#Disability-cuts

[prototypesteve]

DIS ≠ IN.

Image Description:

An uppercase calligraphy in blue and green ink, which says, "Disability doesn't mean inability. There's very little I can't do. Some things just take more effort." Footnotes:

I've left the word "effort" alone, so people can think about how the effort ought to be divided up. I like essays that leave a few conceptual gaps for you to fill. (Make it reasonably easy to read, but challenging to apply.)

If you want the search engine optimization benefits, machine learning benefits, and artificial intelligence training benefits of documents full of context, and full of real words, rather than full of cognitive landmines like acronyms, initialisms, and "it just looked pretty but doesn't connect to the content" imagery, then you can make the effort. If you don't want those benefits, then I can make the effort myself.

If you want the logistics and tax-savings benefits of cities built for people, rather than for cars, then we can all make the effort, If you don't want that, then I can find my own way.

(And so on.)

[is-this-yuri]

btw since i am actually homeless now and the holidays are over i guess i should put a donation link here. you don't have to give me any money! i know how to live for free. it would just help me be more comfortable

things i'll spend money on in priority order:

- gas for my car (this will keep me from getting towed and get me to therapy and case management appointments)

- food and water (only if i run out of food stamps, or the occasional hot food treat)

- extra blankets and clothes for the winter (it's pretty warm so i might not need this)

- laundry

i don't really like the idea of asking for money since i do in fact have plenty of experience with this situation. i've lived in my car for two and a half years total now, and i know if i'm lucky i can survive this way for a long, long time. a little extra cash will just keep me sane and for sure safe without needing to get lucky. so, if you do throw something my way i will appreciate it! it will make my life easier for sure. but, if you'd rather give your money to someone who needs it more (including yourself), i don't mind at all.

there's no monthly rewards or anything, but for a bit of fun bonus, anyone who donates will get to see my face reveal

[uncanny-tranny]

Blessing of the knitter/crocheter: may your hands never have cuts, bruising, sores, hangnails, or any other nuisance that would make your craft painful. May your hands and wrists never ache 🪷💛

[nightmaretour]

Daily reminder that fruit and veggies don't have to be "healthy" to be nutritious. Drink that fruit juice from concentrate. Eat that jam and nut butter. Use fruit and vegetables out of a can. Eat a dessert with fruit in it. Snack on salted nuts (in moderation) or dried fruit. Literally any way you can get fruit and vegetables into your body is better than none at all.

If fresh fruit and veg aren't available to you, take too much energy to eat or prepare, or if you just can't bring yourself to eat them, whatever way you can eat them is good enough.

[trans-axolotl]

hi! saw your recent posts and wanted to ask for some advice, if that's okay. I'm a wheelchair user and I really want to get more involved in protests, but I feel pretty out of my depth. A lot of protests seem inaccessible and I just have a lot of questions about how things would work as a wheelchair user. I guess, do you have any tips about protesting as a wheelchair user and how you deal with inaccessibility?

Thank you!!

Hey anon! completely okay to ask for advice about this--I feel very passionate about this topic and am happy to share some tips! disclaimer that not all of the tips I share here are going to be applicable to everyone's situation--even among wheelchair users, we have so many unique situations, types of wheelchairs, health variations, other medical devices, etc etc. and many of us are multiply marginalized, which can also shape our experiences pretty significantly. so i'll share some general tips, and feel free to take what works for you and ignore the rest! most of this is based on my experience in the type of protests I go to in my city, so I also understand that this advice might not be applicable to every type of protest in every location. i've been involved in many types of protests for the past 9 years, from marches to die-ins to encampments, and have dealt with many situations including tear gas, riot cops, police brutality, fascist agitators, getting arrested, and many different types of high risk tactics. i don't want to position myself as an expert or anything, because i'm always learning and growing, but I do just want to share that for context!

I think the first thing I want to say is just to affirm that it is absolutely possible for wheelchair users to get involved in all kinds of protests, including higher risk and escalated protests. I'll focus on actual on the ground protests in this post because that's what you asked about, but know there are many many ways to get involved with organizing if protesting in the streets is not accessible for you. There are many of us involved in these type of actions already and figuring out ways to make it work for us, so you are not alone in that. I won't lie that it can be complicated, there's a lot of inaccessibility, and some shit might not be possible, but a lot of stuff can be made possible if we get creative.

