#solidarity among the disabled

[nateconnolly]

And then you spend more than a day's wages to go back when they are open to spend at least half a day's wages for the ID you are required to have to access health care and also everything else in this country. *cries in chronically ill*

Anon and I have looked into the bureaucracy’s eyes and we know that behind them there is only silence

[area51-escapee]

I hate the attitude people have of “oh this group I don’t care about at all/as much as others is speaking up about their oppression and the problems they face, I can’t believe they think they’re the most oppressed people in the world 🙄” like speaking about about the issues we face isn’t claiming we suffer more than jesus or some shit, especially when those issues largely go ignored by the same people who consider themselves progressives! People in the southern U.S. are oppressed actually! There is so much racism and classism weaponized against those from the south, and the people who are hit hardest by that will always be those in marginalized communities, southern people of color, southern queer people, southern disabled people, you get the fucking picture! And yeah I think we should be allowed to speak up about this, because self righteous liberals up north will lock their car doors when a person of color walks by and then preach to southerners online that we’re all just too poor and stupid to be as good as them! They’ll blame us for our own oppression and tell us to just pack up and abandon our homes and everything we know otherwise we aren’t worthy of their sympathy. Of course I ain’t saying that southerners are the most oppressed group in the whole world but we should still be allowed to talk about the problems we do face, not just from our governments and our neighbors but from people elsewhere who would rather blame us and mock us and leave us behind than DARE to associate with us.

[kropotkindersurprise]

September 26, 2022 - Congratulations to the Cuban people for voting in favor of the Family Code! [article]

The new code guarantees the right of all people to form a family without discrimination, legalizing same sex marriage and allowing same sex couples to adopt children. Under the new code, parental rights will be shared among extended and non-traditional family structures that could include grandparents, step parents and surrogate mothers. The code also adds novelties such as prenuptial agreements and assisted reproduction.

The Code promotes equal distribution of domestic responsibilities amongst men and women and extends labor rights to those who care full-time for children, the elderly, or people with disabilities. The code establishes the right to a family life free from violence, one that values ​​love, affection, solidarity and responsibility. It codifies domestic violence penalties, and promotes comprehensive policies to address gender-based violence.

The Code also outlaws child marriage and corporal punishment, stating that parents will have “responsibility” instead of “custody” of children, and will be required to be “respectful of the dignity and physical and mental integrity of children and adolescents.” It also asserts that parents should grant maturing offspring more say over their lives.

The new code also expands the rights of the elderly and people with disabilities. It recognizes the role of grandfathers and grandmothers in the transmission of values, culture, traditions and care.

[fatehbaz]

When you tag things “#abolition”, what are you referring to? Abolishing what?

Prisons, generally. Though not just physical walls of formal prisons, but also captivity, carcerality, and carceral thinking. Including migrant detention; national border fences; indentured servitude; inability to move due to, and labor coerced through, debt; de facto imprisonment or isolation of the disabled or medically pathologized; privatization and enclosure of land; categories of “criminality"; etc.

In favor of other, better lives and futures.

Specifically, I am grateful to have learned from the work of these people:

Ruth Wilson Gilmore on “abolition geography”.

Katherine McKittrick on "imaginative geographies"; emotional engagement with place/landscape; legacy of imperialism/slavery in conceptions of physical space and in devaluation of other-than-human lifeforms; escaping enclosure; plantation “afterlives” and how plantation logics continue to thrive in contemporary structures/institutions like cities, prisons, etc.; a “range of rebellions” through collaborative acts, refusal of the dominant order, and subversion through joy and autonomy.

Macarena Gomez-Barris on landscapes as “sacrifice zones”; people condemned to live in resource extraction colonies deemed as acceptable losses; place-making and ecological consciousness; and how “the enclosure, the plantation, the ship, and the prison” are analogous spaces of captivity.

Liat Ben-Moshe on disability; informal institutionalization and incarceration of disabled people through physical limitation, social ostracization, denial of aid, and institutional disavowal; and "letting go of hegemonic knowledge of crime”.

Achille Mbembe on co-existence and care; respect for other-than-human lifeforms; "necropolitics" and bare life/death; African cosmologies; historical evolution of chattel slavery into contemporary institutions through control over food, space, and definitions of life/land; the “explicit kinship between plantation slavery, colonial predation, and contemporary resource extraction” and modern institutions.

