#disability discourse

[wheresernie]

im gonna say something thats gonna make people uncomfortable: its not lateral ableism to acknowledge that even in the disability community some people have privilege.

It's not ableist to say that being able to control your body and have your physical body systems and mind work together is a privilege even if you are mentally ill or neurodivergent. Just like its not ableist to say as a part time rollator user I have privilege in that I can walk without assistance most of the time and when I need assistance I don't use a wheelchair. Doesn't make wheelchair users better than me, but it means they're treated differently than me when we go out together. I know this because my ex was a powerchair user and full time crutch user and people treated her differently.

I have a lot of privilege even in my severity as a psychotic chronic pain patient with many issues because I'm white - my pain is treated more sympathetically.

We can and should acknowledge intersection and privilege, inside and outside the community. thats not bad. I'm not saying I'm better than someone with adhd and a bad knee, nor am I worse than a full time wheelchair user with a catheter and strabismus. It's not "oppression olympics" or clicking identities on a form. But these identities cause you to be treated differently. That's all i've been saying.

[ouchiemyspine]

'cop' is new tumblr buzzword. not everyone u disagree with is a cop. u cant make a 'terf' variation for every group that excludes anyone. words have meaning. the world doesnt revolve around u

[spale-vosver]

"man I wish I JUST had dyslexia you're less likely to graduate college?? well I'm more likely to DIE bc im PHYSICALLY DISABLED!!!" folks with learning disabilities are also more likely to die young but you wouldn't know that bc you don't want to get off your soapbox and acknowledge that while yes, NDs often talk over physically disabled folks (which is wrong!) that doesn't mean their disabilities are any less...well...disabling. (before you get on my ass I am physically disabled, with conditions that reduce my life expectancy significantly).

"Oh well ADHD-" ADHD doubles the risk of premature death

Here are more sources if you don't believe me

Intellectually disabled people die on average 20 years earlier than those of average intelligence

Autistic people are more vulnerable to premature death across a range of causes

Individuals with tic disorders are more than twice as likely to die young as individuals without

Individuals with Cluster B PDs lose anywhere from 9-13 years of life expectancy due to their disorder, and 1 in 5 kill themselves

So next time you try to pull the "WELL AT LEAST YOU AREN'T AT RISK OF DYING BECAUSE OF YOUR EASY PEASY DISABILITY UNLIKE MINE", actually research whether or not that's true before you show your own ass.

[cr-pplepunx]

low support needs / high functioning disabled people FOR THE LOVE OF GOD listen to your high support needs / low functioning friends and family (and believe us) about ableism!!!!!!!

nobody listens to us, we NEED you to listen to us.

[clubpenguist]

are your issues with the “exclusivity” of Physically Disabled spaces, or are you just projecting your own limited perceptions of what counts as a Physical Disability onto us? because like, obviously i cant speak for every cripple in the whole wide world, but personally? ive never met a cripple who didnt consider invisible illness havers + non-mobility-aid-users to be physically disabled. i literally think yall just need to examine how you YOURSELF define a physical disability

[brettdoesdiscourse]

Yall. By definition, glasses ARE a disability aid because vision impairment is (by definition) a disability. Anything that aids a person's disability is a disability aid.

If a person with a vision impairment is not wearing their glasses, they will have a harder time navigating the world around them. If a person with a physical disability that requires a cane does not have their cane, they will have a harder time navigating the world around them.

Disability definition for anyone who wants it: a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities.

a disadvantage or handicap, especially one imposed or recognized by the law.

[dyspunktional-leviathan]

Use words for their actual fucking meanings.

No, that random person who was ableist about wheelchair accessibility isn't "abled" or "able-bodied" just because they aren't using a wheelchair. You can say "non wheelchair users" when that is what you mean. Disabled people, shocker, are capable of being ableist. And you if you call random people abled just because they don't have a specific disability being immediately obvious, are doing exactly that, too.

Yes, that ADHDer who posts about social theory of disability and how in non-ableist world their ADHD would not cause them any problems is developmentally disabled. You can say "severe/profound developmental disability", "medium/high support needs", etc, when that is what you mean.

Yes, psychologically-traumagenic mental illness is cognitive disability. You can say "developmental cognitive disability" when that is what you mean. You can say "brain damage" when that is what you mean.

No, literally fucking no disabled person is "able-bodied" because central nervous system is a fucking part of the body. Throw that entire term in the trash.

No, "nervous system" does not mean "central nervous system". Stop it. Stop. It. Say "central nervous system" when that is what you mean. Stop only using "neurological" to refer to central nervous system.

Might later do more. For now will post this like this.

