#protect disabled unhoused people

[copperbadge]

Radio Free Monday

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

As a reminder, I will be discontinuing Radio Free Monday in the new year, although the guide to fundraising will remain, and you should feel free to link to it.

Ways to Give:

Anon linked to a fundraiser for Stephen Campbell, who is currently unhoused and living in a tent; he has completed multiple cycle rides across multiple countries and is currently embarking on a fundraising ride from Belfast to North Cape in Cape Town, hoping to have enough to buy a small home to live in when he has completed his ride. You can read more and support the fundraiser here.

firewatchers linked to a fundraiser for peculiar-persephone, who is raising funds to move out of Alabama, where they're currently being sent to conservative relatives to avoid homelessness. They're raising funds to get to a majority-blue state where they will be protected from anti-queer legislation and be able to gain disability benefits and access medication. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

idiomagic's cat SpyBoy recently returned home from several days in the emergency vet hospital, where they found out he has pancreatitis and diabetes; they're facing nearly $5K in veterinary bills with no income, as Idiomagic's husband lost his job last week and she is unable to work. You can read more and give at gofundme here or give directly via gwyndynalexander at Venmo.

News To Know:

brainwane linked to Jacob Kaplan-Moss, who is offering free digital security checkups for people and groups who are concerned about their security posture, particularly if they will be participating in political resistance; you can read more and get in touch here.

Recurring Needs:

gwydion's HOA recently pushed through a special assessment charge of $4.4K for tenants that is due in 90 days, and which ze is unable to cover in full; ze needs to raise another $1400 or so to cover by mid-December. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

loversdoom is raising funds for an assessment to get help with mental health so she can be treated and remain in school, where she has a safe place to live and basic psychiatric support. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here or give via paypal here.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form.

[covid-conscious-and-silly]

please wear a mask in public if you are upset about the election results. if all of you have are surgical masks, it's better than nothing, and you can find masks that will protect you and others better here (guide courtesy of mask bloc seattle)!

this does not end because the election is over. action does not end because a new person is in office. quite honestly, i would be making this post regardless because neither side of this false dichotomy is doing nearly enough to address everything going on.

but if you have ever wanted to go beyond "you do you" and actually be a support and ally to disabled and immunocompromised people, wearing a mask in public is a way to do it. you will also be protecting your siblings of color, queer and trans siblings, unhoused siblings, and multiply marginalized siblings! all of those groups are at a higher risk of developing long covid. wearing a mask is an act of solidarity with all groups of marginalized people.

to those of you who are already doing so, thank you. to those of you who are even more worried about your future, i am with you. i hope the silver lining to all of this is that people will realize this time that just voting every four years isn't enough. we need to act more for each other. we deserve to show ourselves and each other more compassion. this is not the end.

[weebsinstash]

I'll get back to posting my usual content eventually but I'm serious when I say how worried I am

I recently moved to a downtown area where there is a very visible homeless population and many of them are predominantly addicts, disabled, or people of color, all the usual targets of the GOP, and now that it's looking like Trump is the next President, all I can do is check the weather report, see that it's in the 30s outside, and have my heart ache at the idea that so many people are going to die over the next few years

People huddled in the doorways of closed businesses in the middle of the night with layers and layers of blankets protecting them from rain and windchill. People disassembling the locked doors entering my building so they have somewhere warm and dry and sleeping in the hallways or our laundry room. People sleeping in the plants in front of businesses to give them some protection from the wind and some privacy and then the very next day the only sign someone was there are the folded branches and leaves. I'm at a metro stop and a man wrapped in a knitted quilt asks me if I have any change for him and his brother and as I stop to talk to him and offer him support as someone who was once homeless myself, he asks me to touch his head and pray for him since he's a devout Catholic and still believes in the good of humanity

Even just conceptualizing how many people are going to lose their healthcare... how many people aren't going to be able to afford medicine anymore... how many unhoused people are going to become victims of violence under an administration that dehumanzies and actively hates them... how many people are going to be driven to homelessness because they're a minority driven from their home or work which project 2025 promises to make perfectly legal... my heart just fucking aches. I hope it doesn't rain again today because it's so cold we'll have snow....

