Love, marriage and disability: Interabled couples | The Excerpt
On a special episode (first released on January 22, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: Squirmy and Grubs are not your typical YouTube stars. One is them is able-bodied. The other is not. How they navigate the challenges that dichotomy presents is the point. So is how normal their lives as an interabled couple really are. The story of Hannah and Shane Burcaws’ relationship and others like it is captured in their new book, "Interabled: True Stories about Love and Disability." They joined The Excerpt to talk about what they hope abled couples understand about interabled love.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
Hello, and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Wednesday, January 22, 2025, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt. Squirmy and Grubs are not your typical YouTube stars. One of them is able-bodied, the other is not. How they navigate the challenges that dichotomy presents is the point. So is how normal their lives as an inter-abled couple really are.
Shane Burcaw:
Among the people that do not believe our relationship is real because I am disabled and Hannah is not, there is a large opinion that I was very, very rich when Hannah met me, and that was the real reason why she reached out and began a fake relationship with me.
Hannah Burcaw:
Yeah.
Dana Taylor:
The story of Hannah and Shane Burcaw's relationship and why it both is and isn't remarkable is captured in a new book they've co-authored. It's called, Inter-Abled, True Stories about Love and Disability, and it's on bookshelves now. Thanks for joining us on The Excerpt, Shane and Hannah.
Shane Burcaw:
Thank you so much for having us.
Hannah Burcaw:
Thank you.
Dana Taylor:
A quarter of Americans identify as disabled, and many more live with chronic illness, and still, as we heard in the clip we played, you regularly get comments expressing disbelief when people see the two of you are committed to each other for life.
Shane Burcaw:
We have found in these years of our relationship that when people realize we're in a romantic relationship, they are often confused and that has a variety of reasons. But the main reason is the ableist idea that a disabled man like me or a disabled person could not be a valuable, worthy partner. We, and so many of the disabled people we know, know that that is wildly untrue, and we believe that this book will help the greater public realize that as well.
Hannah Burcaw:
Yeah, I think one of the main reasons that people don't believe in our relationship is because they haven't seen anything like it before. So they come across us and they're like, "That's just not real." So this book is giving them, so many other couples as examples, so much exposure to inter-abled relationships. So, hopefully it'll change some people's minds.
Dana Taylor:
As I mentioned, you have a YouTube channel with over a million followers. How did that start and how has it evolved?
Hannah Burcaw:
It started as a fun summer hobby after my junior year of college. We were going on a road trip, and we thought it would be fun to film it. And it took about six months for us to gain some subscribers and start actually seeing people watch our videos. And at that point, we started getting comments of people not believing our relationship. And that was when we really decided that it would be a mission-based project where we were going to try to show people the true experience of being disabled and being in inter-abled relationship.
Shane Burcaw:
Yeah, it was so eye-opening to see the level of misinformation and ignorance that's out there in regards to disabilities. This book is just another extension of that mission, trying to improve the way society understands disability.
Dana Taylor:
As we've noted, your relationship is unique in that one of you is abled and one is disabled. How did you first meet, and can you talk about the initial biases or challenges you both had to overcome early in your relationship?
Hannah Burcaw:
Yeah, so we met about nine years ago now when I was a freshman in college and I was in Minnesota, Shane was in Pennsylvania.
Shane Burcaw:
So we should not have met.
Hannah Burcaw:
We shouldn't have met, but I saw a mini-documentary that one of my favorite actors had made about Shane, and it was about the nonprofit that he ran and the book he had written. And I watched that, and Shane had a blog at the time. So I started reading Shane's blog, and I just felt like we would get along so well. I really wanted to know Shane in person or personally.
Shane Burcaw:
She was smitten.
Hannah Burcaw:
I was smitten, yeah. So, I emailed Shane, introducing myself, saying I loved his blog, and he emailed back. We began texting. We FaceTimed the next day, and very quickly we were like, "This is more than just a casual friendship."
Shane Burcaw:
Yeah. We were like, "Uh oh."
Hannah Burcaw:
Yeah.
