Title:
Disability Advocate Cassidy Huff’s Viral Influencer Status

Subtitle:
From overcoming 40 surgeries to advocating for inclusion – Cassidy Huff’s journey is a testament to resilience and the power of voice.

Transcript:

Alycia Anderson: Welcome back to Pushing Forward with Alycia. I’m Alycia Anderson. I’m really excited about our next guest.

Before I say her name, I want to share a little story about how our paths crossed. We were just at a women empowerment event for disabled women, the Rolette’s experience, and last year when I spoke, one of the events that I spoke at was the teen talk, the teen experience and the Rolette’s experience asked me to speak. For this group specifically because I’m one of the few that has a congenital disability And could relate with the teens going through adolescence and what they’re going through as disabled youth specifically in adolescence yikes

And there was one young girl specifically, her name is Annabelle and she’s one of my favorites.

And she really wanted, to meet all of these different people that she was seeing in the room and she was whispering to me, I really want to meet this person.

I really want to meet this person. I don’t know how to do it. I’m like, let’s go. We’re going to go meet every single one of these people.

And Cassidy rolls by and she goes, Oh my God, she’s whispering in my ear. I really, really, really want to meet her. And I rolled back and I let you two, have your moment.

And she was so excited and the sparkle in her eye was there. And I was like, who is this woman? I need to start consuming her content and familiarizing myself with your amazing, beautiful platform.

Cassidy Huff, thank you so much for gracing your beautiful presence and power on pushing forward with Alycia today.

Cassidy Huff: I’m so excited to be here.

Alycia Anderson: Let me give just a quick introduction. You are a disability rights activist. You are a bestselling author. You are a. Content creator with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of followers on YouTube, TikTok, you name it, you’re everywhere.

Let’s do some image descriptions to kick off and then I want to hear all about you. So I will let you,

Cassidy Huff: my name is Cassidy Huff. I am a white woman with a little bit below the shoulders, chest length now blonde hair. I’m wearing black glasses. I have my microphone in front of me. I have an earbud in my ear. Year that I’m not deaf out of then I’m wearing a black short sleeved v neck t shirt.

I’m sitting In an office chair with a pillow behind me and my chaotic one bedroom apartment behind me as well

Alycia Anderson: I love it, and I’m Alycia Anderson. I’m wearing a white tank top with a gray checkered hat because my hair is a dirty day.

Cassidy Huff: That’s fair.

Alycia Anderson: I am, I have green eyes, tan skin. I’m sitting in my living room with a brown couch and white pillows behind me and a floral ish rug underneath my wheels. So Cassidy,

Cassidy Huff: Yes

Alycia Anderson: think we should start if you’re okay with it.

I want to, if you could share with our audience about you and your relationship with disability, whatever you’re comfortable with. So we can kind of lay down that foundation. I think that would be great if you don’t mind.

Cassidy Huff: Sure. Of course. So I was born with a rare genetic type of dwarfism. It’s called Conradi Hunerman syndrome, and it’s so rare that only about 150 people worldwide have it. So, yeah.

Alycia Anderson: Wow.

Cassidy Huff: Yeah, so it affects everything in my body. It is a form of dwarfism. So I do stand at about four feet and three inches tall. I’m blind out of my right eye. I’m deaf out of my left ear. So I am deaf blind. I have a skin condition called ichthyosis. I have kyphoscoliosis, meaning my spine bends on two different planes. So, it bends in an S shape and a C shape, and without medical intervention when I was younger, it would have crushed my internal organs.

So, you gotta kind of fix that. So, because of my spine, I’ve had 41 spine surgeries. I’m 22 years old, so I’ve had 43 surgeries in my 22 years, and it’s it’s a lot. I have proximal femoral focal deficiency, which basically means that my right femur did not form all the way in the womb. So, I have a limb difference of about five and a half inches.

inches. that means that I wear an orthotic foot on foot prosthesis, which basically looks like I have three feet because of my mobility issues. I have a service dog that helps me with my mobility. And then I also am a part time ambulatory wheelchair user. So that’s a little bit about my disability background.

