Phoebe Smith is 28 years old and has been in a wheelchair since she was 22.
At 18, she was diagnosed with Friedreich’s Ataxia, a neurodegenerative disease that gradually robbed her of her balance. In January, after a year of being single, she decided to try Tinder and Hinge. On her profile, she wrote humorously that ‘the wheelchair is included’. What she received in return was anything but funny.
Almost all the messages she receives, she says, talk about her body before talking about her. They ask whether ‘the lower half works’, make jokes about ‘Meals on Wheels’ or ‘Transformers’, and someone even wrote to say they wanted to do a ‘wheelie’ with her on top. One person from Hinge directly confessed to having a ‘fetish’ for dating someone in a wheelchair; she did not even reply to that person and reported them immediately because it seemed concerning. Phoebe, from Canvey Island, Essex, says she receives at least one such message a day, and that she has deleted and reinstalled the apps again and again out of sheer exhaustion.
She decided to share the screenshots on social media to expose the people who send them. The video surpassed 900 likes and generated more than 50 comments from people outraged by what she experiences every time she tries to find a partner.
