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Cheyenne Leonard

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Cheyenne Leonard smiling headshot

Cheyenne Leonard

Cheyenne Leonard is a life-long wheelchair user and has consistently worked to amplify the voices of underrepresented groups and improve disability representation. From ages 6 to 18, Cheyenne was a Jr. Paralympic track athlete and changed laws in her school district to allow for disabled students to be on their high school track teams. She also represented the U.S. in the 2013 iWAS competition in Puerto Rico. In 2014, Cheyenne worked with Nevada Legal Services to assess discrimination against disabled people in the housing market. She has also consulted on and advocated for accessibility and disability representation in the media both in front of and behind the camera. Some examples of companies Cheyenne has consulted for include Zappos, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and Breakthrough Inc. As a fellow of the inaugural Women’s eNews Loreen Arbus “Accessibility is Fundamental” fellowship, she writes articles on issues affecting the disability community, such as employment, city inaccessibility, and media representation. Cheyenne is a second-year graduate student at New York University getting her master’s degree in Media, Culture, and Communication. A lot of her graduate school work has included disability, such as presenting a paper on disability and media representation at the 2020 New York State Communication Association conference and serving on panels and committees on disability at NYU. Cheyenne’s thesis is an analysis of disability representation in film across genres, which won her the Barbara Haum award from her department.

About RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Comprised of diverse people with disabilities, RespectAbility’s entertainment media consultants partner with studios, production companies, writers’ rooms and news organizations to create equitable and accessible opportunities to increase the number of people with lived disability experience throughout the overall story-telling process. Learn more about the team.

Meet the Author

Eric Ascher

Eric Ascher is the Communications Associate for RespectAbility. He is responsible for supporting RespectAbility’s Vice President, Communications in developing and implementing advocacy efforts and communications of various types. Ascher manages RespectAbility’s social media channels, website and emails; organizes and develops webinars; and supervises Communications Fellows.

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