[chronicallycouchbound]

Internalized Ableism As Means For Unhoused Survival

We need to dissect the cultural context of homelessness as it relates to disability. I’ve spent most of my life unhoused, while also being a disabled person who didn’t have a clear understanding that I was disabled, and both of these experiences had huge impacts on my experiences of ableism, especially internalized.

It needs to be understood that it’s not always rooted in internalized ableism for someone to not identify as disabled, especially regarding physical disabilities. Including choosing to hide disability, pain, or weakness. It also includes choosing not to use mobility aids or other assistive devices that could, in theory, be helpful for their day-to-day life. Instead, they grit their teeth through the pain or find alternatives to manage. This is akin to (and may overlap with) autistic masking.

Being on the streets comes with a culture that allows for strength to often guarantee safety. The ability to physically defend yourself, carry your belongings, withstand harsh weather, use survival expertise, etc. are often necessary skills. Showing weakness is vulnerability. Vulnerability allows for situations where you are more likely to be targeted because attackers can recognize your difficulties and take advantage of them. This danger is amplified if you are a part of other marginalized groups.

When I was a young queer and trans person growing up on the streets, my homelessness was inextricably linked to those experiences. If I were to seem like I was disabled, I was putting myself in a more vulnerable position. Once I started using mobility aids on the streets, I experienced significantly more dangerous situations than I had before. I faced more direct physical violence and threats as a result of it. It wasn’t just me fearing that I might face judgment for being visibly disabled, it was that I was facing real-world repercussions, both within the unhoused and housed community. I was targeted by housed people frequently due to the inherent publicity of unhoused experiences.

Unhoused people spend significantly more time in public. As a currently unstably housed person, but housed nonetheless, I have the privilege of privacy for my pain. I can crawl in my apartment freely without anyone literally kicking me while I’m down. I can scream, I can sob, I can dissociate, I can do whatever I need to, with or without aids, and not face violence from the people around me.

I also have access to more supportive aids just by having housing. I now have in-home care attendants, something that was impossible without a home. I have a bed I can rest in at any time. I have a microwave for hot pads. I have a bathroom. I have electricity. I have food. These things were never guaranteed while unhoused and disabled. Unsurprisingly, I have significantly fewer emergency room trips, unmanageable flares, missed doctor appointments, etc. now that I have even unstable housing.

When you have more time in the public eye, there are more opportunities for facing ableism and houseism from the general populace. Those two experiences intertwined, and being chronically homeless, led to me having to navigate internalized ableism as a survival skill because there was a direct link to the ableism I faced daily.

Some disabled people on the streets, especially if they can’t hide their disability, feel more pressure to present themselves as inspiration porn. Inspiration porn panders to ableist narratives about disabled experiences, and can even give you an edge while panhandling. It also acts as a protective factor, there’s a mindset that if you’re not held back by disability, then you are not disabled. Thus, your disability cannot be exploited by others, and you are just as strong as a physically abled person. It’s something we do because we have to in order to survive, whether or not we’re conscious of the ableist narratives we’re feeding into.

There are times when I have to choose to do actions that are more harmful for me, such as presenting as more abled, for my immediate safety. I have to weigh the risks, and often, the risk of being attacked is far greater than the risk of falling, fainting, or being injured. This is not internalized ableism, it isn’t subconscious, it is for protection. Presenting as disabled is difficult enough, but when other marginalizations are added to it, it is exponentially more dangerous. Even more so than it is for me to not use aids or to not accept help at times.

If I wasn’t able to be recognized as disabled, I was granted more privileges akin to those my able-bodied peers automatically receive. If a bathroom wasn’t accessible for me, but I did my best with it instead of asking for accommodations (which is often seen as being picky, needy, or ungrateful) then I was more likely to be allowed to use that bathroom again. The same goes for couch surfing at a friend's house, needing to carry everything I own up three flights of stairs, if I didn’t mention that it was difficult for me or said no to help, then I was being a good guest by not making my hosts uncomfortable. Making concessions like this whenever I could gave me more access to safety.

