#queer disability representation

[sunspotmangafan]

I hear the sunspot and disability representation: agency and respect.

Note I will be talking about ableism in media; if that is uncomfortable, feel free to scroll past.

So the other day I was watching your average media analysis videos on youtube and I came across this video that discussed disability representation, specifically in reference to deafness. I’ll be discussing it and such with how it relates to sunspot but I do recommend you check it out if you’d like.

There was the discussion of how in a fair amount of shows like medical dramas, when they have episodes that focus on a deaf/hard of hearing person and the decision of going with surgeries like cochlear implants that help them hear better, it seems as though the actual disabled persons opinions don’t matter because at the end of the day the kid is gonna get the ‘treatment’ to essentially ‘fix’ them in a way. If the person explicitly states they don’t want the implant, it doesn’t matter, they will ultimately get the implant because the narrative thinks it’s inherently better and will ‘help’/‘fix’ the person.

Like watching a video where they paint the parent who agrees with their disabled kid to not go with cochlear implants as a bad person/in the wrong.

Or shows going out of their way to give deaf characters surgeries like that to ‘fix’ them in a way. Such as deliberately not going to the parent that supports/listens to their disabled kid, or have the narrative change so that will make their child have the surgery that parent by the end as their arc.

It’s constantly giving “disabled people’s opinions and agency doesn’t matter because we as able bodied people know that they’re intently better if they’re more like us. Life will be inherently be better if they gonna conform to our world.”

I understand that ‘it’s better for you if you’re more like us’ mentality as an autistic person. But this so about Kohei and his journey in Limit as a hard of hearing protagonist.

In the Limit trilogy, a part of his arc is heavily considering getting a cochlear implant. The doctor goes over the pros and cons of it, and how even those who get it, they may not use it after the fact because it wasn’t for them or they experienced complications or whatnot, especially with how with many people who were deaf since birth (like ryuu), it’s not exactly gonna be always the best option. And how ultimately it is just a way to fit more into the hearing world.

And the most important thing here is this. KOHEI. GETS. TO. CHOOSE. FOR. HIMSELF!!!!

THEY LET THE DISABLED CHARACTER PONDER AND THINK FOR HIMSELF!! We don’t even get people ushering him to get one. In fact it’s mainly Ryuu who’s just like “dude you don’t need it”.

Ryuu is also great because he provides that push and extra perspective on his own terms using the language he’s most comfortable with to give himself the voice to challenge kohei’s internalised ableism.

(As Kohei said. He still looked down on those who couldn’t hear. He felt weak when he had to ask people to repeat themselves)

Also side note. IHTS really helps essentially destigmatise sign language. As the video says about the stigma around sign language. It’s nice to see people like Chiba, Ryuu and such be respected by the narrative when they talk about how they genuinely love the language. Kohei and Taichi are both endearing characters whose arcs involve learning to sign. Kohei starts to respect Chiba because he’s so good at not just signed Japanese, but actual JSL. It’s really refreshing!!

And you know what. While he did say that because he has late onset hearing loss, he was definitely drawn to the idea.

HE DECIDED NOT TO GET IT. AND THE NARRATIVE FUCKING RESPECTS HIM FOR IT!!!

They show that for Kohei, him getting better isn’t essentially a surgery to make him seem less Hard of Hearing. It’s about knowing he can be understood, and about knowing he can genuinely understand people, and that’s not inherently tied to hearing.

And they never act as though he’s made a grave decision, the narrative never acts like Kohei is in the wrong. It’s actually treating it like a happy ending, because it is, Kohei’s stopping thinking about a past where he may become completely deaf as though it’s inherently something he should try to avoid (a thing Ryuu helped him reconsider his personal feelings on which may have been shrouded in internal ableism) and start living in the present with a person that already respects, understands and cares for him, and who, at least now, he can hear as clear as day.

And we can’t help but be happy that he’s happy.

[saszor]

Tutorial for drawing characters with cleft lip! Sorry that it's mostly unilateral-centric but it makes up the vast majority of resources and photos. Still tried to get tips for drawing bilateral clefts in though.

Keep in mind that this is an introductory drawing tutorial and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People 👍

If you draw any characters using this feel free to tag me!

Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.

[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

[osokasstuff]

you don't have a personal responsibility to break stereotypes about your demographics. you don't have to be the perfect representation. you don't have to be a good representation. you are allowed to exist as you are, even if it somehow fits into stereotypes.

you're allowed to have your experiences, hobbies, expressions, traits, problems, symptoms, etc. even if they're stereotyped. you are not a living stereotype. you are a person. a person who happens to have some traits. you're not making the world less diverse. your existence already contributes to diversity.

[matt-w-blogging]

Why you should watch KAOS (2024) on Neftlix:

- Jeff Goldblum as Zeus

- A disabled actors play a disabled characters (Mat Fraser & another secret one [because spoilers])

- A trans actor plays a trans character (I won't say which one since it's kind of a spoiler)

- Set in modern times, uses characters from old myths but isn't a simple retelling; it's a whole new story

- All your favs are there (Prometheus, Daedalus, Persephone, Dionysus, Cassandra, Medusa, Charon, Ariadne, the Fates, the Furies, just to name a few)

- Speaking of Persephone, she and Hades are actually in love (the version of the myth which I know much of you love)

- Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss Hera (as in, she literally does all those things)

- The gods' actors' ages actually make sense, they didn't cast solely young people or make young people look older; you've got Zeus (72), Hera (63), Hades (61), Persephone (56), Poseidon (56), Dionysus (27), you get the idea

- Killer soundtrack

- Actual realistic queer characters/representation in a natural, unforced way

- Enjoyable story and comedic but also has depth (I binge-watched it in a day)

- Not a huge commitment (8 episodes of about 50 minutes each)

- Have you ever thought "What would the Ancient Greek gods be doing in modern times?" This show answers that question!

- It wasn't renewed for a second season due to viewership, so if the views explode, maybe they'll renew it and I can find out what happens next (I know it's not likely, but I can dream; besides, if just one person watches and enjoys it, then this post will have been worth it)

[a-little-revolution]

Photo ID: two screenshots, one of a past post titled "Please discontinue fantasy 'dwarves'" that can be found here, detailing why fantastical "dwarves" we know from myths and legends featured in media such as Lord of the Rings are problematic. The second is a comment from that post that reads "I doubt that real people care that much about naming cool fantasy creatures (I mean, who wouldn't like to be associated with tough dwarves who have beautiful deep singing voices?) and more about governmental institutions giving them better opportunities"

Hey there lovelies! I received this comment a while ago and I wanted to take a moment to delve into it further - because it really touches on why I started this blog in the first place, and what it's become since then.

I mostly started posting to spread awareness for little people through means of real world education, but due to the nature of tumblr, I was quickly picked up by the fantasy and writing community. I now break down dwarfism representation in media because that's what there's been a demand for (I've now been a consultant on several published written pieces). And we know that the ways marginalized communities are represented in shows, movies, books and even board games affect the way people see them in the real world - it creates stereotypes, bias, and sometimes hatred or disgust. It matters that most of the media out there depicts little people as non-human, burly, labouring creatures. It matters that most films make a laughing stock of bodies like mine. These depictions are the remnants of a world that enslaved little people, that put us on display, owned us as pets, made us entertainment.

Activism is fought at many fronts - whether it be legislation, public access, human rights, or representation. On this platform I reach over 1800 people, many of whom are authors, artists, creators and character designers. I do my part to change some minds, and in the real world I do public speaking, community outreach, and sticker graffiti (I'm also writing a book). There are lots of other little people fighting for all kinds of things - I'm doing what I can with the spoons that I have, and hopefully that inspires some progress.

[elsie-dee]

Can I just take a moment to give a big shoutout to Neil, Pterry and the team for REPRESENTATION!

It’s so natural in the show that we almost take it for granted. But in this world, we see characters of every race, every gender, every sex, every sexuality, every ability as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Women have agency. Sex workers are treated with respect. Hooligans use Grindr. Middle-aged+ people are sexy. No-one ever jeers or laughs or demeans someone for what they ARE, just how they’re behaving.

