#disability liberation

[wormsareanillusion]

Hi friends, please help this family out. He's under constant sensory overload.

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

I know the Disability Day of Mourning traditionally commemorates disabled people murdered by their parents and/or caregivers, but I wanted to take a moment to also commemorate the disabled lives lost during the genocides taking place in Palestine, the DRC, Sudan, and across the globe (including in the US). There are many ways for a system to perpetuate ableist violence and we must struggle as a community against all of them.

May the disabled souls taken from us rest in peace, every single one, and may the members of the disabled community currently fighting for their lives and the lives of their loved ones receive the support and safety they deserve.

If you have a bit to spare, please consider donating to Crips for eSims for Gaza and supporting their vital work.

[aughwl]

My hottest take on neurodiversity is that I think self-diagnosis isn't just "good enough" when psychiatric diagnosis is too expensive, it's in fact *more legitimate* than an official psychiatric diagnosis. People will always understand themselves better than an outside observer can. Psychiatrists are not neutral reality describers, but play an important role in ableism, as gatekeepers of care.

To be fair to psychiatrists, some of them are less ableist than others and they often do have a lot of experience of interacting with neurodivergent people, so they can connect the dots that people wouldn't be able to connect themselves, and they can teach the vocabulary people need to express themselves. But in a post-ableist society, psychiatrist will only be able to provide people information and insight, and they could not be the gatekeepers of who 'counts' as belonging to a certain category. It stands to reason that in this society, an official diagnosis would not be necessary to get accommodations, as those would be provided according to need by default.

A diagnosis is much more than just a description of someone's psyche, it's an official document that people have to use to interface with other institutions like work and education, and it is thus a political device. It asks you to submit yourself to bureaucracy and official recordkeeping before you can ever get your needs met, it asks you to sacrifice time, money and dignity to get something we could just provide for free if we weren't hung up on making sure people "really deserve it". (this will sound very familiar to trans people) It's not a key to care, it's the gate as well.

Central to mental ableism is the assumption that the mentally ill are untrustworthy and incapable of understanding the world and themselves, and that we need a strong medical authority to straighten their minds.

[queerpunktomatoes]

I was telling roomie about my sister's music business and she said, "I like how you always have to hype up your siblings before you tell me a story about them. Are they your special interest?"

Anyway, wishing all Autistic people a very happy "my friends care about me even if they don't entirely know what they're talking about quite yet."

[faithfromanewperspective]

been thinking a bit about a burnout recovery diary blog as a concept. there's a lot of people talking about burnout, accommodating themselves to get through autistic burnout, but i'm seeing very little that builds on the science behind our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and while i don't know a lot, i do have more than a high school level of biology education and this is really important to me and i'm a pretty good learner. my only fear is that at present i'm not really recovering, i'm simply letting go of things that are making it worse like i've done all my life. anyway here's a poll so i can gauge where all of us are on this too

and of course, my favourite graphic i've ever edited (credits to the original creator). if i made a burnout recovery blog it would be full of things like this (as well as more serious advice etc)

[feedists4walz]

[oliveasaltylife]

So funny* to me when very loud disability “activist” type folx will angrily post about needing necessary accessibility accommodations and then turn around posting maskless selfies in public. Your lateral ableism is showing and it’s louder than you intended it to be.

*By funny I mean completely infuriating, but laughing helps me cope

[giantkillerjack]

Hi there, I just wanted to stop by to say thank you for making your recent post about ‘getting dependent on mobility aids’ — I was tempted to comment on the post itself, but since replies have been shut off (which I’m assuming is because people were missing the point?), I figured anonymity would make it easier for me to share this😅 I think it’s important that you know it’s helping not only able bodied people look at it from a different perspective, but other ‘disabled’ people as well.

I’m 23, and have a whole host of health conditions, only a handful of which have actually been diagnosed, the others are still a mystery, and struggle a lot with feeling guilty about taking up space in the community, and the fact that I’m considering getting a mobility aid, because of all of those same reasons people around me have been telling me since I got sick. Reading this post helps make me feel a little bit better about the whole thing, and I just want to thank you for that❤️

— 🥀✨ Anon

[Anon is referring to this satire post I made]

Hey, this is the sweetest most rewarding goddamn message, and I'm incredibly grateful to you for it!! 💖💖💖💖

Also, it validates that everything I write about disability is ultimately written with the hope of making disabled people's lives better, and comments like this mean I am making worthwhile writing/art!!!