When my disabilities became more serious, and I wasn't able to keep making concessions, I would fall in that bathroom, I would faint on the stairs, and I immediately was more unsafe. I couldn’t hide my disability anymore, the choice was taken from me. No amount of pandering to abled people would make me able to do those things anymore. For me, that felt like a personal failure. I had been told my whole life that I could and should push through my disabling symptoms and conditions, and I took that as fact. Not being able to do that was a heavy and horrifying feeling for me.

It’s taken years (and is an ongoing process) to find safe enough spaces where I can ask for help. Where I can freely use mobility aids, show my actual pain, wear braces, wear compression garments, cry, rest, and otherwise exist as my disabled self without being harmed. It’s taken equally as long (and is still ongoing) to find grace within myself and advocate for the accommodations I need and actually use them. I still struggle with the pressure to feed into inspiration porn, something that the cripple reclamation movement is focused on deconstructing. I struggle with accepting help, asking for help, or even looking like I might need help. But I also recognize that beautiful things can happen when I get what I need.

It heals internalized houseism to be dismantling my internalized ableism, and vice versa.

Unhoused disabled people are allowed to be weak. Unhoused disabled people are allowed to cry, to scream, to be in pain, to ask for help. Unhoused disabled people are allowed to be human, just like everyone else.

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

its so funny that the first article in the german constitution (grundgesetz) is „human dignity is untouchable“ (die würde des menschen ist unantastbar).

like is it dignified to have over 600.000 people unhoused? is it dignified to have over 100.000 prostitutes, probably more, of whom around 90 % are women and 60 % are immigrants? is it dignified to treat immigrants and refugees as second or third class citizens? is it dignified that more than 8 million people earn even less than minimum wage which is barely enough to live off as it is? is it dignified to let thousands of refugees die at the eu borders every year - which germany has a huge responsibility for? is it dignified that single mothers in germany are most at risk of poverty, while abortion is illegal, and prostitution is not, and the german government tries to raise fertility rates? is it dignified that germany is the hotspot for sex tourism and fetish parties? is it dignified that we have europes biggest brothels, one that is five stories high, and only men are allowed to enter as „customers“? is it dignified that 300.000 people with disabilities in germany get a little more than one euro per hour working in so called behindertenwerkstätten? is it dignified that immigrants have so little rights they are exploited on fields, in homes, hospitals, butcheries, construction work, etc, paid less than minimum wage, working overhours, often developing health issues, being abused, because their german employers know they wont report it? is it dignified that nurses are underpaid and overworked because hospitals and other care facilities are privatised? is it dignified that german corporations rake in billions in profit from moving their production abroad and violating human rights? is it dignified that volkswagen produces in the uighur camps in china? is it dignified that prisoners get exploited by private companies? is it dignified that cops get away with harrassment, humiliation and violence because there is no independent control? E T C

whose dignitity is really protected bro?

[lastoneout]

If the core of your activism isn't a deep, profound love for vulnerable people then like...idk what's the fucking point? I fight terfs because I love trans people. I fight nazis bcs I love jewish and romani and queer and disabled people. I fight racism because so many people I love aren't white. I fight ableism because I love the disabled and mentally ill. I fight fatphobia bcs I love fat people. I fight classism bcs I love poor people. I fight oppression because I love humanity, and I firmly believe that we all deserve a better, kinder world.

And so should it turn out that some facet of my activism is hurting more people than it's helping I want to know so I can stop and reevaluate if such actions are actually worthwhile or if there's something else I could be doing to help. Progress will probably always have some collateral damage, but we should care about minimizing it as much as possible bcs I don't want to hurt vulnerable people while trying to fight for them.

Telling bad people to kill themselves does not make the world a better place. It isn't a substitute for deplatforming, or being aware of dogwhistles, or protesting, raising money or charity, volunteering, educating yourself and the people in your community, voting in local elections or showing up at city council meetings, just giving some cash to an unhoused person, or doing things that actually make our spaces safe for the people who need our help. All it does is hurt trauma victims and the mentally ill. And tbh it will probably get your account banned, which is what the bigots want. You're silencing yourself FOR them. So why not stop doing it and start doing something that will actually make positive change.