Shane Burcaw:
Because we were both feeling something and we were a thousand miles apart.
Hannah Burcaw:
Very inconvenient.
Shane Burcaw:
So, Hannah was able to come visit me about three months later, and that was when we became official, boyfriend and girlfriend. We did a long distance for a few years before I made the move out to Minneapolis so that we could be together all the time.
Hannah Burcaw:
Yes, and I didn't really have any experience with disability at that time. I didn't know anyone that used a wheelchair. But Shane was really good at teaching me things like how to get his laptop closer to him, how to help him... I don't even know what else I did at that time.
Shane Burcaw:
Just various [inaudible 00:05:13]
Hannah Burcaw:
Just various things, how to get his tie-downs in the car safely attached to his chair. It was just little things like that. And he did it in such a humorous and fun way. He made me a bingo sheet so I could scratch off things that I had done. So I think he was really good at just making it a comfortable and fun situation and not a big scary thing where I had to learn about his disability.
Shane Burcaw:
It was funny seeing Hannah begin to notice inaccessibility in the world. It was never something that she paid much attention to, but as we began talking more and more, I would get texts from her or phone calls and she'd be like, "I just realized my favorite coffee shop has steps."
I was like, "Yeah, it's a problem." It was cute to see her beginning to care about that kind of stuff.
Dana Taylor:
And then, what about some of the initial biases that you faced from those around you? Shane, it may have been something that you had experienced, but was it new for both of you?
Shane Burcaw:
In previous relationships, it has been the case that the friends and family members of my significant other has flat out objected to our relationship saying that I was going to be a burden, that my partner should not be with me. And it probably won't surprise you, that puts a pretty big damper on a relationship.
Meeting Hannah, one of the most refreshing and beautiful thing was her family and friends accepted me with open arms. One of the first things that her mom asked was, "How can we build a ramp so that you can get into our house should you ever want to visit?"
I felt so welcomed. But when Hannah and I would go out in public and we would meet strangers and they would find out we were dating, their jaws would hit the floor. And that was always embarrassing. I wanted to be seen as a 20 something guy out on a date with his beautiful girlfriend, not have people [inaudible 00:07:24] and stare.
Hannah Burcaw:
A woman started crying once.
Shane Burcaw:
Yeah, that was-
Hannah Burcaw:
Crying tears of joy. It was tears of happiness, but she couldn't believe that you had a girlfriend. I also remember on one of our first dates, a woman came up to Shane in a diner and began praying over him very loudly in a very small diner.
Shane Burcaw:
Trying to cure me.
Hannah Burcaw:
Yes, trying to cure him, which I thought was a once in a lifetime thing that we had just witnessed. I was shocked. And Shane was like, "Oh, it happens all the time. Don't worry about it. It's no big deal."
Which is true, but at the time, I don't even think I believed you. I think I was like, "Sure, it happens all the time."
Shane Burcaw:
People want to fix me. They don't want me to be disabled even if I love my life.
Hannah Burcaw:
So that was definitely a new experience.
Dana Taylor:
At times, your writing is deliberately provocative. I want to ask you to read just a bit from the chapter where you talk about your sex life.
Hannah Burcaw:
Of course.
Shane Burcaw:
Oh, yes. The chapter that I don't want my parents to read.
Hannah Burcaw:
So this is how that chapter begins. "Listen up, you ungrateful little shits. In order to help you fully appreciate the gift of a chapter that we are about to bestow upon you, we need you to hop aboard the imagination train and travel with us on a brief thought experiment."
Shane Burcaw:
Beautifully read.
Dana Taylor:
Does it worry you in any way with the tone that it may feed the rubbernecking that you regularly criticize? What's your thought process in writing in this way?
Shane Burcaw:
In our personal lives, and very deliberately in our writing, we use humor to make difficult topics approachable for people. People might have a hard time diving into a chapter about disability and sex, but by making it funny and lighthearted, we're able to attract more people and get them interested enough to read through the chapter and actually learn the reality of disability and sexuality.