Also,

I want to make one thing very very clear:

There IS space for you here.

Obviously I don't speak for the entire disabled community, but I know I am not the only one who sees someone struggling to accept a disabled identity and has the thought, "Hey. Impostor syndrome is basically universal in the newly-disabled. Dont sweat it. You are welcome here."

So... You are welcome here. Says who? Says me. You are allowed to take up space in this community. You have more than permission, you have an invitation. You never needed one to take pride in your identity, but you have it now, in case that helps.

(Learning to undo our own internalized ableism is literally a lifelong process, but it is a worthwhile one.)

The best chances we have at survival and at thriving are by holding onto each other like a goddamn gundam made of cripples and neurodivergents, with no one being left behind.

Therefore, your presence (if you are respectful and kind, which seem to be your vibe) actually ADDS to our collective strength, rather than taking from it.

The actual "limited resources" that we're told disabled people must compete over are a result of systems that enforce a false idea of scarcity and trap us in isolation, poverty, and sickness.

Often, disabled people are the primary lifeline to other disabled people, actually. In my own personal experience (as disability is a huge category and no experience is universal among us except ableism), I've seen VERY little IRL competition among disabled people, but many instances of disabled people working together to demand a better conditions, plus countless instances of disabled people taking care of each other in everyday life.

The "prove you are disabled beyond a shadow of a doubt" mentality also supports these deadly ableist systems because it allows those in power to deny aid to those who cannot meet a ludicrously high burden of proof.

- Fuck that. Fuck that. I believe you. You have a condition that limits your ability? You can't do one or more vital tasks without constant pain?? That's a disability. You're disabled. And there's room for you to sit with us. Welcome.

I know that some people have internalized ableism, and occasionally this community does deal with the issue of gatekeeping. But I really believe those people are a vocal minority of the community as a whole - Most of us are just glad to have another comrade and co-conspirator!

There IS enough for all of us, and historically the only way these systems have actually changed is through a whole lot of disabled people banding together and helping to keep each other alive in the meantime.

And it's okay if what you need to do is just focus on keeping yourself alive. Like I said, you're a vital member of the team now, and the core of disability advocacy is someone should never be left behind. - It is morally and socially right for you to take care of yourself both on a collective and individual level, and that includes experimenting with mobility aids!

BUT ALSO - and this is VITAL - even if you go your WHOLE LIFE using more resources than you are able to provide, even if you can "only" contribute the extensive labor of keeping yourself alive for your entire life, you'd still DESERVE COMFORT, RESPECT, ACCOMMODATION, AND CARE. You would still be a valued part of this team because people who need a lot of help are not "drains", they are ENTIRE PEOPLE.

YOU are an entire person!

And if we as disabled people only measure value by how much a person can DO, then we become no better than the ableist systems that terrorize our lives whether we have accepted disability as an identity or not!

You are worth the effort of caring for you because you are ALIVE and a PERSON.

And while I don't believe in laziness as a concept, this would include you even if you were "lazy". Even if you were mean. I probably wouldn't want to invite a mean person to stuff - but like I said, you don't need an invitation to be in this community. You don't need permission to care for yourself or to have the rights of a full person!

Sacrifice for no reason is just self-harm!

You deserve accommodation because it is a HUMAN RIGHT to reduce pain and improve your quality of life without hurting anyone!!! You are wanted here even if you cannot fight or advocate or produce!!! It is not selfish to care for yourself with the tenderness you would show to a little puppy in pain! Or if it is, then maybe selfishness can be beautiful sometimes! - That is the core tenet of cripple punk and of disability liberation. ALL of us matter. Period. End of sentence. Full stop.

... All this to say, I think getting a mobility aid is a great idea!! And it makes me so so happy to rep how amazing it is to have the accommodations you need!

