: What role does solidarity play in your life, Ms. Chirino?
Elisa Chirino: I hardly use the term. That’s probably because I perceive solidarity more as a feeling. Especially in my community.
: Who is your community?
On International Women’s Day on March 8, the weekly becomes feminis. While rights of women, trans, inter and nonbinary people are attacked and rolled back worldwide, the issue asks what can help against powerlessness and bewilderment. Our answer: solidarity. On 52 pages, the feminis shows how solidarity is lived both on a large and on a small scale. The topic is also covered on .de for four days. You can read the full editorial here.
Chirino: Other affected people. I met most of them during the long hospital stay after my accident, many also via social media. There is such an open sense of community and I feel understood right away. I also count the therapists a bit – they aren’t affected themselves, but they have a lot of knowledge about my situation.
: Is what your community consists of primarily defined by the question of physical limitations?
Chirino: Yes, that has changed. I still have contact with people from before, from the elite-sports bubble. But that has become very little.
: As a top athlete, you defined yourself mainly by the performance of your body.
Chirino: I had a trained body, about which I gave little thought. After the accident, this relationship shattered; a part of my body became foreign to me, and it is not easy to accept that.
: When the accident happened you were 16 years old and your goal was the Olympics. A life for sport.
Chirino: After sport stopped so abruptly, I didn’t know who I was for a while. Today I would say a lot of things matter to me: my disability is a part of me, my roots in another country that you can see and that I’m very proud of, my interest in painting, design, fashion, and of course psychology. As a top athlete there was only sport, and I had no time to reflect on who I am besides that.
: What role does it play that you are a woman in a wheelchair and not a man?
Chirino: Men in wheelchairs often come across as more assertive. This is especially true for those who propel their own wheelchair and thereby train their upper body daily. I feel I am much less visible. If I want something or need anything, I almost always have to ask. And because usually someone is pushing my wheelchair, I am not even addressed.
: How much solidarity did you encounter directly after the accident?
Chirino: My training group went straight to the hospital. My trainer also came at the beginning. And there were many expressions of solidarity on social media from other gymnasts, from Germany but also from Italy and other countries. I remember that it surprised and pleased me.
: Were there disappointments as well?
Sophie Fichtner speaks in the new episode Reingehen with Manuela Heim about the concept and origin of the Feminis.
Here is the podcast.
Chirino: Many of those I had spent my entire time with before gradually stopped coming. There was also a fundraiser for me back then, and a large portion of the money was embezzled. The person responsible was known to my training environment, and I would have wished for more solidarity. I also deliberately said goodbye to some contacts from my life before because they did me more harm than good.
: Who are your allies today?
Chirino: I now have people present in different areas of my life. But my family – they are the central allies. Today I have the strength again to stand up for myself and, eventually, to cope on my own without them. But right after the accident – I don’t want to imagine what it would have been like without them. My mother is the most solidaristic person in my life.
: How often do you encounter people in daily life who do not have a disability and from whom you feel truly understood and your needs?
Chirino: Rarely. For a time I felt very unwell, I had severe pain, could hardly eat or drink. And especially with doctors, who should know better, my situation was partly downplayed. In such situations I feel really at the bottom. Even my privacy is violated, especially in hospital.
: Would you wish that people would understand more what you need, and that you would have to ask for help less often?
Chirino: That is sometimes really annoying. I had to learn that, too. On the other hand, it’s a kind of luck that there are people you can ask. For me, it would be best this way: I say what I need, you can’t know it, and you acknowledge what I’m fighting against and meet me on equal terms.