[bloggedanon]

People are out here arguing that gatekeeping cpunk from people is actually perfectly fine because able-bodied ND people have mad- and neuropunk and that's "perfectly fine" with them and it's actually annoying as fuck imo, large explanation under the cut I forgot to add originally

• First of all, try to tell me that physically disabled people are mentally perfectly fine and have never had their mental health compromised as a result of their physical disability. Just try, I'll wait. Just like how I'm waiting to hear about "able-bodied" ND people not having any physical issues purely as a result of being ND.

• Secondly, that doesn't make gatekeeping with the mad- and neuropunk communities okay EITHER, even IF the first bullet SOMEHOW happens to be true. The separatist mind-body dichotomy is predicated in entirely false pretenses. The experiences between the physically and mentally disabled communities have SO much overlap. One "form" of disability is not inherently more or less disabling than another, that's down to the individual(s) and their conditions. A lot of either "form" can restrict people's abilities to perform a lot of the same tasks regardless of what the tasks may be or what "form" of disability is responsible for it. A lot of medical conditions (and systemic ableism) can produce a whole lot of symptoms that present like mental disorders.

• In the same vein, we DO have to acknowledge that some people have their disabilities affect them in ways that not everyone experiences. The experience of having a psychotic break isn't comparable to the experience of being wheelchair-bound. But neither is the experience of being a low support needs autistic that can function independently and being a high support needs autistic who can't bathe or dress independently and will need lifelong supervision, and this is just two examples of the same disorder! A person who's chronically bedbound isn't going to have a comparable experience to a Deaf-Blind individual, even if they both wind up with lifelong caretaking requirements. If we can acknowledge that experiences in the mentally disabled and physically disabled communities aren't going to be universal even WITHIN our own communities and we don't turn to separatists about it, what makes the physical and mentally disables communities as wholes any different?

• This one's the big one, and I see it a lot, you guys really need to learn what punk actually means. PUNK isn't about the "by X group and for X group" mindset at all. It's not about "X group of people vs X group of people." It's a community of people who are standing together against a SYSTEM. It's about highlighting society's wrongs and shouting about it, and trying to enact change in whatever way we can. Its praxis is just activism. You don't have to be black to stand with the Black community and fight for their rights, and fight systemic racism. You don't have to be a woman to be a feminist, and fight the patriarchy. You don't have to be queer to get down in the trenches with them and fight queerphobia (allies still get bottles 'n shit thrown at them regardless). You don't have to be disabled to stand against systemic ableism. You don't have to be the direct target of systemic oppression, or specific, targeted systemic microaggressions to fight it.

What punk is is getting down in the thick of oppression right alongside those who have to deal with it as a concrete force in their daily lives and being right next to them when shit hits the fan, fighting the same fight they are, and taking the blows as if you were one of them, because to those who want to perpetuate it, you might as well be. Anyone can be an ally, and allyship IS what punk is, just as much as being a member of a targeted group fighting for their rights. Systemic oppression doesn't care about the nuances when it lines us all up against the wall, and our infighting is doing its job for it. The second we start singling out groups of people for their identities is when we've already lost. Anyone standing up against these sytems is punk.

Anyone GATEKEEPING a punk movement isn't a punk, they're a fucking poser. A cop. A fed, even, because there are no cops at punk.

Can you have specific communities OF [x people with x identity and experiences], by and for that group by definition, to discuss their specific experiences unique to their situation(s)? Sure! Just don't do any fakeclaiming in the gatekeeping, mmk?

And don't you DARE call it fucking punk.

[sweet-darling06]

sighhh. ok lemme just put this other there in the open.

ABLED=/=ABLE-BODIED!!!!!

abled is when someone has no disability, able-bodied is when someone could be disabled but isn't disabled PHYSICALLY.

"but the brain is an organ doesn't that mean that ND able-bodied ppl are physically disabled-" NO.

as much as ppl wanna say it's "the same thing" is really isn't. physical disability (which i will be shortening to pd and able-bodied as ab) isn't just the cute canes and wheelchairs. it can be for lack of a better way of explaining this, its loss of independence, its the stares you get for looking or moving weird, its pain/fatigue, and so much more. it's labeled as something ppl can see and can immediately tell you are disabled. for example people know im disabled because i walk with a limp or my legs tremble. i never realized how different neurodivergent culture is from pd culture until i got my fnd, (a disability i have that GREATLY impairs me physically). like it or not, they are both insanely different. i get it, ur brain doesn't work, but is that REALY comparable to the things some of y'all, "the brain is an organ too Dx" mfs compare it to?????and even if some of yall compare it to just the mobility issues, even that is way bigger of an iceberg than some of yall able-bodied neurodivergents understand.

[transkingbee]

“But masking is hugely detrimental to our physical and mental health, it contributes to burn out, and requires a significant amount of energy to do!”