Before the Protest

For me, one of the most helpful things is trying to find out as much information as possible before the protest, so that I can have a really good plan going in. Sometimes this might be more difficult, because there might be legitimate security culture reasons that a march route can't be announced publicly, for example, or specific tactics aren't posted about on social media in order to keep people safe from police surveillance. But when it is possible, this is the type of information I like to figure out:

What is the location? is it a stationary protest like a sit in or an encampment? is it a march? what is the route? how long is the route? are there obstacles in the route? are there curb cuts? is there hills? construction? other barriers? are there easily accessible exit routes? is there pavement, grass, gravel, etc? are there accessible transit stops nearby? are there accessible bathrooms nearby? if it's indoors, are there elevators and ramps?

A lot of times, to find out this information, I look through google maps street view, ask friends, or go in person if i can beforehand. for me, as a manual wheelchair user, I can deal with a lot of of nonideal circumstances such as hills, curbs, rough terrain, especially when I have a protest buddy who can help push me when needed, but it helps to know if i'm going to have to deal with those situations. Often times, protests are held in pretty inaccessible locations. Sometimes, this is because organizers are not considering accessibility which pisses me off, but sometimes, there are legitimate strategic reasons that we might need to protest at an inaccessible location because of the specific circumstances of the protest. (maybe we're even protesting at it because it's inaccessible!) You'll know best about what geographic features are inaccessible deal breakers for you and having that kind of information can help you make a decision about whether it's possible to attend.

What is the risk level? What tactics are being used? Are people intentionally risking arrest? What patterns of repression and brutality are most commonly used by cops in your city? How high is the risk of chemical weapons?

This can be really hard to predict--there's no way to ever say for certain how cops are going to respond and we can't see the future. But paying attention to how cops in your city have been responding to protests and learning the patterns of what types of protests are more high risk can help us make more informed guesses. We can reasonably estimate that a silent vigil in the daytime is likely going to be lower risk than a occupation of a building, for example. And for some of these things--there's no real way to make getting tear gassed an "accessible" experience for anyone, but for some of us, the consequences might be more severe than others. I have a comrade who uses a ventilator who cannot come to protests where we think there's a risk of chemical weapons, so that can be really important information to try to figure out beforehand.

What do I need to practice? Do I need to teach my comrades how to de-arrest a wheelchair user? Do we need to practice lifting me and my wheelchair over a barricade? Do I need to teach my comrades the safest places to hold onto my wheelchair if we're locking arms and moving as a line? Do I need to practice wheelies to get over curbs? How will I plan to protect the electrical parts of my wheelchair from chemical weapons? etc.

For higher risk protests there might be a lot of different tactics that we can use to navigate things like barricades, arrests, facing down a riot line of cops, etc. It is so, so helpful to be able to practice these skills with your protest buddies before a protest, so that when these situations start happening in a chaotic, fast moving environment, you and your comrades are prepared to navigate the inaccessibility that can come with a lot of these situations. You'll know what is possible for you and be the expert on what feels important to prepare for before an action.

2. At the Protest

Navigating a Crowd. To be honest this can be one of the most frustrating things for me to deal with while at protests. A lot of people are not aware of their surroundings, areas will get very crowded with little space to navigate, and people will block my view. The main ways I try to deal with this are by trying to be in the front of a march or on the sides of a march when possible, to try to have the most space to navigate. As we move, I continually scan our location to find the closest accessible exit route, paying attention to where cops are, curb cuts, etc. My protest buddies know that if we're in a middle of a crowd, they need to provide me with updates about cop movements or any other information that I can't see. I get loud and tell people to get out of my way when I need to. I try to stay near other mobility aid users, bike marshals, or people with wagons because they often leave more room for me to navigate.

Roles. There are lots of different roles we can take on at a protest that might make it easier for us to navigate. I sometimes like to join the bike marshals and help block off roads and intersections. Maybe you have medic training and you act as a street medic. Maybe it's more accessible to act as a scout and communicate police movement to your comrades. Other roles could include leading chants, handing out supplies like water and masks, acting as a legal observer, filming the cops, organizing art builds beforehand, etc.

Community. It's been super, super important for me to always go to a protest with a protest buddy so that we can watch out for each other and keep each other safe. Oftentimes, situations can change rapidly at higher risk protests, and we might end up in an inaccessible situation that we didn't plan for. If I don't have a protest buddy, I usually just turn to the nearest person next to me and start saying loudly "I need you to help me exit this situation/grab my handles and get me up this curb/tell me what the cops are doing etc." It can feel really scary and vulnerable to have to rely on complete strangers in these type of situations, but I've found that a lot of people are really willing to help if I tell them exactly what I need from them.