Alycia Anderson: Incredible. Have you ever met any of the 150 other,

Cassidy Huff: Yeah. I have met a few of them. And it’s really interesting. My syndrome is actually fatal to people who are born male at birth. So really only girls have my syndrome, which is really interesting. And if you line us all up. You like would think that we’re all related. We have very, very similar features. All of us usually have like fair skin blonde hair. It’s so interesting. So I think it’s really interesting meeting other people who have my syndrome, mainly because a lot of them are younger than I am. And so it’s really cool getting to. See them and see how far technology has come just in my lifetime, because they don’t have to have surgeries every six months that, that I had to have

Alycia Anderson: wow.

Cassidy Huff: I was younger.

Alycia Anderson: So we mentioned congenital disability, let’s talk about it since we’re both in that group and we’re just talking about Annabelle and, how was it growing up with this disability how did, how did that translate to you being? This front end of the stage advocate activists that you are.

Cassidy Huff: That’s so interesting that you asked that question, actually, because I just did a video on this last night.

So I went to public school 12 years from first grade to senior year of high school. And I was mainstream. So I didn’t go to any kind of deaf school or blind school. I was told that I wasn’t deaf enough and I wasn’t blind enough. And when you’re going to school, I mean, I’m sure you had it with a bunch of able bodied kids.

It’s not a fun time sometimes. Growing up, I was a very happy child. I loved life specifically I loved performing. I was performing before I could even grasp what performing was. I made my family like sit down in the living room and I forced them to watch one woman shows that I. Put on. And then when my sister was born, I forced her to be in them. And I was the director, producer, actor, writer of all of these, you know? so, my family was not shocked when I was like 16, 17. And I was like, I think I want to go to school for musical theater. They were like, no way. Weird.

I had a very happy, positive childhood, but I did struggle with a lot of early depression, mainly because I was, I was going in and out of the hospital. I had surgeries every six months. So, I, I remember missing out a lot on, on different activities and different things and not being able to do everything that my peers could do.

And so I really found my community in theater and I really found my community in the hospital, unfortunately. but I had a lot of fun times in the hospital.

So I had a very happy childhood, but it was also really hard at times. And I think, you can relate to that, growing up disabled and having those struggles of, of knowing that you’re different, but then also not really thinking that you’re different. And then being like, why don’t kids want to be friends with me?

Also my family, nobody in my family is disabled either. so that was also really difficult. Like they, they could sympathize with me and they really tried to help me. I had such a supportive family and support system growing up, but nobody gets it. So I didn’t really find that community of people who got it until I was in college and moved out and passed my, teenage years.

Alycia Anderson: You know, that was the exact same for me too. It happened in college for me. I think that’s important for the young group that, that follows this podcast to hear,

And so how does that translate to the advocacy work that you’re doing today?

Cassidy Huff: So I started content creation when I was 18. I just graduated high school is 2020. And. I started content creation on accident, truthfully. I accidentally went viral with the very first video I ever posted. And I posted it at like 11 o’clock on a Tuesday night, and woke up to 10, 000 followers, like literally overnight. And then I was like, Oh no, what am I supposed to do? And so I had really long talks with my family. My grandmas were like my best friends.

And so I, I was talking to them and I was like, what do I tell people? And they were like, well, your life. In general is just like educational. you could just literally share your story and talk about your life. Like you’ve been doing your entire life and people will listen to you. So I started with that.

And then I really started going down this rabbit hole of, of looking at, rights and disability history and the history of the disability rights movement and I really realized, I was, this performing world for so long. I always had my heart set on the fact that I wanted to be the representation in the media that I did not have growing up. And I realized that that was a part of my story, but in all reality, wanted as many people to be educated as possible because disability is inevitable.

You’re going to become disabled at some point in your life, whether it’s by an accident or whether it’s by old age, And so a lot of people are very scared of disability. And by educating them, I’ve always said that education is the key to eliminating the fear. Behind something so I just started educating about my life and I started taking people to hospital appointments with me And I started taking people through days in my life where I was just doing schoolwork all day and people start slowly started to realize that I was literally just like them and so I think that’s why my platform grew so fast is because People were seeing a disabled person doing normal things, like everyday mundane things.

