There's only a little of this which is specifically about romance, but I felt it was important:
Participants voiced their desire to see more diversity and intersectional experiences of disability, not only to be seen themselves but to learn about others’ experiences. In the fourth sub-theme, participants wished love and romance were not stigmatized and that society saw them as people who could be good partners. (67)
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Although all participants discussed the lack of disability romance representation and the desire to see more happily-ever-after endings for disabled characters, most feel optimistic about romantic or sexual disability representation. (82)
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As an avid romance reader, Sally, who has epilepsy, loved disabled romances because she sometimes believed that “‘my epilepsy makes me hard to love’ or ‘it's a burden.’ I think I’ve taken a positive belief system out of reading romances, because it's like, ‘Hey, they're lovable, so then maybe I'm lovable.’”
Chloe, a book influencer with multiple nonapparent disabilities, had read many disabled romances, which “definitely just gives you more confidence to see” characters and their worlds. Even in fiction, the characters are more often set in real-world scenarios than in fantastical worlds, but “there’s more grounding [of] disability in our contemporary world setting…these are just people that have love.” As in all romance novels, these stories may be idealized, “but sometimes it's real and it definitely makes me more hopeful for the world in the future.”(82-83)
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Fera, a wheelchair user, was writing a humorous romance novel that would include some focus on disability, “but not in a really blatant way. It's just the way life is for us. I definitely think it would be super, super funny to see that and see how real it is.” Kristy, who is deaf, considered creating her own stories or working with others who share her same disability to combat the inadequate disability representation, as creating accurate representations was important to her. (123)
There's only a little of this which is specifically about romance, but I felt it was important:
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