Yup. It does. All of this is true. It doesn’t change the fact that the reason we mask is to keep ourselves SAFE. It’s a safety mechanism. And some of our fellow autistics CANNOT MASK. Which means they are not kept safe from the things we are keeping ourselves safe from.

I beg you, for two seconds, to LISTEN to the voices of our fellow autistics with higher external support needs. It sucks that so many of us went under the radar and didn’t get the help we needed. But going under the radar also kept us safe from a lot of ableist abuse.

I’m not saying we didn’t go through ANY ableist abuse. Of course we did. Allistics pick us out instinctively. But we likely didn’t go through ABA. We likely don’t go through the intense infantilization they go through. Those of us who can talk, don’t get spoken for. Those of us who can move typically don’t require another person just to go to the bathroom.

PLEASE think about higher support needs autistics. PLEASE think about intersectionality and comorbid disorders. PLEASE think about folks who’s disabilities affect them in different ways than yours and what that means for them when you are talking about us like a monolith. Autism is a spectrum. Disability is a spectrum. Our struggles are not comparable. This isn’t a competition, if your advocacy isn’t about ALL of us than it’s worthless. If your advocacy doesn’t include the MOST disabled, the MOST stigmatized, the MOST mistreated than it’s fucking WORTHLESS. And refusing to acknowledge that some people have it worse than you and that that doesn’t negate your struggles as a disabled person, makes you a worse advocate for your community.

[wheresernie]

you should care about marfans, vEDS, and other connective tissue disorders and types of EDS that are more dangerous and rare but also. also. you should stop using these disorders to make hEDS sound more dangerous in arguments against people with disorders that have more visibility and shorter lifetimes

-signed, a person in the process of being diagnosed with EDS with a family history of marfans and other stuff i wont get into unless i have to

[night-city-netrunner]

I just saw the most annoying ableist take, claiming able bodied/minded people should not have to compromise their comfort so disabled people can exist.

If you think making accommodations for disabled people, people who already exist in a world that is incredibly ableist and violent against them, so that they can have the same comforts you enjoy without needing accomodation, is a burden.... then you're ableist, and in my opinion, kind of a shitty person.

Let me repeat that.

If you think allowing disabled people to have accommodations to exist AS COMFORTABLY AS YOU ALREADY DO WITHOUT THEM is a burden or a discomfort to you, you're ableist.

It's 2023, I cannot believe I have to make a post like this.

[cr-pplepunx]

i cut off a friend because they reposted something that used unemployment as an insult. the sentiment was along the lines of "you still cant get a job". i tried to inform them but they said that im just being ridiculous and insecure, as well as drawing a boundary that it isnt okay to tell them that something they said was ableist.

today they informed me that they have no intention of apologizing because they know for a fact that it wasnt ableist. they believe they have authority over whether it qualifies as ableism because they are autistic and mentally ill. however, they are low-support needs and able to maintain a fulltime job and relationship without detriment to their hygeine or health. personally, i think that since im unemployed and low functioning my voice should maybe take precedence in this kind of conversation. but maybe im missing something with that mindset, so i wanted to see what the internet thinks.

please only vote if you are disabled. reblogs for sample size are highly appreciated <3

[shinyruby]

This meme has set disability discourse;

And it’s so frustrating to, because you can talk about how your disability hinders your ability to do ANYTHING and someone will say this and it’s like… yeah? That’s what “disability” means? You are unable to do things?

[frozenoj]

On this last day of Disability Pride Month I just want to say I don't have any disabled pride.

I feel the language used, like most of disability advocacy, focuses on the healthy disabled at the expense of the unhealthy.

I am not proud to be in pain 24/7. The diagnoses that keep me from doing even my hobbies do not bring me any "disabled joy". I will not celebrate my body. I infact do not live a full life. I want a cure.

I'm tired of feeling like my experience as a chronically ill and chronic pain disabled are invalidated by people who are "only disabled by society's ableism". That perspective and those voices are important, but due to their privilege they've become the majority of voices being heard. They speak over us for the same reason abled people do—we are too sick/in pain to stop them.

I would love if you are part of that group to take a hard look at your activism and see if it is inclusive. Have you unintentionally been laterally ableist to those of us that need the medical system? Do you understand that a disability can be bad, cures aren't always eugenics, and saying such doesn't make us ableist?

Next year instead of Disability Pride Month I would rather celebrate something comprising all/most our experiences. Disabled Solidarity, or Disability Resilience, or resourcefulness, or strength, or courage, or perseverance, or

There are a lot of things we can say about being disabled that acknowledge the good with the bad. I want to be able to say I've made it. I'm still here. I've endured. But to do that, the community has to become comfortable recognizing disability is something to be endured. And not just because there aren't enough curbcuts.