So I just started educating about my life through that way. And that was really my step into disability advocacy. then I actually started becoming very serious about political aspects of disability advocacy. And yeah, I started like literally this month getting into the political realm and not just educating myself about Disability in politics, but being the disability in politics but yeah, that’s kind of my story about you know, disability advocacy It started on accident and now I’m here

Alycia Anderson: So let’s talk about politics for a minute since you brought it up. I know that you started with a group recently. Disabled voters for Harris. And what are some of the initiatives, that you also want to teach and advocate for within your, platform?

Cassidy Huff: yeah, I think mainly it’s to show people that disabled voices matter and the disability community is here and we’re not going anywhere and we deserve. Human rights. Unfortunately, it’s so sad to say that sentence out loud, but disabled people deserve human rights.

And we deserve to be seen and heard and listened to. And we are so overlooked. that’s why my friend and I, Jane Mattingly, who you just interviewed

Alycia Anderson: Love her.

Cassidy Huff: her and I, I also love her. I talk to her every day. We started Disabled Voters for Harris. the team has grown now. And so, currently the executive director of Disabled Voters for Harris.

And we provide a platform for disabled people to their rights and resources, all about policy and asking the community what kind of issues they’re concerned about with the upcoming election, what kind of issues they want to see the new administration handle as far as disability goes, and we’re going to combine all of that into a letter and submit it to the, Harris campaign.

And so I have really. I have two full time jobs now, one of them being Disabled Voters for Harris, which I am not getting paid for, it’s completely volunteer based, then the other one being social media full time. . So yeah, it’s, it’s been a really interesting dive.

Alycia Anderson: Okay.

Can we talk about, can we shift a little bit? Yeah. Okay, so another thing that I love about your content is how you do, you do advocacy. You talk about accessibility. You show your life, you show technologies. But you also have a beautiful love story. You have a service dog, you share your life in a real way.

Cassidy Huff: So my boyfriend and I have been together for a little over two years now We live together. We have two fur babies one of which being my service dog another being my kitten we moved into our apartment at the beginning of this year. moved in with his parents and him. A year ago, but we, we met on a dating app and he’s not disabled.

He’s not physically disabled. And I am, and we’re also an interracial couple. And so we’ve had many challenges along the way. I’ve really, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot about inter abled relationships. I think the number one thing that I’ve learned is within this relationship is how to let him help me. Because I’m a very independent person. And his, his love language is acts of service. So at first, when we first started dating, I was like, why are you doing that?

I could do that myself. And he was like, but I Want to do that for you because that’s how I show my love and so I really had to shift my mindset He’s doing this for me because he wants to show me that he loves me kind of thing But yeah, that’s kind of what I’ve learned in the time spent of our relationship

Alycia Anderson: And I think that translates even outside of relationships is that it’s okay to accept help from others, that to like sometimes make things happen, that it’s a collaborative effort.

And also maybe nice for able bodied people to hear sometimes too, they don’t know how to navigate that conversation. And that’s a really important lesson.

Cassidy Huff: Yeah,

Alycia Anderson: I think that’s really beautiful.

And what I love too, about your relationship, you’re fun, and you’re funny and you’re cute together and you’re lighthearted. And that makes you very open to receiving your content and your message.

Like one of my favorite things of watching you was on Instagram, you were doing standup

And you were talking about you know, this elderly woman walking up to you with a cane and saying she could never live like that, and how, how horrible to be disabled. And she’s Disabled too. She’s literally disabled too.

So that humor that you have, like, I don’t know how much of that you do, but I think you’re brilliant at it. I don’t even know where I’m going with that.

Cassidy Huff: up in conversation, random conversations that I have. So I need to get back on it, especially because that’s my first love, that’s what I love to do and so, not having performed in over a year, I’m kind of like scared to go back in it, but maybe that was it.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah.

