Another day, another devastating headline in the realm of video games. “Layoffs Leave The Future Of Xbox’s Award-Winning Accessibility Efforts In Doubt,” announces one story from the gaming news website Aftermath. The article, published on July 22 and written by a fellow journalist with SMA named Grant Stoner, details…
Wandering the Lines — Sherry Toh
Sherry “Elisa” Toh (she/they) is a journalist who lives in sunny Singapore. Her diagnosis of SMA type II was in 1999 at 13 months old. Kyphoscoliosis and chronic neuropathy later developed as complications. As a hopeless romantic, her loves include fairy tales, tea, and gaming — the last being the primary focus of her work. She has bylines in PCGamesN, NME, and more. In 2023, her essay “Virtual Progress: A Disabled Journalist’s Thoughts on the Video Games Industry” was published in Singapore’s first printed disability studies anthology, “Not Without Us: Perspective on Disabilities and Inclusion in Singapore.” She writes in hopes of offering community and catharsis. Find her @sherlisass on social media.
Featured Post
“Did you tell your siblings my medication costs about $1,000 SGD [$783] per day, before subsidies?” I texted my dad a couple of months back. It had been years since his elder brother and sister had seen me. As fate would have it, I was due for phenol and steroid…
I had a date with Count Dracula. An award-winning ballet adaptation of Bram Stoker’s immortal creation — “Dracula: Ballet at its Darkest” — was to arrive in my homeland of Singapore for the summer, and a friend of mine got wind of the news. The production promised an…
One of the queerest ways to spend Pride Month could go like this … You decide to go to the theater one night. You scan the ticketing site for a show and land on one about lesbian identity, struggles, and culture in Singapore. It’d be no fun to go alone,…
I don’t talk to my ex anymore. For the sake of this column, I will have to let her know about it as a courtesy. But as far as a daily choice goes, it’s not one I make anymore. Readers who’ve kept up with my column in the last few…
I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t sell my soul for money. In a way, that’s what my job as a professional disability advocate and writer is: Mining my life as a resource for content to monetize, whether directly or indirectly. Is the net result adding good to…
Note: This column describes the author’s own experiences with fentanyl and other pain medications. Not everyone will have the same response to treatment. Consult your doctor before starting or stopping a therapy. “You really know pain, huh?” someone asked me, eyes wide with concern. In response to their offering me…
“You must have dropped the baby.” That sentence was one of the many knives flung at my mother’s chest when I was diagnosed with SMA. She was 24, barely an adult. I was a difficult pregnancy, born a full month before I was due. My birth would’ve been even…
Unintentionally, last year, most of my immediate family bought me Christmas gifts with the same theme. My brother, Gabriel, got me a handmade blue-and-white scarf from China. Mom got me a sheer-ish white shawl. My stepdad got me a red knitted cardigan. See what they’re all aiming for yet? Together,…
For a video games journalist, I haven’t played many video games recently. Mostly, the absence of gaming in my life isn’t my fault. My laptop is almost four years old, and it’s quite determined to remind me of its age. If I were to anthropomorphize it, I would say it…
My mother tried persuading me to get a hospital bed at home for years. “Your uncle can help us source one that the pediatric hospital doesn’t want,” she said at one point. “Our neighbor doesn’t need hers anymore. She offered it to us. Do you want it?” Mom asked…
By the time I was 19, I believed I had escaped my reproductive cycle. In fact, I had developed a superiority complex about it. While my friends complained about cramps and cravings, I laughed in their faces. It’s not like I was reading studies on young women with…
Explore More Columns
Discussion
Discussion
Discussion