And it's okay to be angry. It's important to be angry! And no one is arguing that you have to be nice to nazis or racists or fatphobes. They should be deplatformed. But god all I'm fucking asking is for us to care more about helping the oppressed than we do about dunking on bigots online for clout points, especially when said dunking causes real, measurable harm to marginalized people. There are better ways to dismantle the power bigots have garnered, ways that don't make progressive spaces hostile for vulnerable people.

Wouldn't you rather minimize the harm you do to the vulnerable than bulldoze over them in your quest for a better world? Aren't you fighting to protect them? Aren't you showing up because you care about them and want them to have a future? Isn't it all about love in the end??

I just...why is this so hard to grasp? I've never felt more confused. I thought we were doing this out of love. To minimize human suffering. To help people. But I guess that was just me being naive. Sorry.

[quill-of-thoth]

Other things to do before January, for yourself: Get any vaccines you need. Secure long term birth control, your hormones, your psych meds, to the utmost extent that you can have a stockpile of those. Connect to your friends off social media, in less public settings, and start getting legal and political information from places other than google and social media. We, as random queer people on the internet, will not be under fire first, personally at least. Laws against discrimination and corruption will be under fire first. Regulation and consumer protection laws and rules. Privacy rights, whether medical or your phone and internet activity. Disability rights, and the rights of the incarcerated or unhoused. Show the fuck up for something other than fandom.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Canada is on fire and Americans are getting mad at us for the smoke in their country.

👍 helpful.

You get that this level of smoke in effected areas is actually a severe public health issue, right? That this is actively harming people? That it’s weird to frame this as being fussy and entitled Americans complaining about a bad smell or something and not thousands of people being trapped in cities with air that burns and poisons them as they breathe?

No one is blaming the concept of Canada for this, but smoke can kill or permanently disable people just as fire can. Acting like a continental tragedy is a pissing contest between countries for who has it worse is weirdo behavior.

Yeah, healthy adults are probably going to be okay as long as the smoke doesn’t persist for too long, but those aren’t the only people living in those areas. In the urban regions in particular there are scores of unhoused people who may not be able to get masks to protect themselves or go inside where air may be filtered.

Yes! Obviously! This is affecting Canada more severely! No one is saying it isn’t, but getting aggravated with people just because they’re upset at the fact the air isn’t breathable isn’t rational and it’s certainly not helpful.

[nocturnal-heliotrope]

We have two months give or take to get a lot of work done, to pressure remaining blue politicians, and to bolster our safety nets to protect the most vulnerable among us.

Many people can't leave their state or their country, many people will be stuck exactly where they are now, so those of us in safe places need to stop wallowing in our own self pity and start looking for ways to build these networks and community and to make sure none of us get left behind in the coming years. Bureaucracy is a slow moving beast so we will have time. Not everything will happen at once. Some stuff may never happen at all. But a lot of bad stuff has happened, been happening, and continues to happen both here in the US and abroad. It is our responsibility to fight back. Trans and queer rights were won by fighting back. The civil rights movement was won by fighting back. Womens rights were won by fighting back. Disability rights were won by fighting back.

No one has ever handed us our rights out of the good of their hearts.

I saw someone earlier say that people have been surviving and fighting American oppression as long as America has existed. We can't forget those who have been trampled in the history of our country and who continue to fight for the rights of all of us with little thanks from many of us.

The absolute most important thing we can do right now is build community and strengthen coalitions. The absolute worst thing we can do is point blame, flight each other, and give up. Defeatism will kill us long before any policy can.

It is our responsibility to our siblings of color, especially black and indigenous folks, our queer, intersex, trans, and gender non conforming siblings, our disabled siblings, those of us who are at risk of or are already suffering from reproductive control, deportation, homelessness, addiction, incarceration, institutionalization, those facing poor conditions on reservations that are likely about to deteriorate further and those in the rest of the world, especially the global south, who had no vote in this race. All those who have been suffering at the hands of this regime long before the first term, who are under the boot of American imperialism, militarism, criminalization, and have lost so much.

The less these labels apply to you the more critical it is that you maintain your composure and get to work. If you have money to spare, reach out to mutual aid funds; if you want to get involved, find local community organizing groups; if you have kids, teach them to be kind and compassionate and always approach others with respect and understanding. If you can do so much as bring something warm and maybe some money or food to an unhoused person in your community, you will make that community stronger.