So let’s talk about your podcast. The View from Four Feet and Three Inches.

Tell us about it.

Cassidy Huff: So it’s called that because I’m 4 feet and 3 inches tall. I, I talk about a lot of things. It’s kind of chaotic, actually. I talk about disability, but I also just talk about real life things. It’s like. This last week’s episode was about mental health and, and how I’ve struggled with mental health my whole life.

And the fact that I’m on antidepressants and , people think that I’m a very outgoing, very happy, bubbly person. And I am. But also struggle just like everybody else with mental health struggles. And so I really think it’s important to de stigmatize that. And so that’s why I did that episode. I interviewed my mom and my sister recently and had them talk about their experiences with disability.

So it was really interesting to talk to both of them I learned a lot from both of those interviews. I’ve interviewed Kaz, my boyfriend. I’m looking to do more guest interviews that are not my family. So I love to have you on Alycia.

Alycia Anderson: please. Done.

Cassidy Huff: Yeah, I just talk very candidly, very openly, basically like I do in my short form content, in a longer form way, because again, I’m a talker and I talk, so I needed an outlet so that I could not just have a 90 second time limit and I could just talk for as long as I wanted to about a specific issue.

But yeah, I, I’m really enjoying it. I’m learning a lot on that side of podcasting. I feel like I have five different careers that we’ve spanned over but that’s, that’s one of the, the many faucets of my career right now.

Alycia Anderson: out of the five different separate careers, what’s the North Star?

Cassidy Huff: if you asked me that four years ago, I would have said Broadway.

Alycia Anderson: Hmm. Me too. Me too!

Cassidy Huff: was where I was going. was set on moving to New York. I did not. in LA. I couldn’t be happier. I have an agent and I’m. Doing auditions. industry is very slow right now, so I don’t really foresee myself anything in that realm for the next ish until the industry picks back up after the strikes, but I would love to do I have many goals. I feel like I would love to go to something like VidCon. I would love to, broaden my career. My social media and in that aspect, I, I would really love to grow in the political aspect. I don’t know how deep into politics I want to get. That’s really what I’m figuring out right now, because not a politics girl. So I’m really trying to figure out where I want to go with that in my career. I would love to actually have a podcast studio. I think is another really big goal of mine. I would love to have an office where I can film and also edit. And also I would love to have a team where I don’t have to do everything because I’m posting on. different accounts every single day on all platforms, so it’s a lot of work and I really need an assistant. This is a job posting. So if you,

Alycia Anderson: this? For two. I need one too.

Cassidy Huff: for two, if you want to help Alycia and me with our careers, please reach out to us on Instagram. But I say all the time that I need assistance. So I would love to like actually build a team. Whether that’s production, whether that’s, you know, mainly production, that’s really what I need. I would love to have a stable income at some point. You know, just basic, basic things. In my personal life, we eventually want to buy a house. Not right now, because we can’t afford that. We’re 22. But and, and then, Future in the way distant future. You know, we’re, we’re talking about marriage. We’re talking about family and we’re talking about all the things.

So I feel like in, in my many different careers, I’m also, I have individual goals, but for some of them, like politics, I have no idea.

Alycia Anderson: I can’t wait to see where you go We’re gonna leave all of your how to follow you your tick tock all your social media. There’s so many things We can’t even say it right now, but they’re in the show notes. Everybody go and get involved with everything that is Cassidy Huff,

so in the theme of pushing forward with Alycia, we always have a pushing forward moment at the end of the show, do you have anything to give a little inspirate little Cassidy inspiration on the way out the door?

Cassidy Huff: Think, lately, my personal motto that I’ll give to the listeners, is good things are coming my way and I deserve the good things that are coming my way.

Alycia Anderson: That’s manifesting, , once you start to really believe it, it actually starts.

I love it. You’re, you’re such an amazing person and I’m so happy our paths have crossed. Friends for life.

Thank you to our listeners for tuning in again this week. This has been pushing forward with Alycia and that is literally how we roll on this podcast. We’ll see you next time.