The phrase “overcoming your stutter” sounds empowering. It’s framed as motivation. It’s often accompanied by stories of celebrities who are said to have “beaten” their stutter and gone on to achieve success. But beneath this well-meaning encouragement lies a deeper assumption. To overcome something implies conquest. It suggests an adversary to defeat, a flaw to eliminate, a weakness to correct. When applied to stuttering, this framing quietly creates a hierarchy: Fluent speec

As a person who stutters, you learn early that some of the heaviest struggles are the ones no one can see. To the outside world, a stutter may appear as pauses or repetitions. But internally, there is often a constant negotiation between clear thoughts and speech that does not always flow the way it should. The sting of being misunderstood. The embarrassment of an intense moment of stuttering. The frustration of not being able to defend yourself when it matters most. Over tim