Surveillance. A lot of us really can't bloc up or hide our identities, because our wheelchairs are easily identifiable. This might shape what tactics we use, and also means there might be added surveillance concerns after a protest. When thinking about your own risk tolerance, grappling with the fact we are visible in a crowd is a really important consideration. This might mean we need to be even more careful about security culture, use encrypted messaging to communicate, avoid cameras, stay in a middle of a crowd to block visibility, and other things like that.

Unique advantages. There can be advantages and skills that we bring as wheelchair users! In flat locations and downhills, I'm much, much faster than my comrades who are walking--I can easily pass messages or get in front of a line of bike cops. I can usually carry a lot more supplies on my wheelchair backpack without getting tired. In my city, there's only one cop van that has a wheelchair lift, and at a recent protest where there were multiple of us in wheelchairs, I heard a cop say on their radio that "There are too many people in wheelchairs and we don't know how to arrest them all." In situations where it's logistically difficult to arrest us or the cops think the optics are bad, that can allow us to cause a LOT of logistical delays, act as a front line, get in between the cops and other people, and just generally make the cops lives a little more difficult.

3. After the Protest

Arrests. If we're risking arrest, there's a lot of wheelchair specific information we need to know. Theoretically, under the ADA, cops are supposed to arrest us with our mobility aid and let us have access to our mobility aid in jail. In practice, this doesn't always happen. Cops might arrest us with our wheelchair but then take it away from us in the holding cell, make us use the jail's standard transfer wheelchair instead, or just completely take away our mobility aid altogether. Cops might zip tie our hands so that we have no way to independently move. The cops in your city might have a van with a lift, or might try to get you to fold or disassemble your wheelchair and put it in a standard car. If they don't have a van with a lift and your wheelchair doesn't disassemble, they might have a contract with a wheelchair van company. Once we're taken to a holding cell, there's a lot higher chance we might get put in solitary. We often won't have access to wheelchair accessible restrooms. We might get separated from all of our comrades--at my last arrest, all my other comrades were taken to a location that processes mass arrests, while I was taken to a separate, wheelchair accessible location and held in solitary. It's super important that whoever's running jail support knows these things and can advocate for us and also track us in the system, especially if we're taken to a different location. If your area has a chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild, they often have a designated person running a hotline. It can be super important to memorize that number, and also to reach out beforehand and explain your needs as a wheelchair user if you're risking arrest.

Overall, there are a lot of considerations for protesting as a wheelchair user, and you are going to be the expert on what is important for you! My general approach is that I want to have as much information as possible so that I can make an informed decision about if I want to attend a particular action. Then, when I'm at an action, I expect my comrades to respect my autonomy and support me in making sure that I can participate and that all of us can stay safe.

Also, for any abled people reading this post, I want you to read this very carefully and understand just how many barriers there can be at protests for wheelchair users. You have a responsibility to your community to whenever possible, mitigate these barriers, choose accessible locations, communicate with your disabled comrades, and support us in the moment. If your excuse is that "oh there aren't any disabled people at our protests, so we don't need to think about these things," you're wrong, and this attitude ensures that no disabled people can show up to your protests. and if that's the case, you're missing out on so much meaningful experience and knowledge that your disabled comrades could bring to the table. "We keep us safe" means that we actually work to meet everyone's needs, including the needs of your disabled comrades.

anyway, this turned into a very long post, but any other wheelchair users feel free to add on your own advice! love to share as much community knowledge as possible, especially advice from people who have different access needs than my particular situation.

anon, please let me know if you have any other specific questions that i didn't cover, and best of luck!

[goobobbers]

she definitely accidentally cut their hair too short but they’re too nice to say anything

[a-cakehound-or-critter-a-day]

7/1/2024 Disability pride month pups! ^^

also a bonus silly [as an autistic beast myself I had to doodle at least one (1) tbh hound xD]

[luinhealthcare]

Does Hyrule mind teaching how to assess a patient??👉👈

"You... want to learn how to assess patients?" Hyrule asked hesitantly.

Wild shrugged. "What if I want to be an EMT?"

"You also said you wanted to be a chef in the hospital."

"I can do both, you know."

Hyrule laughed. "I suppose so. Well... we'll need a patient for this to work."

Wild immediately snatched Sky, who yelped as his friend snaked a hand around his wrist. "Sky's the patient, heaven knows he needs to be looked over anyway."

"Look who's talking, Mr. I-Have-Seizures-and-Don't-Tell-Anybody," Sky grumbled as he was manhandled to sit between the other two.