And with a couple of exceptions, these characters aren’t the Hollywood ideal of beauty, but they ARE all beautiful in their own unique ways. Even demons and zombies with rotting faces and mouths full of flies. Everyone just shines from inside out.

[cy-cyborg]

Tips for writing and drawing amputee characters: Stump Scarring

This was something I had originally intended to mention in this post but felt it deserved its own separate post.

A lot of people, when drawing and designing amputee characters, draw their characters with these big, gnarly looking scars all over the stump. I get why people do this, but in reality, most amputees have stumps that look more like this:

The only scarring that is inherent to amputation (meaning most amputees have) is a very thin line right at the tip of the stump that comes from where the stump was sewn shut. After 5-10 years though, these thin incision scars will fade to be nearly invisible in most folks other than the indent it usually leaves in the skin.

Of course, there are exceptions! My own legs are covered in heavy scarring like the pictures below.

but typically, you only see this in amputees who lost their limb in ways that required them to also need skin grafts, such as from a burn (fire or acid), gangrene, some types of rapid-onset sepsis, or particularly brutal animal attacks.

For context, I used scars from meningococcal as reference here.

I think this is another reason a lot of people, particularly in 2D comics and animation, cover their amputee character's stumps, because they think all amputees have scars like the ones in the second image and I'll be honest, that's a lot to draw when you're drawing it over and over again, but unless your amputee also needed skin grafts bcuase of their injury/illness, their stumps will look more like the first images.

Fun fact: on particularly pale skin, scars can change colour depending on temperature. scars have less circulation and the blood vessels are closer to the skin, which means if you don't have a lot of melanin, your scars can turn a grey-ish purple colour like so:

This information is brought to you by an especially pasty white person in the southern hemisphere (where it's winter atm) who's scars haven't seen the sun since june lmao.

A quick final note: If you look up "burn scars" or any other similar type of large scarring on google a lot of what you get are fresh scars, so they're going to look different than the ones here. On pale skin, large scars like the ones above start out very dark red and will fade to look more like the images here. The same is true for dark skin, typically fresh scars will be much darker in colouration and will fade to be closer to the natural skin tone with time, though on both, they will always be very visible. Some types of scarring on darker skin tones can cause the skin to become lighter, but they don't usually turn entirely light pink like I've seen some folks draw. This is why it's so important to look up references of the type of scar your character has AND how that looks on their skin tone.

And as always, listen to POC and seek out the recourses specifically made by them, especially if you're drawing characters with darker skin tones. Their lived experience will always beat my "what I found through internet research and from talking to friends"

[bizarreaizen]

i love you mspec lesbians !! i love you "cringe" bunny hat alt fashion queers !! i love you she/her gays !! i love you trans people who don't fit into gender norms or stereotypes !! i love you drag queens and drag kings !! i love you neopronouns and xenopronouns users !! i love you people who use microlabels !! i love you unlabeled people !! i love you disabled poc queers !! i love you muslim queers !! i love you non-human queers !! i love you xenogenders users !! . . ♡ /gen

[bigbeanbear]

Nimona is also a milestone in western queer animation history because Ballister (South Asian) and Ambrosius (East Asian) are both of Asian descent in the movie, the same as their voice actors. They are a canon gay Asian couple.

[irenetherogue]

First GIF I've ever made. It's of myself. If you liked it, plz tap buttons so I know you want me to make more gifs like this

[the-bi-library]

Happy Disability Pride Month!

Here are some books with disabled bi MCs to celebrate the occasion 💖

Books listed

💕 The Faithless by C.L. Clark 💕 Icebreaker by A.L. Graziadei 💕 The Immeasurable Depth of You by Maria Ingrande Mora 💕 The Luis Ortega Survival Club by Sonora Reyes 💕 Forever Is Now by Mariama J. Lockington 💕 Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert 💕 Stars in Their Eyes: A Graphic Novel by Jessica Walton 💕 The Disasters by M.K. England 💕 The Secret Summer Promise by Keah Brown 💕 Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao 💕 Scoring a Spouse by Liz Lincoln 💕 Other bound by Corinne Duyvis 💕 Play It Again by Aidan Wayne 💕 Dark Pines by Will Dean 💕 Izzy at the End of the World by K.A. Reynolds 💕 In The Ring by Sierra Isley 💕 Dearly Departed by Heather Novak 💕 Monstersona by Chloe Spencer

[saszor]

Happy Face Equality Week :-D

(short ID in alt text, longer below)

I really wanted to draw some happy people with facial differences for this week so:)

if you tag this as "tw scars" or some other "body horror" I'm killing u btw:D!!!