Just yesterday, I went out with my new rollator for the first time (now that I finally live somewhere without stairs!), and I felt so happy and free that even though I just went to a grocery store pharmacy, I had the BEST TIME. I can't run on my own, but with the rollator? I can really move!! I was beaming the whole time!

I even crossed paths with an older woman in my building who was complaining about how embarrassing it was to be the only person with the walker on the floor, and the way that her expression changed when she saw me and when I said how happy I was to have my new walker is something that will stick with me forever! (Her aid worker actually hugged me - it was a magical pharmacy trip, y'all - and my joints feel AMAZING getting exercise I couldn't do without the walker!)

For years now, every time I stand or walk somewhere, being upright has been a matter of calculating how much pain I can take before it is unbearable - mapping out stoops to sit on, places on the ground less likely to be wet from rain, store floors to collapse on - but with my rollator (which I have named Blue Gator the Rollator)??? I SIT THE SECOND I NEED TO, AND WITH THIS POWER I WALKED FURTHER THAN I HAVE IN YEARS.

It brings me immense joy to let people know how important that is, how important their comfort is. To get people to question how much pain and isolation must actually be cultivated and sacrificed on the altar of "move like an abled person"!!

What a badass act of rebellion to say "fuck you I'm getting that goddamn cane and I might get a walker while I'm at it!!!", "fuck you I don't deserve to be in unnecessary pain!!!", "fuck you i don't deserve to be doing constant damage to my joints and nervous system by standing in pain all the time!!!"

Plus, I keep a water bottle and a folding cane (and a phone charger and a notebook) in the little pouch under the rollator seat! (and this time I actually read the safety manual, which everyone should do!)

Okay this got really long (and at some point half the draft got deleted and had to be re-written from memory), but tbh I'm not sorry. I don't know you, but I'm terribly proud of you. Like, the pride fills my chest with warm expanding light when i think of someone coming closer to getting the things they need to thrive.

I hope you get all the accommodations you need and then some more on top of that! You deserve less pain! You deserve to take up space! You deserve to sit with us if you want to! Welcome welcome welcome welcome welcome. ❤

P.S. I actually didn't get any nasty replies to the post itself - I had to change the reply settings on my account because of an unrelated post in which I criticized the queerbaiting in a popular piece of media, and thus was suffering a Deluge of people sliding into the replies to defend the queerbaiting like they were Sherlock/Supernatural fans in the year 2010. 😅 but I am very happy you reached out anyway!!! Thank you again! You made my day!! 🥰🥰🥰

[justalittlesolarpunk]

Hello Earth! Looking to make connections with likeminded people and share good news and positive ideas. Not sure what this blog will evolve into (probably nothing as I have a busy life) but I’d love to follow you if you’re posting about similar stuff!

[bunnygrl-femme]

listen i'm also in the camp of anti surveillance spy devices but you gotta think about what you're actually telling people when you say shit like that about smart home devices. i'm disabled and mostly bedbound and i can control my own lights for the first time in years and i can control my tv without struggling to move my fingers around a remote control because of my smart home setup. i have to give up my own privacy to do it and i'm not happy about it but you have to think of them as accessibility devices too. predatory accessibility devices i'll give you that, they absolutely pray disproportionately on profoundly disabled people like me who rely on them for day to day life and harvest data from vulnerable folks who can't live without them and i'd really rather google wasn't listening to everything i said. but there's a good number of people in the world who don't get much choice at all and they're not even that much of a minority or exception. maybe instead of taking your anger out on people who use these devices you could use the same energy to target companies, not for creating smart devices, but for using disabled people's accessibility devices for unethical data harvesting and spying. i can promise you that telling people they're Bad and making Bad Choices for using these things isnt going to do much other than make people feel like a bag of shit for relying on them.

I'm gonna be honest with you anon, on two things. 1:) I don't know which post you're talking about. These are absolutely things I've said, and things I think, but I don't recall the post. And 2:) you are absolutely right. I never considered smart home devices in terms of accessibility. This is my abled privilege, that I never had to see the world with this lens before. And you're right on another count; capitalists absolutely pray on disabled people's need for accessibility to buy and sell their privacy. And we should put the pressure and the blame squarely at the foot of the capitalists who target disabled folks.