Now is not the time to argue and tear each other down for what happened. The more we can inoculate ourselves against despair, the more we can fight back. The reality is that over 71 million votes were cast. Many of those people had no real understanding of what that vote stood for. Many were misguided in one way or another, and won't understand the ramifications until it affects them directly. We need to build stronger communities so that type of understanding becomes innate.

We will get through this but only if we work together for a better future.

[mswyrr]

^^ Well said. I delayed reading it because I didn't want to engage with it for a while - and, once I did, even though Collins had earned so much trust from me with her handling of Katniss and Peeta's disabilities, I was still wary. So I actually highlighted every instance where she wasn't writing him according to ableist tropes.

Yes, at 18 he's been shaped by Capitol indoctrination at school and in his family and in the media. He sees with those lenses. They come easily and automatically to him. But he also connects with people as people and realizes - oh, the District kids are just kids?? And they're being starved and hurt? I know what it's like to go hungry... This is wrong. Why should Lucy Gray have to sing just to get food? I'll get her some, even though I don't have enough.

Over and over - but if you stand up for the wrong people, you will be punished. He tries it; he protects Lucy Gray. And then he pays the price and -- somewhere along the way, he doesn't want to pay anymore. He wants to protect his family and be a winner. And you can't be a winner--comfortable and safe and in control--and stand with someone your society has designated to lose. So he chooses.

It's heartbreaking - and it is, sadly, terrifyingly, the kind of choices the majority of people make - his 18-year-old choices, that is. That moment in his life is the perfect one to write about, because it turns the eye of the story on how young people are shaped - but also, at that young stage, he's closer to the common ordinary people in any corrupt society. He's just trying to survive. It's later that his urge to win motivates him to get worse and worse and worse - no longer wanting to protect his family, in fact tossing Tigris aside, *only* wanting to win. Taking pleasure in driving people into the ground.

It takes decades of choices for him to become that person, though. And it is a creation he makes of himself. The younger person is closer to most people though.

For example, I live in a democracy, thankfully. And yet it is so much driven by what Langston Hughes called "the same old stupid plan / Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak." When I walk into work and I see the cops clearing unhoused people from the only homes and safety they have--a process that we know from studies shortens peoples' lives, hurts them emotionally and physically for no gd reason, just cruelty, just greed--living in an encampment near my work - I don't do anything. I'm afraid to. Sure, I try to donate to people who help and write letters and vote... but I don't resist directly. I'd be punished. So there's a little bit of that 18-year-old kid early in the book who knows right and wrong and yet just wants to be safe in me. And I have to wrestle with it. Because I don't want to ever forget that it's a wrestling match. That's when the perverse incentive structure starts to consume you IMO. And most of us live in societies with perverse incentive structures of some kind. Some lure that is offered to us, of feeling better than, of exploiting others, and some threats of punishment too.

To my mind, it's a good story that can make me think of feeling a pang of shame and sadness and then looking away as the cops clear people and remembering that it's a struggle, that I am not simply on the side of angels, that my society is structured around cruelty and greed and it doesn't have to be. It shouldn't be.

re: the use of trauma. I'm interested to see what Viola Davis does with the role and how Dr Gaul is adjusted in the film script - honestly, her apparent flatness was one of the things in the book I thought could be better? And in film reviews I'm reading it seems like they strengthened her. We'll see. I think she's so good at leaning into why all of this is justified because she truly believes it. And she's looking for future leaders who can truly believe it too. And, as much as she and Highbottom apply pressures to shape this youth--including that hilarious imo scene where Coriolanus naively says "people love children"--by the end Coriolanus is writing her letters and offering himself as someone who will fit that shape in order to get the rewards it offers. There's a subtle shift as that happens that is quite nuanced. And, again, focusing on his youth is so powerful because he's a being in formation, a person being created and creating himself as an adult.

