Tom Shakespeare

Sir Thomas William Shakespeare, 3rd Baronet (born 11 May 1966), better known as Tom Shakespeare, is a sociologist. He has achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism in which the body is perfectly formed but the bones initially modelled in cartilage, the long bones of the arms and legs, do not grow long enough. Velázquez painted a fine portrait of a man with this condition which hangs in the Prado in Madrid. Shakespeare was educated at Radley and Pembroke College, Cambridge, and gained a MPhil degree from King's College, Cambridge in 1991. Whilst a student, he featured in a television documentary about his restricted growth, along with his father, Sir William Geoffrey Shakespeare, a prominent medical practitioner. Shakespeare then lectured in sociology at the University of Sunderland from 1993 and returned to King's College in 1995 to receive his PhD degree. His father died in 1996 and Shakespeare inherited his baronetcy, but does not use the title. He is also a campaigner for disability rights, a writer on disability, genetics and bio-ethics and was the co-author of The Sexual Politics of Disability (1996 - ISBN 0-304-33329-8). He studied political science at Cambridge University. As a radical student, he supported liberation movements such as feminism, anti-racism and lesbian and gay rights. During his M-Phil, he wrote a book about the politics of disability. He also authored the book Disability Rights and Wrongs published by Routledge in 2006 and co-authored (Edited) Arguing About Disability published in 2009 by Routledge. He was formerly a research fellow at Newcastle University. He currently works for the World Health Organization, in Geneva.