"Well, everyone knows now."

Hyrule and Sky gave Wild a scalding look. Adequately apologetic, Wild shrugged sheepishly.

"Anyway," Hyrule sighed, shifting his focus to Sky. "Assessments come in different forms. You've got a primary and a secondary assessment. Primary is kind of a general overview and checking for life threatening stuff, secondary is in-depth on what the issue actually is. Make sense?"

Wild nodded.

"Great!" Hyrule continued with a smile. "Okay. Sky's our patient. Sky, you got shot once, right?"

Sky nodded, and Wild balked. "He what?!"

"It was a long time ago," Sky waved a dismissive hand.

"Okay, so that's our scenario," Hyrule said, standing. "We're dispatched for a 21-year-old male with a GSW--"

"That means gunshot wound, right?"

"Yeah. GSW, conscious patient. That's all we've got. So, you get on scene, and the very first thing you do is check for scene safety. If the scene isn't safe, we're not going in. First thing you're taught in EMS - your own safety comes first, because if you're shot you can't help the patient. It's you, your partner, then the patient."

"How often do you actually listen to that rule?" Sky asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That's not what we're learning today," Hyrule waved off easily. It was pretty common knowledge that while he would never put his partner's life at risk, he'd gotten himself into dicey situations before. But he knew how to get himself out of those situations too. "So, we determine the scene is safe. Next, is our primary assessment. The purpose of this assessment is to check for life threatening things, and an overview of major body systems. Neuro status, bleeding, and your ABCs: Airway, Breathing, Circulation.

"The situation is pretty dynamic, like sometimes you walk up and somebody's got an arterial bleed and spurting blood everywhere, your assessment stops right there and you go fix that bleed. But generally you'll have time to do the entire primary assessment."

"Okay, so neuro and ABCs?"

"Yeah. And the good thing is that most of it happens all at once, you know? You walk up to Sky and he looks at you, then boom, you've got a good neuro - he's awake, he's alert. He may not be oriented, but you can figure that out by just talking to him. And by this point you can tell if there's life threatening bleeding. Then it's ABCs - is his airway patent, or open? Is he breathing, and is he doing so normally? Is his skin warm, dry, and normal tone for him? You can literally do al these things by just walking into the room and looking at him for five seconds. The primary assessment is done really fast and, the more times you do it, basically automatically."

"What would be an example of something being wrong?" Wild askd.

Hyrule glanced at him. "When I got on scene for your crash, you were unconscious and unresponsive--in other words, you were not only unconscious, but nothing would wake you up--and your breathing was gurgling sounding because you had blood in your airway."

Glancing at Sky, Hyrule said, "Sky can give us an example of a not great primary assessment, I'm sure."

Helpfully, Sky immediately flopped off the chair he was sitting on, collapsing to the ground with a crash. Wild laughed, and footsteps rushed from upstairs into the living room.

Twilight immediately froze in the entranceway, eyes wide and fixed on Sky. "Sky, what the--guys what the hell is hap--"

Sky perked up immediately. "Oh, sorry! I'm just helping Hyrule teach Wild!"

Twilight froze a moment and then sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose and grumbling under his breath.

Hyrule smiled, pointing at Twilight. "He just perfectly showed a good primary assessment looks like! He walked in and saw the patient down on the ground, tried to figure out a neuro by calling out to him, and when Sky woke up he immediately could tell he was fine. Neuro intact, not bleeding, had a patent airway because he's talking, breathing normally, and skin looks normal."

"I hate all of you," Twilight groaned, walking out of the room.

"Okay, but by skin looking normal... what does it mean when it doesn't?" Wild asked.

"Your skin can tell a story," Hyrule explained. "If you're diaphoretic, which means sweating, something is likely wrong. Though it depends on context - if your patient's sweaty but they were just exercising, it makes sense. If Sky's sweaty on the ground after being shot, he's in shock. If the skin is cool, the body isn't circulating well - that can sap the color right out of your skin - the lighter your skin tone the more notable it is, but darker skin tones can become paler too. A lot of times with darker skin tones you'll want to look at their palms or their lips, that'll help you determine it. Another color is grey - that usually means cardiac and it's bad. So skin can tell you a lot!"

"How did my skin look?" Wild questioned, curious.

"Pale," Hyrule immediately answered. "Anyway. Sky's your patient. Look him over."

"Okay," Wild blew out a breath, approaching Sky and kneeling beside him. "So he's unconscious, that's my neuro so far."