There's a *reason* why Collins opens the book with this quote:

“I thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence, and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him.” — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818

Though, again, the major shift of Part 3 for me is that he begins to take an active part in forming himself and he is fashioning himself to be a winner, to fit what he believes Dr Gaul and the authorities at the military school want, hoping and fearing that he won't be able to do it so well and desperately happy when the chance at rewards for doing so is still open to him. IMO Part 3 and the Epilogue aren't the end of his journey, they're the death of other possibilities and the birth of who he's choosing to become. And even he can't fully imagine where that will go as the decades pass and the choices mount up.

That is not the kind of quote you use to begin a story about someone who was born evil to begin with. The book takes 528 pages even though it's only about a few months in one 18-year-old's life precisely because it's a carefully drawn and teased out character journey, a corruption arc. As reviewer David Ehrlich put it in his review of the movie:

is Coriolanus embracing his nature or defiling it?

It's supposed to be a question, not a foregone conclusion. And I think the weight of the text itself leans in favor of "defiling" as the answer. Though it can be interpreted multiple ways (as it should be). I think the movie only lines we have from Lucy Gray in the trailer hold true: "there’s a natural goodness born into us all.” But, in one way or another, it doesn’t just stay that way, it’s a struggle. “It’s our life’s work to stay on the right side of that line [between good and evil].”

It’s a little on the nose with the themes, but I’m cool with them having her be so clear about it since apparently it’s not clear in the book I guess????

[hyperlexichypatia]

hey! ive been observing this account for a while as a person who is relatively new to anti-pysch, madpunk, and youth rights related stuff. and i wanted to ask something related to bodily autonomy. would someone refusing or downright saying they hate showering count as ones right to their own bodily autonomy? i see hygiene commonly weaponized against those who are neurodivergent or have mental illnesses and physical disabilities, that and i think hygiene has moved so far from protecting ourselves from certain viruses and diseases to "if you dont follow this specific skincare routine, buy these specific products, and take a shower in a very specific way (or use an alternative method/way that doesnt involve a shower in the first place) you're gross and should be shunned from society". i feel like our quickness to judge others who dont follow these things are may appear like they dont is connected to somethings related to consumerism and classism but i wouldnt know how to explain it as im still new to all this.

Needing help with hygiene is also really stigmatized, and people are denied access to it. Lots of people who don't have clean bodies and clothes are denied access to those things -- maybe they're unhoused and don't have a working bathroom, maybe they're disabled and can't get into the shower without assistance, which they don't have -- and of course anything associated with poor and disabled people is intensely stigmatized. So yeah, stigma on not having the right hygiene is absolutely classist and ableist. Even the word "hygiene" is often used to mean eugenics. We equate "clean" with "abled" and "dirty" with "disabled." There are even studies (I'm not sure how reliable they are because I haven't done sufficient research on them) suggesting that people adopt more conservative/judgmental attitudes when there's a bottle of hand sanitizer in view.

I think what really reveals the bad faith of the whole thing is that this kind of stigma is purely about social class and not actually about cleanliness from germs. The clearest example might be how in the 1840s, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis proposed the completely radical idea that maybe doctors should wash their hands before treating patients, and being widely denounced for suggesting that doctors could be the problem or could be dirty. The second clearest example might be the American political response to the COVID-19 pandemic -- people who had spent decades opposing the rights of poor people, unhoused people, immigrants, disabled people, people of color, queer people, etc. on the basis off "They're dirty/ they smell bad/ they're gross" suddenly pivoted to "How dare you ask me to avoid touching you or your food, wear a mask, or wash my hands, this is personally insulting to me."

Hygiene requirements are certainly necessary in certain contexts -- yes, you should have to wash your hands and wear a hairnet when preparing food, you should have to wash your hands and wear a mask before performing surgery -- but these should be things the employer provides and makes accessible.

[moopsy-daisy]

A Lifetime Secret

TW: Birth Defect/Surgery/Houselessness

I always knew about it, but my teachers were never told. Not once. All secrets are meant to protect, and this one protected my teachers from their own possible biases. Biases that could have taken a child's quirks and turned them into 'developmental disabilities' if seen through the right (wrong) lens.

I had an invisible birth defect. Well, it'd be plenty visible to anyone who cuts my hair, because the scar from the corrective surgery is currently about 2.5 inches wide. I don't know how big it was back when I was 3 months old. It must've grown with me. They were careful to keep the line hidden in my hair line.