I'm taking an L on this one, y'all. And I'm shifting my politics to be more intersectional with disability liberation. Thanks for educating me, anon.

[queerpunktomatoes]

Can we actually talk about "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"?

Here's a link, if you want to read it. (It's only 5 pages and very worth it.)

Basically, it's about "a summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child."

I remember beginning to learn about the concept of anti-capitalism and having a conversation with my dad. He said, roughly, "There have to be poor people for there to be rich people." Logically, I get this. For someone to be considered rich, there needs to be a point of reference that is lower. But that doesn't make it right, particularly when the gap is as large as it is for this child locked in a room versus the people having the time of their lives on the surface.

Is there a perception of beauty and gratitude without pain and suffering? Personally, I don't think so. But is one person's pain and suffering worth others' awareness of beauty? No. If our happiness can only come from a comparison of others' lives, it's not worth having happiness.

But the story is about justification and the way we often see ourselves as better or somehow more deserving of good things, so we can continue our lives without worrying about people worse off than us. Regardless of whether the child was "born defective" (the wording of which makes me want to punch a hole in the wall, but I respect the literary technique) or deeply traumatized through neglect (a la Genie Wiley), this is a question of who is deserving of good things. Where should society put our resources? Is it worth it to invest in "broken people"?

(I hope it's obvious that I'm asking these questions with an air of mockery and anger, but I do think it's worth bringing up how often humanity will justify our abuse toward others.) (Also, I'm disabled, for the record.) (Please don't come at me.)

"Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion."

And somehow this compassion is a shackle to them? Rather than something so large and eye-opening that it shapes their entire lives? It's something keeping them from their lives, rather than the only real thing to do with life?

No, compassion creates freedom, and it's not a comfortable one, but seeing it as a prison only shows that they're begging for permission to be selfish. The shackles aren't the realization that we must change the world, the shackles are when we give up on improving the lives of those around us.

The story ends by talking about those who walk away. At first, it felt like peace to read the ending. Release. Like a gentle, resigned letting go, of not participating in a system of oppression, of choosing to walk away from your role.

But as I kept reading it, I got angry. The child cannot leave. They will leave the child there, until it rots into the ground, and then they will steal a new child from its mother's arms to lock up in the basement. And these people, who walk away from Omelas, they let them. That's still participating. They're still part of the problem.

We can't escape our system by running into the woods and refusing to be a part of it. We can't just start a commune and pretend the problems don't exist because we're not actively, knowingly participating in them. I know the urge, very well, but it's not any more just than anyone who continues to live in Omelas. They're all wrong. We're all wrong. Those are not the only options.

Why can't someone save the child? Who cares if it means the weather isn't as good? That's a human being. Why can't human life come before everything else? What else is there, in the end, if not just us, people?

[faithfromanewperspective]

I feel like a lot of discussion in worlds of how we do socialism and also people trying to (with varying levels of genuineness) do philanthropic or ethical versions of capitalism we talk about ‘the working class’ as if either they’re some people to empower or a human rights problem to fix. and yes there’s a struggle of power and for ownership of profit and yes we need to do that fairly and ethically but I think what people miss either deliberately or from trained and systemic invisibility of marginalised groups is that the working class have never been the lowest class. in fact the average person you could say is and has always been working class (don’t let the middle in middle class fool you). there are an entire diverse caste of people who have fallen out of the bottom of society due to inability to work or fit into a nice role in the system and when some of us don’t fit, none of the systems people think of to ‘help’ are going to work when they’re within the same narrative. disabled people can’t work the same as a abled people, so what is a fair share of the profits? neither can addicts, at least not without help. and this group of people often do actually require more capital to have their needs met in ways your average working class person doesn’t. like I don’t want to invalidate your working class plight but. do we not remember centuries of shame when something befalls a relative causing them to fall into that category, be it at birth or later? do we not remember the people we locked up away from society? to those of us who have always existed and exist now, I love you. you deserve to have your voices heard and your needs met and your value not tied to your productivity. you deserve to be centred and not sidelined in these discussions and you deserve a new conceptualisation of how we create an equitable society. and while I don’t see that in mainstream yet I want to normalise as able, working to meet our own needs and then some for those we love who we can feed into the ecosystem and invest in. I want to normalise celebrating the work of existing and being present and staying alive and caring for yourself more than working to feed the economy. that’s work we can all do. and I want to be careful in saying this, but I want to normalise the idea that there is no leisure until we can all have liberation and sustenance. there is rest and reminding ourselves we’ve done enough and we are enough. but there’s no sitting back in comfort, which many of us raised in middle class lifestyles might be used to. not while part of society is still invisible.