Hannah Burcaw:
And that's similar to our YouTube videos where we'll talk about a systemic issue that disabled people face, and if we approach it flatly with sad tones and whatever horrible thing is happening-
Shane Burcaw:
Seriousness.
Hannah Burcaw:
Yeah, seriousness. People will not watch that video. We've seen in our algorithm, people will not watch it. If we approach it with humor and sprinkle in some personality-
Shane Burcaw:
Funny stories.
Hannah Burcaw:
... funny stories, people will care way more deeply about the issue and get really personally invested in it. So it's definitely proven to be an effective strategy for making people interested in what we're talking about.
Dana Taylor:
All couples deal with a constant stream of daily challenges. Yours is no exception. But because you're an inter-abled couple, some of yours are likely different than what we are used to hearing or seeing from others. Can you share with us about one of them?
Shane Burcaw:
Yeah. You were just talking about that in a recent video, Hannah, about how our struggles are really only different when I'm sick. Like caregiving is so seamlessly interwoven into our daily life that it's not the hurdle or the obstacle that many people might think it is. Hannah helps me get out of bed when she gets out of bed. That's not a hurdle. That's just a moment of closeness. We're chatting about our day, having a nice time. It's only when I get sick or when Hannah gets set that we have to do things a little more carefully. We get friends and family to help out. But by and large, I think people have this idea that our daily life is filled with all these challenges because I'm disabled. It really isn't.
Hannah Burcaw:
Yeah, I think our biggest challenge is more the social aspect of our relationship and receiving those comments and mentally dealing with those things. It's definitely not a problem that comes from within.
Dana Taylor:
Your book not only catalogs inter-abled themes in your own relationship, but in those of other couples. What did those conversations teach you?
Hannah Burcaw:
Talking with the other couples that are in the book was our favorite part of the project, hands down. We got to know so many people. And I think the main thing we learned from them was that our relationship and their relationships had so many similarities. Just sitting down and talking to someone who brings up a story and we're immediately, "We've had that exact same experience. Someone has prayed over him in a restaurant, too," that kind of thing.
Shane Burcaw:
Almost every couple had a exact experience of someone praying over them.
Hannah Burcaw:
Yeah, for sure. Just getting to connect with the couples on that level was a wonderful experience.
Shane Burcaw:
And to add on to that, the similarities were true across all types of disabilities. So, whether someone that was blind or deaf or had a mobility disability, we all deal with a lot of the same things with inaccessibility and [inaudible 00:12:23] out there in the world.
Dana Taylor:
Vulnerability, caregiving, as you've said, these are all part of most healthy human relationships. Humor plays a starring role in helping the two of you navigate these facets. Did your approach evolve here or was humor just there from the get-go? Have you always been funny?
Shane Burcaw:
Well, thank you.
Hannah Burcaw:
That's a very nice question.
Shane Burcaw:
I think that the main reason Hannah and I are so in love and that we work so well together is that we have a similar sense of humor that we've developed throughout our lives. Our way of handling adversity is to make fun of it with each other to try to make the other one feel better. I feel like we've always been funny people, and it's the reason that we work well together.
Dana Taylor:
And then finally, what do you most hope people will walk away with after reading your book?
Shane Burcaw:
I hope that people come away with the rock-solid belief and understanding that disabled people can and do make great romantic partners. I did not have many examples of disabled people out there in the media in relationships when I was growing up. And that made me very uncertain about what my future might look like. We need more stories of disability and relationships out there in the world, and I hope that our book plays a small part in that.
Hannah Burcaw:
Absolutely. I think that's our main goal with the book, is just giving people that exposure. Aside from that, I hope they just enjoy the love stories, because at the core of them, of each chapter, is really just a beautiful love story.
Shane Burcaw:
I hope they end the book and go, "Oh..."
Dana Taylor:
Hannah and Shane, thank you so much for being on The Excerpt, sharing your story and your love lives.
Shane Burcaw:
Thank you so much for having us.
Hannah Burcaw:
Thank you so much.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to Podcasts@USAToday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.