A Sit-In Almost Turned Into A Shit-In
For Kyle Harris for Westword - A sit-in almost turned into a shit-in when disability rights activists with ADAPT started needing to use the restroom — which had been shut down — after they had spent the night in Republican Senator Cory Gardner's Denver office, trying to force him to vote against a Republican healthcare proposal that the Congressional Budget Office says would leave 22 million uninsured by 2026. "We brought in a makeshift shitter," says activist and musician Kalyn Heffernan, the MC with Wheelchair Sports Camp, which won Best Hip-Hop Group at the 2017 Westword Music Awards on Tuesday, June 27, the same night she was occupying the senator's office. When the DIY toilet arrived, "I think that’s when they they decided to let us [into the restroom]," she says. "Once that came in, shit got real. We had so much coffee, someone was bound to shit." It's not like the activists were holding back their bodily functions. After they had been denied the restroom on Tuesday, several activists urinated in the senator's office in cups, bottles, a trash can, diapers and through catheters.