The Multiple Sclerosis Fashionista: Reclaiming Pleasure After Diagnosis

Roxanne Murray is speaking up about disabled people's right to pleasure, access, and a seat at every table

When Roxanne Murray enters a space, she does so with intention, style, and an unapologetic demand for change. Known online as the Multiple Sclerosis Fashionista, Roxy is a disability rights activist, stylist, and pleasure advocate who's spent nearly two decades transforming her personal pain into powerful advocacy. Her work centers on something society often denies disabled people: the right to pleasure, joy, and full participation in life. Through her activism, she's challenging medical systems, fighting for accessibility, and insisting that disabled people are exactly what she says they are - hot as hell and deserving of everything.

Roxy's advocacy didn't emerge from a place of comfort. At 18, she began experiencing symptoms that would eventually be recognised as Multiple Sclerosis - a chronic neurological condition affecting the brain and spinal cord - but not before eight years of being treated for the wrong illness. "I was misdiagnosed and then 8 years later I finally got diagnosed with MS," she explains. During that time, she was repeatedly told she had lupus - a common misdiagnosis for brown people that stems from deeply embedded racism in healthcare. Due to a lack of research and far too many racial biases, Roxy explains how "no one knew that brown people could have MS or were having MS as much as we actually do."

After years of dealing with conversations with healthcare professionals who would undermine Roxy's experiences, it took what she describes as a "fluke incident" in a hospital for her to finally receive the correct diagnosis. The racism Roxy encountered wasn't isolated - it's systemic. "There's also the conversation around our pain as brown people and especially as black women, how people feel like they experience pain differently. They don't," she states firmly. Being queer, brown, and disabled meant fighting to be listened to. "I had to learn a whole new language to be able to express how I felt in the way that they understood me as much as I understood me." She explains how it was long journey of having to understanding herself, monitor her symptoms, before advocating for herself and wondering whether she would be taken seriously or not. This shows the many ways healthcare fails to see patients as complete people. "Whether I was brown or disabled, like they just were not taking care of us in the care that we actually deserve."

There's the conversation around our pain as brown people and especially as black women, how people feel like they experience pain differently. They don't.

The impact of Roxy's diagnosis delay was profound. "MS was kind of ruling my universe. I knew that I was a full circle human being - I wasn't just my disability. I had likes and loves and pleasures. Like I love fashion. I love art. I love film. I love looking good. And I felt like [my illness] was stealing a lot of my joy." Especially when her symptoms first began at 18, Roxy felt like everything was over before it had truly begun. But over the years, rage became her catalyst. "I was angry and rage is a very, very good way of making you take action," she says. "I'd dealt with eight years of injustice. I did not want another eight years of this. I wanted my pleasure back. I wanted to feel something inside my body because I'd become so numb both sexually, emotionally and mentally."

Community became crucial to that awakening. Roxy found herself in conversations with other people living with MS, particularly through the Myelin & Melanin Podcast. They began sharing experiences, cracking jokes discussing hypersensitivity and lack of sensation. "We were going through the same things, like MS makes your bladder urgency ridiculous," she recalls. These weren't conversations happening in doctors' offices. "I didn't know MS affected my sex life at all because no one ever spoke about it. So when I had those effects, it was thinking it was just me.' But it was the conversations with the community and learning that language and reading stuff myself that allowed me to understand."

I don't want anyone to feel embarrassed about their bodies and what they're dealing with. I don't want people to lose joy because they have MS or a disability diagnosis in general

Today, Roxy's work is about ensuring no one else has to fight those same battles alone. She's advocating for sexual health to be integrated into wellness conversations. "I just generally don't want anyone to feel embarrassed about their bodies and what they're dealing with. I don't want people to lose joy because they have an MS diagnosis or a disability diagnosis in general," she explains. "I want people to think that sexual health is part of wellness and to know that it is part of your wellness. Like every time I have an orgasm, I feel great. That's helpful." But it took 18 years into her MS journey for services addressing sexual health to even begin emerging. Infact, it's only in the last 2 years that she's seen the conversation come to light.

Roxy is fierce about calling out how mainstream media misrepresents disability. "You don't see disabled people in love and when they do, you'll get a certain kind of disability," she observes. The reality she knows is entirely different. "So many of my disabled friends have non-disabled partners and they have some of the sexiest lives you ever see. But mainstream media doesn't reflect that." Diversity, as she insists, needs to be diverse. "If I only listen to your voice over and over again, how diverse is that? You need to not just listen to my voice. You need to listen to 100 other people's voices and then change that 100 people to another 100 people."

Disabled people are hot as fuck- We deserve sex. We deserve pleasure and we're going to get it whether you like it or not.

Through all of this work, Roxanne Murray remains grounded in what she calls her superpower: her voice. "I actually think my voice is my superpower. My words, how I speak - it's got me into so many spaces and places. I think no matter what, it's going to be the thing that lasts longer than I will." It's a voice that demands disabled people be seen as sexual, worthy of love, and deserving of pleasure. "Disabled people are hot as fuck and you're just going to have to deal with it. We deserve sex. We deserve pleasure and we're going to get it whether you like it or not."

Dressed in mesh and all black (matching her iconic goth style), with her trusty rock-and-roller cane in hand, Roxy embodies what she fights for: the right to be fully herself. She's changing laws, influencing research approaches, ensuring diverse voices are heard in medical studies, and creating visibility so young people diagnosed with MS today won't feel the isolation she felt throughout her twenties. As she continues building community, advocating for systemic change, and living her movie moment in museums with red wine and perfect nails, Roxanne Murray proves that disability doesn't diminish beauty, power, or desire - it simply demands we build a world worthy of containing it all.

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Keep up to date with Roxy's work by following her on IG @multiplesclerosisfashionista

Hear Roxy's episode on Myelin & Melanin here

And catch Roxy's monthly column 'Roxy's Radar' on New Pathways

Interview and portraits by Bethany Burgoyne @bxsassy2