[rainbowpopeworld]

The moral of Rudolph the Red nose reindeer is that no one likes you unless you’re useful.

[aughwl]

Disability liberation should never be about finding out the exact way to categorise who does and does not count as a specific kind of disabled and then witholding accomodation from everyone else.

Disability liberation means recognising the ways everyone has disabilities in some ways (to varying degrees and depending on circumstance, but always in some capacity) and making sure that accomodation is freely available for people to use as they know from experience is necessary for them.

[kneptoon]

Shoutout to leftists who are too poor/disabled to give back to their community.

Shoutout to leftists who are too poor/disabled to shop at local/small businesses.

Shoutout to leftists who are poor/disabled and have to buy things from Amazon and other megacorps because it’s the most cheap or convenient.

Shoutout to leftists who are too poor/disabled to reduce their environmental footprint because they need the single-use plastics.

Shoutout to leftists who can’t go vegan because of dietary needs, disordered eating, or neurodivergence.

Shoutout to leftists who can’t volunteer or go to community events/protests/noise demonstrations because of inaccessibility.

Shoutout to leftists who can only be politically active online because they’re housebound.

Shoutout to leftists who are disabled and are rarely politically active because they simply don’t have the energy.

Shoutout to leftists who can’t be politically active because they’re under the care of a guardian or are trapped in an abusive situation, and they don’t have control over their finances/belongings.

Shoutout to leftists who can’t read theory, or who have trouble reading theory, but still do their best to learn.

Shoutout to leftists who can’t understand theory at all because of cognitive/intellectual disability.

Shoutout to leftists who want to be more active in their community but can’t because they struggle with anxiety, socializing, or maintaining relationships.

Shoutout to leftists with personality disorders, complex trauma disorders, conduct disorders, OCD, psychosis, and any other leftist whose personality or thoughts often unwillingly go against their beliefs due to a trauma response or chemical imbalance.

Shoutout to leftists who don’t have any “practical” skills that would be needed in a commune (i.e farming, building, sewing)

Shoutout to leftists who are too busy simply trying to survive to even think about being politically active.

Shoutout to leftists who have to always ask for mutual aid but can never give back.

Shoutout to all the leftists who can’t do this and can’t do that and can’t do the things that leftists are “supposed” to do. No one person is perfect.

You aren’t a fake leftist for not being able to do these things. All that matters is that you put in the effort, in whatever way that you can.

It’s not about your abilities as an individual. It’s about our power as a collective.

[hyperlexichypatia]

As I keep shouting into the void, pathologizers love shifting discussion about material conditions into discussion about emotional states.

I rant approximately once a week about how the brain maturity myth transmuted “Young adults are too poor to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own” into “Young adults are too emotionally and neurologically immature to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own.”

I’ve also talked about the misuse of “enabling” and “trauma” and “dopamine” .

And this is a pattern – people coin terms and concepts to describe material problems, and pathologization culture shifts them to be about problems in the brain or psyche of the person experiencing them. Now we’re talking about neurochemicals, frontal lobes, and self-esteem instead of talking about wages, wealth distribution, and civil rights. Now we can say that poor, oppressed, and exploited people are suffering from a neurological/emotional defect that makes them not know what’s best for themselves, so they don’t need or deserve rights or money.

Here are some terms that have been so horribly misused by mental health culture that we’ve almost entirely forgotten that they were originally materialist critiques.