[Image description: digital drawing of 7 character with facial differences against a patterned background. The left side shows a gay couple sitting and hugging; one from them has a large bump on his forehead and widespread eyes, while the other has paralysis on one side of his face. In the middle is a teen girl cuddling with a cat, both of which are missing their left eye. Below her is a nonbinary person smoking a cigarette with heart-shaped smoke surrounding them; they have facial atrophy on one side of their face. The right side is split into three small panels; top one shows a Black girl with a cystic hygroma on her jaw on a pastel pink background, middle shows an Indian man with Crouzon syndrome from the side smiling, bottom is a zoom on the side of the head of a person with microtia; they're wearing a bone-anchored hearing aid and have a buzz cut with stars patterned in it. At the bottom, "Happy Face Equality Week" is written. End image description.]

[duckprintspress]

23 Queer Books for Disability Pride Month

July is Disability Pride Month! To celebrate, we asked our contributors to recommend their favorite queer books with disabled characters. The contributors to this list are: Neo Scarlett, Dei Walker, E. C., Polls, Rascal Hartley, Sanne, Meera S., Shadaras, Shea Sullivan, Annabeth Lynch, Tris Lawrence, Nova Mason, Nina Waters, and an anonymous contributor. Reminder: we encourage our rec list contributors to suggest books that spoke to them, which means that sometimes works on our rec lists do not include explicit representation.

Brooms by Jasmine Walls

Iron Widow (Iron Widow series) by Xiran Jay Zhao

Six of Crows (Six of Crows series) by Leigh Bardugo

Golden Stage by Cang Wu Bin Bai

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

The Tea Dragon Festival Treasury Edition by K. O’Neill

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

Feed (Newsflesh series) by Mira Grant

Into the Drowning Deep (Rolling in the Deep series) by Mira Grant

Nimona by N.D. Stevenson

Interesting Facts about Space by Emily Austin

Body, Remember: A Memoir by Kenny Fries

The Unbroken (Magic of the Lost series) by C.L. Clark

The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus series) by Rick Riordan

The Monster Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade series) by Seth Dickinson

Chrono Crusade (Chrono Crusade series) by Daisuke Moriyama

Tokyo Babylon by Clamp

Godkiller (Fallen Gods series) by Hannah Kaner

A Tiny Piece of Something Greater by Jude Sierra

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

The Charm Offensive (The Charm Offensive series) by Alison Cochrun

Umineko When They Cry by 07th Expansion

Copper Coins by Mu Su Li

What are your favorite queer books with disability rep?

You can view this list, and our many others, as a shelf on Goodreads!

Looking to buy any of these books or others we’ve recommended? You can browse our rec lists on Bookshop.org!

Want to chat your favorite reads with us? Join our Book Lover’s Discord server!

Love reading queer books? Our Queer Book Challenge is running on Storygraph through the end of 2024. Come join us!

[disabled-models]

Jillian Mercado, a model with muscular dystrophy, for Herring & Herring Magazine

[manicpixieyandere]

The League of Villains

Society and Quirks

So we just finished binging all of MHA and read the remaining chapters of the manga. And damn we did not expect the League of Villains to be some of our favorite characters to ever grace this Earth! But it's kinda unfortunate the franchise the ended up in. Let's talk about that!

First let's start by talking about the LoV and what quirks represented for them. In MHA it's quite common for quirks to be used as allegories for different kinds of marginalization.

Heteromorphs like Spinner are a representation of racism.

Toga's quirk is a representation of how she loves someone and how society deems that love "wrong". Toga is shown to love both boys and girls. People beg her to "just be normal". She is obviously queer.

Dabi's body was not made to deal with his own quirk. This reads as being born disabled. He also has the common disabled experience of being told to forget his dreams and aspirations.

