all like eighty goblins alien like, oh god, you've got to do it on a day that you're feeling good. That's how you are.

00:19:08

Peta: Oh you poor thing. Okay, Well, hopefully I've saved someone with that little bit of advice just going through it. Do it through chat GBT, because it doesn't talk that way, so you need to do it the old fashioned way through Google. I think before I jumped on you very sweetly checked on me on how I'm doing, because I did fall from my ceiling host back in April, and I'm still sitting here in pain unfortunately, which I know you understand better than most, which is very nice. Either talk to me about your relationship with pain and your body and still wanting to live fully because I know you live with brittle bodes.

00:19:49

Gem: Yeah, pain to me is interesting because I think any non disabled person that thinks about pain. It's like you know you've had a trauma, you're in pain, you do something about it, you rest, and it's gone. But for me, I think there's like different types of pain. So, yeah, you've got the trauma ones where if I break a bone, which you know I've broken over three hundred bones, of course I don't even know how many at this point. You know, I'm used to that. I could sneeze, break a shoulder, you know, deal with bat carry on. But I think also there's the kind of pain looks like the fatigue, which is for me, I get like arthritis. So when it's cold weather, my bones, you know ache, it's almost like as if someone's pinching you, and it's slowly just getting a little bit tighter and tighter and tighter, so you don't feel it straight away, but it might be so tight that's all of a sudden you're like, why am I in a really bad mood?

00:20:56

Peta: Like what's wrong with me?

00:20:57

Gem: And you're like, oh, I'm in pain. I have not figured it out, and that can affect you know, your appetite, your mood, even like you gut health. I think for me, every day I have the everyday door aches, and then it's about living with a condition where I could roll over in bed and break a rib. So there's always that anxiety at the back of my head. And I guess though, that's also why I've got at least for life, because and a love for life is because when I'm having a good day, I'm like, yes, no broken bones, I can just do what I want. And I think again, I don't like saying that because it feeds into the barberas and the inspirational pawn of oh, she's so happy to be to be alive. But it's not that. It's just, you know, I'm having a good day and I want to appreciate it. You know, when you do have hard days. It's very hard for me to share that, even with my closest friends and family, because to be vulnerable it is so difficult because once you open my kind of worms, it feels like you're going against everything that I have advocated for, you know. One in one sense, I'm saying to people, don't feel sorry for me, like I've got a great wave, and then one day I break a rib and I'm actually really aching, and you know, I can't breathe it. It's like, what, I can't that tell people this because you know it's gone wrong. I regularly get frustrated, But again, I find it really hard to say that, and I'm actually working on that as well, because I think it's healthy to say I'm really frustrat right now that I'm in pain. But somehow being negative about my body feels wrong.

00:23:08

Peta: If anybody else boke a Ridge, I think we'd hear about it.

00:23:12

Gem: I'm like a golden retriever, Like if I get praised for doing well in wife, I'm going to keep being positive. But actually I think it's really powerful and it's good to just be like, do you know what, I'm not having a good day and I'm a bit annoyed at my body, but it'll be better in a couple of days. If you share something online, you have to disclaim so much. You have to be like, right, I'm going to tell you something now, but this is just today. This is not my life, and you don't know if there's a new follower that's their first impressive that's all going in my head, which is ridiculous. And actually to just not care and be like, you know, if a stranger thinks that you know, I've got a sad life? Does it matter? Do I need to change the world? No, she can think that, but it's so hard to, you know, release that.

00:24:14

Peta: For those who don't know, I started the I Can't Stand podcast in twenty twenty one, and I started it from a very simple basis, and that was the fact that I was sick of strangers asking me stupid questions when I was waiting for my coffee in the morning. You're the perfect person to ask this. I think I've ever asked Jim on the podcast, what is one question you wish strangers never ask you?

00:24:41

Gem: Have you got a license for that? And I know it's really cliche, and I know that it's like the number one thing, but I just don't know what to say anymore. I don't know. I don't know whether to laugh. I don't know whether to like scream. I don't know whether to solve, Like I just who said that? I want to meet the first person that said to a wheelchair user, have you got a license for that? And smack them around the face because you started some of there. That's the bane of my life.

00:25:18

Peta: I agree. I think if we all got given a dollar or a pound, so when we heard it we could all retire now. It seems a big global thing. I don't know why. I now say, if anybody says to me, have you got a license for that? I now say, I've never heard that question before, well done? And then that really puts them in their place.

00:25:38

Gem: Yeah I do go, oh, I've not heard that before. And some especially when then they're like, you know, like, oh she dared answer back where I was being really kind? How darehy? I'm like, because it's shit thing. No one's laughing the.

00:26:00

Peta: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the I Can't Stand Podcast. If you enjoy today's conversation, the best way you can support the show is by sharing it with a friend or posting about it on social media, and if you have a moment, leaving a rating and review helps more people find these stories. Don't forget. You can always send me an email I Can't Stand Podcast at gmail dot com, or you can follow me over on Instagram at Peterhook. I'll see you next week. I would like to respectfully acknowledge the Wondery and bunn wrong people of the call and nation of which I record the podcast today, and I pay my respects to both elders past and present, along with and especially to those in the First Nation's communities who are disabled themselves.