"Can you arouse him at all?"

Wild poked Sky in the neck. Sky flinched. Wild poked again and Sky giggled. Wild's eyes widened in realization, and a mischievous smile crossed his face.

"Wild, wait--"

Sky started laughing hysterically as his friend tickled him, wiggling and trying to shove him away.

"Get--off of m--Wild you jerk--"

Hyrule chuckled. "Well, we're not taught to tickle our patients, but that works."

[ruegarding]

percy's treatment in hoo is especially frustrating bc in son reyna and hazel both make comments to/abt percy that are basically saying he's deceptively intelligent and take note not to underestimate him bc of his disability only for rick to turn around and start treating percy being stupid as a punchline beginning in moa. so not only is it ooc, it's ableist...in the disability representation series.

[joelletwo]

now this is gonna sound really stupid and i need no one to call me stupid about it -> it turns out when u make food that is more than the bare minimum to be edible. ie make it a lil fancy w a lot of flavors and textures going on (scary to me <- autist). u want to eat it more. and even tho its more work. sometimes the prospect of eating something that actually tastes great is motivating enough to get u thru the work. and so conversely it is easier to keep up a consistent eating routine. bc ur not also constantly bailing on planned mediocre dinners to eat all ur backup stock of emergency instant meals.

[chronicpaingirlie]

unrelatedly it’s also so annoying that forearm crutches are $50-$100 like. i think they would help me but you think i have that kind of money lying around??? me, a disabled person who can’t work??? free mobility aids WHEN

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

A poem I wrote in celebration of disability culture / the curb cut effect

A Good Fit

For some, the world fits like a tailored suit. They trust that they can slip into a room And that the space will drape so easily Their shoulders hardly feel the weight at all. And every sentence seamlessly unfurls Its meaning to their minds without a snag. As best they can recall, there’s been no need To notice where the edges don’t quite match, Or where there is a tangle, or a pinch.

Except for us, the patterns do not fit. So, carefully, we thread our way between, Each cutting knots, and fixing jagged seams With homemade shears and needles that we find. Thus, stitch by stitch, we fashion our own lives. We shift the space. They notice that, and frown, And tug their collars with itchy discontent. But when they come upon the trails that we have blazed, They’ll find a world made graceful through our craft.

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

I feel like we need to talk about time lord specific disabilities more. Like what happens when regeneration goes wrong, whether that be a one time thing or something that reflects all of their regenerations

What if a time lord has a really high stress threshold when it comes to what triggers a regeneration, like to the point that it’s a possibility that they might die before a regeneration gets triggered. Or what if it’s the opposite and something as little as a broken bone can trigger a regeneration

Is it possible for a time lord to be born with not enough regeneration energy, and would that effect their number of regenerations or would they not heal properly/fast enough or would each regeneration get weaker and weaker as they ram out of the energy to fully repair themselves. In a similar vein would time lords on their last regeneration/body heal slower since they had run out of the ability to regenerate

How common are cases where the whole process of regeneration goes wrong and a time lord ends up with something like regenerative dissonance, because as much as I hate the eleven and his whole the villain is a villain because they’re disabled thing, the concept of what happens when your past selves are an active part of your every day life instead of stay in dormant in your mind is interesting

Now what about psychic or time sense related disabilities. How would a time lord deal with having a disabled time sense. The eighth doctor compared being in a universe without time to having a limb cut off (and do you think he ever fully regained his time sense after returning to his proper universe). How does that affect their ability to time travel, are they in danger of altering fixed points because they can’t sense them but still have the power to affect them

In a society that has psychic communication/abilities baked into how it works having a psychic disability has to affect a lot. Would that impact a time lords ability to fly a Tardis since they wouldn’t be able to properly bond and communicate with one (the time lords taking away the third doctors ability to use his Tardis is very much them disabling him as a punishment)

If you can’t form proper psychic bonds would that make you a social outcast? If you can’t build psychic barriers how would that effect a time lord put in the universe (maybe that’s why eight is so easy to torture because his delayed regeneration affected his ability to build psychic barriers so things can invade his mind easier)

And of course how do the time lords deal with all of this as a greater society, my guess is not well

[philsmeatylegss]

Dan and phil are that couple who lean against the railing and make out on the line for a roller coaster.

[tatiejosie]

They added Bella and Mandrake to the visual for the finished Ghibli park!! It was only Earwig and Thomas before then!!

And they gave Bella a little bow???????? It's been living in my mind rent-free for DAYS now I just needed to