Twice's double quirk and the trauma that came from it lead to him developing dissociative identity disorder.

Some in the LoV were also marginalized / had a rough start without anything to do with their quirks.

Magne is a trans woman.

Mr. Compress comes from a family lineage of criminals.

Shigaraki is a League of Legends player.

(No but seriously this poor kid was abused and manipulated his whole life).

Speaking of which a lot of the LoV were abused and / or neglected as children. Most of the shit Shigaraki went through was due to All For One, but it's not like his bio dad was stellar either. We all know Endeavor gets the worst dad of the year award for how he raised Toya, but Dabi also got the AFO manipulation to a degree as well. Toga's parents were neglectful and verbally abusive.

All of this is to say; The LoV members clearly had a rough life. But they found a family in each other! They all cared for each other in their own way! Twice and Toga were very close and would take care of each other. Dabi burns down Toga's childhood home. Spinner and Shigaraki bond over video games and were genuine friends. Compress takes care of everyone and saves them. Everyone is sad when Magne and Twice die.

All of this leads to this beautiful line from Shigaraki:

He wanted to be their hero. He wanted to destroy the world not just for his own urges, but to make the world a better place for his friends, for the LoV. But did he succeed, even a little bit?

Wellll... The hero society that doomed them all is still going well and thriving. The most change to come out of their mission was a bigger focus on quirk counseling. This is definitely important but it is not the only thing that needed to change. And it only changed because of ONE PERSON. The ONE person who showed empathy for Toga. Ochaco is the one to implement this change, but she is only one person. She cannot change the entire world on her own.

This is where we just can't get past the clear biases in the writing of MHA. The villains are not treated fairly. For example the heroes get off scott free with practically EVERYTHING. Bakugo dies? Just kidding! Oh the condition for him coming back to life was now Edgeshot has to die? Nah he's fine too. Deku had an entire arc about wanting to save Shigaraki when no one else agreed, only for him to kill him in the end. And after killing him it's not like he implemented changes to help prevent whoever the next Shigaraki is gonna be. The cycle will continue until changes are made.

So as you can see there is clear favoritism in the writing. And that is something that tends to be an issue whenever you have a plot device such as quirks that represent marginalization and you have villains who are trying to fight their oppressors. Let's look at a few examples!

For animation fans an example that leaves a bitter taste in our mouth is The Dragon Prince's dark magic. Dark magic is something that is seen as corrupt but also explained to be a way for humans to have magic to fight their oppressors as they were seen as less than since they had no magic. But dark magic is also used as an allegory for drugs and addiction, so it gets messy.

For the superhero fans let's look at The Boys. Supes are a complete mess. You have them representing conservatives and cops in an "all supes are bastards way" while also having them as a marginalized race in danger of being genocided. You can't have both.

Both of these examples show messy allegories in fantasy where rising against your oppressors is painted as wrong and the marginalized are also seen in a negative light due to some other component of their fantasy (drugs and cops respectively). MHA falls into the same trap with its villains. They're fighting their oppressors. They are oppressed due to their quirks just being who they are, but those quirks also lead to violent murderous urges (decay and transform most of all). It ends up creating a scenario where you teach the audience that it's bad to rise against your oppressors, it's bad to want change.

So what could they have done differently? Without completely redoing the quirk fantasy, the simplest answer would be to REDO THE SYSTEM! They hinted many times in the series it needed to change somehow and just never did. Normal civilians even wanted it changed, not just the villains! But it just doesn't change. They needed to put more focus on that push not just from the villains but from the innocent civilians as well to prove it's something that needed to change. But it never will. It's fiction and the book is closed.

But just because it's fictional doesn't mean it doesn't represent real world events. The story teaches negative things about marginalization and how we should never make a stand. It's like telling all the women right now in America to not be angry their anatomy and rights are being taken away from them. It's telling those women to love the man who is doing this to them. It's telling queer people to just accept they can't get married or transition anymore. It's telling us there is nothing to be done. But remember that isn't true! If you keep fighting things could change. It unfortunately may not be in your lifetime, but at least we can try to make things better for the future generations so no one has to hurt like the LoV did, like real people do today.