The exact term was occipital encephalocele and only look it up if you're prepared for the pictures, they are unpleasant. The important things to know are:

• It's a neural tube defect. TL:DR my skull didn't fully grow closed and you really need a fully enclosed skull.

• It was a really small one, only about the size of the tip of an adult's pinky finger.

• The doctors said I'd probably be blind due to the location (occipital lobe of the brain does vision stuff).

• They also said I'd probably need to be institutionalized because my cognitive disability would be so severe.

My parents nodded along, got the surgery done, and my childhood began. Except, neurosurgery on a 3 month old was expensive. My family had no way to pay for it. They went bankrupt pretty much immediately. A significant part of my infancy was unhoused due to this and other hurdles.

Whenever reasonable, my parents kept the secret of my birth defect, even from doctors if they could. They wanted to see what developmental progress I made without the lens of assumed disability. It worked out nicely, I actually hit most milestones early. My unaware teachers gave me high grades and I ended up in the Gifted and Talented Education pile like so many other tumblrinas.

I'm talking about this now, for the first time publicly, because I want people to know why medical debt matters to me. By virtue of being born, I destroyed my family's finances for the next 15 years. Knowing that, by merely existing, you're unwittingly responsible for your parents going without food so that you could eat - well, my OCD's run with that story for a long time.

Except, it didn't have to be that way. If the debt hadn't existed, my needs would have simply been that. Needs. Just the needs of a newborn who got a rough dice roll.

I think it'd be amazing to wipe out debt for families or individuals, no one deserves that hanging over them. It'll be a specter looming over me for my entire life, even with therapy.

[lastoneout]

Literally a huge part of the TERF/radfem recruitment strategy is preying on women's Fear of Men(tm), and it's why I always say your feelings are valid but you MUST be aware of how those feelings can be exploited to harm other marginalized people. Disabled men, fat men, black men, unhoused men, intersex people, trans women/fems, and yes even trans men/mascs, they suffer because society has trained women, and especially cishet abled middle class white women, to view almost all men and people they perceive to be men(except for like cops and their husbands, usually), as inherently dangerous monsters who not only could, but absolutely WILL hurt them if given half the chance, and do whatever it takes to protect themselves up to and including enacting horrific violence on profoundly marginalized people who never meant them any harm.

If you have suffered at the hands of men I sympathize, I really do, I have too, but you always must be aware of what kinds of oppression that suffering and subsequent fear can be wielded in service of. Men are not your enemies and treating them all like rabid monsters you must spend all of your free time and money protecting yourself from will never result in meaningful change. It's just lateral violence with a pink coat of paint.

Idk like I think there's a really misogynist way that women are expected to consider being murdered and assaulted as like 1000x worse than anything else that could happen and do everything possible to avoid it and like it's unarguably bad! But constantly whenever I mention going hiking or whatever people are like 'omg you're going camping alone as a woman??? what if you get murdered?????' Actually by far the way I am most likely to die doing that is... some sleep deprived or drunk driver crashing into me on the way there! But no one tells you to avoid driving, meanwhile there's so much pressure on women to like, always stay in other crowded super safe areas or at home to Protect Their Virtue and it's like lol I would actually rather live an interesting life doing things that I enjoy

[chronicallycouchbound]

About:

⌂ adult / over 25 ⌂ on/off homeless ⌂ disabled ⌂ mad ⌂ neurodivergent ⌂ queer ⌂ trans ⌂ DID system ⌂ currently precariously housed ⌂ multi-marginalized ⌂ writer ⌂ artist ⌂ zero income ⌂ mixed race ⌂ community organizer ⌂ abolitionist ⌂ pagan ⌂

Essays:

May Your Hands Always Be Loud

Sword Canes Aren’t Badass. I am.

What’s So Wrong With Having Heroes?

