We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sean Gold a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sean, thanks for joining us today. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?

One thing that I dislike about the education system is the false narrative that segregation is over completely. That’s false! There was only a shift in where it went from segregation by race to segregation by ability. The self-contained classes that are filled with disabled and chronically ill students usually stay in the same class all day long except for lunchtime and gym. That’s harmful for all students and there is nothing beneficial about it other than being able to continue the barriers in society that keep the disabled and nondisabled separated and at a huge disadvantage. I think that abled-bodied, or nondisabled children are taught from ages 3-5 to ignore the disabled children because they usually just stare. They are told to just look away from us instead of coming to say hi. Once in elementary and middle school, we are segregated. By the time high school comes, they think that avoiding us is respectful when in actuality it’s Harmful.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

(Hoping my bio answers this.)

Sean Gold is a young, black, gay man with a disability, his desire is to enlighten, inform and support others in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, and beyond. He is an advocate for people with disabilities, an author, a public speaker, and has one Microsoft certification for web design. In 2020, Sean was elected as president of the disability-owned nonprofit organization, Coalition in Truth and Independence. In 2021, he published his debut book, “Pure Love, Or Is It?” In 2023, Gold became the Media Director of FestAbility and a board member of Saint Louis Publishers Association. He is currently attending UMSL for his bachelor’s degree in English.

Gold began public speaking at the age of 16. He was flown out to Houston, Texas two years in a row to present at a Cerebral Palsy conference that his former neurologist puts on each year. Before his nineteenth birthday, Sean auditioned for a TedTalk in Saint Louis which he got to present in 2019 titled The Obstacles of Disabilities after his twentieth birthday. Since then, he’s given over fifteen talks over disability advocacy, Justice, education, and inclusion.

Sean hosts a YouTube series, Crippled by Culture, that debuted in January of 2023 where he discusses and interviews both disabled and nondisabled people on the intersections of disabilities and topics that interest each guest. He has his “voice” speak out everything that’s written in a document that he types up beforehand, and any additional comments and questions he has during the interview.

He considers his faith, family, and friends the most important things in his life. His physical disability is Cerebral Palsy, and he has had a Tracheostomy Breathing Tube since he was only one and a half years old. Even though he’s nonverbal, it doesn’t get in the way of his love of creative writing, and storytelling.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

As someone who is technically nonverbal from having a breathing tube and cerebral palsy, I have always used writing for my outlet to express myself. At 16 years old I was called by my doctor to fly out to Texas to give a speech at her conference. It was my very first time, and I absolutely loved the process along with being in front of an audience. That’s when I knew I wanted to do advocacy and public speaking for my community. She invited me out two years in a row. After high school, I auditioned for a Ted talk right before my 19th birthday in 2018. Then after five months of preparation, I gave my Ted talk in May 2019 at 20 years old. That’s what officially started my public speaking career professionally.

To me, writing isn’t second nature. It’s my first.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Building my audience was and is harder than people think. For Twitter ( I refuse to say X) and Facebook, I’ve always known that they would be the hardest to grow due to the algorithm so I don’t really focus on them too much. Facebook is great for events and I use Twitter to just post screenshot updates on Instagram. I’ve noticed how my community was doing that the most. Funny enough, I now have an unplanned post pattern where every third photo must be a tweet from now on! (It was an accident that I now blame my OCD for!).

YouTube has my podcast and the speeches I record. It was only going to be used for like a video portfolio of my speeches, and then I wanted to try a YouTube series that’s now available on podcasts as well.

TikTok surprised me the most!! I went sort of viral in the beginning unexpectedly and then I immediately began using it to build my platform with my advocacy work. I have the most following there, but unfortunately, TikTok randomly took away the text-to-speech feature from me in June and I’m still waiting for it to be given back. It’s truly unfair and ableist to take it away from me. I reached out and their response was disappointing.

My advice would be to get signed up on social media with the same username, or close to it so nobody can take it, and focus on building up one at a time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/authorseangold
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/AuthorSeanGold
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSeanGold
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-gold-305855bb
• Twitter: https://x.com/AuthorSeanGold
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCqYl7ePruXfbL6TFkZD0UBQ