Codependency What it originally referred to: A non-addicted person being overly “helpful” to an addicted partner or relative, often out of financial desperation. For example: Making sure your alcoholic husband gets to work in the morning (even though he’s an adult who should be responsible for himself) because if he loses his job, you’ll lose your home. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/codependency-addiction-recovery.html What it’s been distorted into: Being “clingy,” being “too emotionally needy,” wanting things like affection and quality time from a partner. A way of pathologizing people, especially young women, for wanting things like love and commitment in a romantic relationship.

Compulsory Heterosexuality What it originally referred to: In the 1980 in essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/493756 Adrienne Rich described compulsory heterosexuality as a set of social conditions that coerce women into heterosexual relationships and prioritize those relationships over relationships between women (both romantic and platonic). She also defines “lesbian” much more broadly than current discourse does, encompassing a wide variety of romantic and platonic relationships between women. While she does suggest that women who identify as heterosexual might be doing so out of unquestioned social norms, this is not the primary point she’s making. What it’s been distorted into: The patronizing, biphobic idea that lesbians somehow falsely believe themselves to be attracted to men. Part of the overall “Women don’t really know what they want or what’s good for them” theme of contemporary discourse.

Emotional Labor What it originally referred to: The implicit or explicit requirement that workers (especially women workers, especially workers in female-dominated “pink collar” jobs, especially tipped workers) perform emotional intimacy with customers, coworkers, and bosses above and beyond the actual job being done. Having to smile, be “friendly,” flirt, give the impression of genuine caring, politely accept harassment, etc. https://weld.la.psu.edu/what-is-emotional-labor/ What it’s been distorted into: Everything under the sun. Everything from housework (which we already had a term for), to tolerating the existence of disabled people, to just caring about friends the way friends do. The original intent of the concept was “It’s unreasonable to expect your waitress to care about your problems, because she’s not really your friend,” not “It’s unreasonable to expect your actual friends to care about your problems unless you pay them, because that’s emotional labor,” and certainly not “Disabled people shouldn’t be allowed to be visibly disabled in public, because witnessing a disabled person is emotional labor.” Anything that causes a person emotional distress, even if that emotional distress is rooted in the distress-haver’s bigotry (Many nominally progressive people who would rightfully reject the bigoted logic of “Seeing gay or interracial couples upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public” fully accept the bigoted logic of “Seeing disabled or poor people upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public”).

Battered Wife Syndrome What it originally referred to: The all-encompassing trauma and fear of escalating violence experienced by people suffering ongoing domestic abuse, sometimes resulting in the abuse victim using necessary violence in self-defense. Because domestic abuse often escalates, often to murder, this fear is entirely rational and justified. This is the reasonable, justified belief that someone who beats you, stalks you, and threatens to kill you may actually kill you.

What it’s been distorted into: Like so many of these other items, the idea that women (in this case, women who are victims of domestic violence) don’t know what’s best for themselves. I debated including this one, because “syndrome” was a wrongful framing from the beginning – a justified and rational fear of escalating violence in a situation in which escalating violence is occurring is not a “syndrome.” But the original meaning at least partially acknowledged the material conditions of escalating violence.

I’m not saying the original meanings of these terms are ones I necessarily agree with – as a cognitive liberty absolutist, I’m unsurprisingly not that enamored of either second-wave feminism or 1970s addiction discourse. And as much as I dislike what “emotional labor” has become, I accept that “Women are unfairly expected to care about other people’s feelings more than men are” is a true statement.

What I am saying is that all of these terms originally, at least partly, took material conditions into account in their usage. Subsequent usage has entirely stripped the materialist critique and fully replaced it with emotional pathologization, specifically of women. Acknowledgement that women have their choices constrained by poverty, violence, and oppression has been replaced with the idea that women don’t know what’s best for themselves and need to be coercively “helped” for their own good. Acknowledgement that working-class women experience a gender-and-class-specific form of economic exploitation has been rebranded as yet another variation of “Disabled people are burdensome for wanting to exist.”

Over and over, materialist critiques are reframed as emotional or cognitive defects of marginalized people. The next time you hear a superficially sympathetic (but actually pathologizing) argument for “Marginalized people make bad choices because…” consider stopping and asking: “Wait, who are we to assume that this person’s choices are ‘bad’? And if they are, is there something about their material conditions that constrains their options or makes the ‘bad’ choice the best available option?”