Unlucky: Protective Factors and Homelessness

Homeless Delicacies and Finding Unhoused Joy

Internalized Ableism As Means For Unhoused Survival

Let People On Food Stamps Eat Hot Meals

Intelligence Doesn't Equal Morality

Homelessness as Trauma: Transitioning Into Housing

Winter Solstice / Homeless Persons Memorial Day

Guides:

Unhoused Solidarity in Action (how to help out unhoused people outside of just care packs)

Coming into Disability (best for newly disabled people)

Interacting with People with Psychosis

How to Support People

Underrepresentation in Homeless Statistics

Houseism

Tags:

Original Posts - #chronically couchbound

Unhoused Joy (Story Series) - #unhoused joy

Informational - #info

Guides - #guides

Reblogs - #rb

Mutual Aid Requests - #Mutual Aid Asks

Asks - #asks

Accessibility

I’m Hard of Hearing and require captions in order to interact with any video/audio. Any videos or audio I post will always have captions.

Sometimes, I don’t have the ability to add alt text, image descriptions, and/or plain text versions of posts, feel free to go back and add them if you’re able to and see them needed. I have Low Vision, transient blindness and visual disturbances due to some of my conditions and often require IDs myself. I try to avoid reblogging images without IDs. I try to go back and add IDs when I’m able.

My blogs are photosensitive safe. I will never post flashing lights, jump scares, or April Fool's jokes/pranks on any of my blogs.

Occasionally I post sensory-enriched/dopamine-friendly versions of posts that I have previously posted.

Boundaries

I live in the United States so my posts at times are more specific to USA policies. However, in other countries many of the same restrictions, barriers, and systemic issues exist and I hope some of my posts can be a starting point to your own research about your local government policies and issues.

Inbox is open for mutuals, asks are open for anyone else.

I don’t have a specific DNI list for this blog. I just ask that people be respectful and engage in appropriate conversation about the topics I bring up. Threats and just generally being hateful (+ unwilling to hear other perspectives) will earn you a block. It’s okay if you’re not the most “politically correct” or are uneducated— caring intentions matters more to me.

Other Blogs:

Hellenic polytheistic worship/main: @fireandfennel

System blog: @oleandersystem

Additionally, here’s my website

And here’s my cripplepunk playlist to listen to while you scroll!

And if you’re interested in supporting me and my writing, here’s my wishlist. I am unable to work and have been fighting for SSI with a lawyer since 2017. I have zero income and live entirely off of government aid. Many items I need aren’t covered by insurance or charity programs. This is the only way I am able to receive outside assistance from others without my government assistance vouchers being taken away.

[ecstaticangel]

isn’t it so insane that israel can slaughter innocent people and unhoused people can starve on the streets and elderly people can freeze to death in their homes and trans people are being forcibly detransitioned and kids are shooting up their own schools and having a baby can bankrupt you and climate change is already displacing and killing thousands of people and refugees have nowhere safe that welcomes them and men will send creators rape threats if they have to see a black character on their tv and if a disabled person dares to live their life they must be a faking scammer and trans attempt rates have been made into a joke and the most basic gay rights protection is being stripped away and black people are still getting murdered by the police and incarcerated people are still being sold into slavery and the richest men in the world can afford to fix almost anything but they just don’t and we’re all expected to just. go to work. go shopping. make small talk with our coworkers. never complain. never question the system that’s grinding us into dust for capital. isn’t that insane.

[glittertimes]

The day people realize neglect is abuse - and I’m not just talking about parental / familial neglect I’m talking about how kids of color, disabled kids / neurodivergent kids are neglected in schools - not having curriculum that includes your experiences, or accommodates your disabilities and needs is neglect!

I’m talking about how so many people don’t have health insurance and even when you do you’re still forced to pay thousands out of pocket when they decide not to cover things, the amount of people that are unhoused in the US, or who struggle to pay their rent and have enough food - all of that is systemic neglect!

The fact that Covid is still going and people are becoming disabled or losing their lives bc the government chose not to implement protective measures to keep people safe is neglect!

The amount of people online telling people to suck it up and that we just need to work hard to earn the right to have our needs met is wild! You can’t bootstrap your way out of abuse and neglect, and this whole idea is why we are so unsympathetic to people who have survived DV, SA and child abuse!

This is not normal and it never should have been! I saw a black activist call neglect the passive side of abuse, and the emotional and physical of effects of neglect are devastating!