#disabled people should be allowed to exist

[aetherial-boy]

Disabled people should be allowed to exist in public. Yes, I mean all disabled people.

That includes people with tic disorders.

That includes people who smell ‘bad’.

That includes people who can’t help being loud.

That includes people who move ‘strangely’.

That includes people with bulky mobility aids.

That includes people who drool.

That includes people who struggle with incontinence.

We all should get to exist, however that looks, and go out in public, use public transport, do activities outside our homes. And we should be allowed to do those things without being glared at or having ableist things said to us.

[lucabyte]

🐮

[swordsonnet]

when talking about topics like maturity and (self-)infantilisation, it's important to remember that there will always be disabled adults for whom the "normal" benchmarks of adulthood are not attainable or even applicable at all. if you want to be an ally to disabled people, you need to support all of us, not just the ones you find palatable - and that includes people who have "childish" interests, who get very emotional about seemingly trivial things, who aren't able to be independent in the way that adults are expected to be. that doesn't mean that we "need to grow up", or that we're reverting to a childlike state to avoid our responsibilities, or whatever op-ed writers think is wrong with gen z these days. it's just the way we are, and liking plushies or struggling with certain tasks doesn't in fact make us children! disabled adults are still adults, and still deserving of dignity, regardless of whether or not we can live up to the rigid societal norms of what it means to be an adult.

[here-there-were-dragons]

i have to wonder what super hardcore militant vegans think should be done about obligate carnivore animals, because in all my painfully-rapidly-approaching-30-years i've literally never actually seen anyone give a clear consistent much less halfway feasible answer on that

[diapause]

I need to just stop looking at the comments of any ig post on physical disability whether it's positive or otherwise because it is 99% "As someone with Aspergers-" this isn't ABOUT YOU!

[strawberry-graveyard]

some of you are trying to recreate ugly laws and it’s genuinely so weird.

[cowsabungus]

Make pride accessible for everyone!!!!

I made a post about this last year and the year before, and thought if I did it this way it gives people and orgs something to work towards. Often people forget that disabled people aren't just wheelchair users, and even those who are, need more than just that ramp!

My first ever pride, not only as a wheelchair but my first ever EVER pride, I went in expecting to feel at home.

Obviously I wasn't, I'm disabled, so why should I?

Instead there was just a ridiculous amount of uneven flooring, a steep ramp to the disabled toilet, no sanitary towel bin in the disabled toilet (???) no allowances to be let out of the festival to fetch things from my car, no where quiet and organisers who seemed genuinely surprised to see a wheelchair user!

My next pride, three years later, I was a seller, and while they had sorted their toilet problem (still no sanitary towel bin???), the hill to get in wouod have been genuinely impossible for me to get to if I hadn't been driving to get my stall in anyway, even with someone pushing me, no quiet areas, plenty of kerbs for me to get stuck at and again, genuine surprise.

Why is it so surprising to consider disabled people might be at pride? Not only do queer disabled people exist, but parents and family of queer kids and people, vendors and even entertainers!

Making pride accessible is crucial!

ID available in Alt Text

[angelcatsiel]

ooof there goes my dad pissing me off with his opinions again

[boneless-mika]

Hating The New Topping Book is a lonely experience

[avvoltoio]

Ngl i was initially very put off by the post equating discussion of the two headed calf as ableist discourse. I agreed with op after i actually read the post, but it initially seemed like very flippant rhetoric to equate the possible euthanization of deformed livestock as ableism, especially when livestock is effectively a product.

I mean you can argue whether livestock SHOULD be considered a product or not, but that's opening a whole other can of worms.

Also I'm not disabled so who cares what I personally think on the matter, like genuinely and unironically. I have no horse in this race.

[235uranium]

"you wouldn't be disabled if the world was built to accommodate mobility differences!" and here I thought it was being in pain + having a chronic illness that can cause just about every symptom!

[nicky-olives]

Today I was peeing in a public restroom and overhead a bunch of women with babies st the basins talking about how much they wished genderless toilets existed because it would make caring for children all that much easier.

Their arguments was that caring for children is easier when you can have two parents nearby, especially when you need to manage multiple children. Not only that, another one added, but sometimes single fathers need to help little daughters go to the toilet and are faced with the choice of 1) occupying the disabled people toilet or 2) risking taking their little girls into men's restrooms and having her see someone at a urinal because that's the only way they can keep a proper eye on them. And another one complained that sometimes she needs to change her crying baby's diaper while her little girl needs to go to - and all of this would be easier if only mums and dads were allowed in the same spaces at the same time.

And all I could think about while I finished peeing and heard this was that genderless public restrooms are a female need and would probably be an unanimously held feminist demand (similarly to reproductive rights) if it wasn't for radfems who are so gassed by their hatred towards men and trans people that they refuse to move forward with what should be a very simple and reasonable demand.

[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?”

[chronicpaingirlie]

as much as i appreciate the intent of the “being disabled doesn’t make you a burden” type posts, i don’t really agree. a lot of times being disabled DOES make you a burden

& i think that maybe we should try to shift focus to the fact that even if you’re a huge burden on society and can contribute absolutely nothing, you’re still a human being who deserves to exist.

like. there’s nothing morally wrong with being a burden on other people. you aren’t a bad person for needing to rely on others. you’re allowed to be a burden & disabled people who are burdens on others, i love you

[varian-ross-horror-author]

"Disabled people should be allowed to be as independent as we can be" and "disabled people should not be pressured to be hyper-independent in order to not wind up in nursing homes against our will" are two thoughts that can, and should, exist at the same time.

[eldest-of-katts]

I think this topic requires more nuance than "children should not be able to do things because people can be bad".

Kids need to have outlets for their creativity the same as adults. They need to take risks while they develop and one risk that can be really beneficial is starting a YouTube channel.

It doesn't have to be YouTube, they could blog or stream or get on discord or anything else, but it's a great outlet for them! With the lack of third places, especially for kids, and the lack of freedom they have without cars in a lot of the US and Canada, kids turn to the internet for community.

This can be bad, the way you said with doxxing and trolls and hate and media attention, but the solution is not cutting kids off from community and self-expression.

Minors deserve autonomy and freedom. They deserve respect, even before "their brains fully develop". This kind of "protect the children" rhetoric does nothing but isolate them into their family groups.

If they can't make community connections online, and they only go to school and home irl, and their lives are monitored and they can't form friendships with adults and they can't walk home because of kidnappers and they can't drive yet and they can't and they shouldn't and they're "too young". Then who can help them?

If kids can't have community and the freedom to make their own choices (even bad choices) how do you expect them to become adults in the digital age?

If they can't make something cool and fun in the face of assholes on the internet trying to destroy it how do you expect them to learn defiance and the strength they have as people?

Sure there are other ways they could do that, but denying someone rights afforded to other people because you think you know better doesn't make you a protector, it makes you a sugar-coated jailor.

i don’t really believe minors should be able to become twitch streamers or youtubers, at least not those who show their faces etc. i don’t think their brains are developed enough to understand the situation they’re putting themselves into with the risk of blowing up and it’s so damaging to their ability to develop normally and have a healthy relationship with the world. in a society where blowing up on twitch means your address gets leaked daily and people make murder and assault threats to you frequently and streamers have panic attacks from the stress of managing their brand and all of the hate and attention i just don’t think minors are capable of understanding and taking that risk. i also think the same thing applies to child actors but most people feel that way