Robin Maynard on "generative refusal"; solidarity; shared experiences among homeless, incarcerated, disabled, Indigenous, Black communities; to "build community with" those who you are told to disregard in order "to re-imagine" worlds; envisioning, imagining, and then manifesting those alternative futures which are "already" here and alive.

Leniqueca Welcome on Caribbean world-making; "the apocalyptic temporality" of environmental disasters and the colonial denial of possible "revolutionary futures"; limits of reformism; "infrastructures of liberation at the end of the world."; "abolition is a practice oriented toward the full realization of decolonization, postnationalism, decarceration, and environmental sustainability."

Stefano Harney and Fred Moten on “the undercommons”; fugitivity; dis-order in academia and institutions; and sharing of knowledge.

AM Kanngieser on "deep listening"; “refusal as pedagogy”; and “attunement and attentiveness” in the face of “incomprehensible” and immense “loss of people and ecologies to capitalist brutalities”.

Lisa Lowe on "the intimacies of four continents" and how British politicians and planters feared that official legal abolition of chattel slavery would endanger Caribbean plantation profits, so they devised ways to import South Asian and East Asian laborers.

Ariella Aisha Azoulay on “rehearsals with others’.

Phil Neel on p0lice departments purposely targeting the poor as a way to raise municipal funds; the "suburbanization of poverty" especially in the Great Lakes region; the rise of lucrative "logistics empires" (warehousing, online order delivery, tech industries) at the edges of major urban agglomerations in "progressive" cities like Seattle dependent on "archipelagos" of poverty; and the relationship between job loss, homelessness, gentrification, and these logistics cities.

Alison Mountz on migrant detention; "carceral archipelagoes"; and the “death of asylum”.

Pedro Neves Marques on “one planet with many worlds inside it”; “parallel futures” of Indigenous, Black, disenfranchised communities/cosmologies; and how imperial/nationalist institutions try to foreclose or prevent other possible futures by purposely obscuring or destroying histories, cosmologies, etc.

Peter Redfield on the early twentieth-century French penal colony in tropical Guiana/Guyana; the prison's invocation of racist civilization/savagery mythologies; and its effects on locals.

Iain Chambers on racism of borders; obscured and/or forgotten lives of migrants; and disrupting modernity.

Paulo Tavares on colonial architecture; nationalist myth-making; and erasure of histories of Indigenous dispossession.

Elizabeth Povinelli on "geontopower"; imperial control over "life and death"; how imperial/nationalist formalization of private landownership and commodities relies on rigid definitions of dynamic ecosystems.

Kodwo Eshun on African cosmologies and futures; “the colonial present”; and imperialist/nationalist use of “preemptive” and “predictive” power to control the official storytelling/narrative of history and to destroy alternatives.

Tim Edensor on urban "ghosts" and “industrial ruins”; searching for the “gaps” and “silences” in the official narratives of nations/institutions, to pay attention to the histories, voices, lives obscured in formal accounts.

Megan Ybarra on place-making; "site fights"; solidarity and defiance of migrant detention; and geography of abolition/incarceration.

Sophie Sapp Moore on resistance, marronage, and "forms of counterplantation life"; "plantation worlds" which continue to live in contemporary industrial resource extraction and dispossession.

Deborah Cowen on “infrastructures of empire and resistance”; imperial/nationalist control of place/space; spaces of criminality and "making a life at the edge" of the law; “fugitive infrastructures”.

Elizabeth DeLoughrey on indentured labor; the role of plants, food, and botany in enslaved and fugitive communities; the nineteenth-century British Empire's labor in the South Pacific and Caribbean; the twentieth-century United States mistreatment of the South Pacific; and the role of tropical islands as "laboratories" and isolated open-air prisons for Britain and the US.

Dixa Ramirez D’Oleo on “remaining open to the gifts of the nonhuman” ecosystems; hinterlands and peripheries of empires; attentiveness to hidden landscapes/histories; defying surveillance; and building a world of mutually-flourishing companions.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on reciprocity; Indigenous pedagogy; abolitionism in Canada; camaraderie; solidarity; and “life-affirming” environmental relationships.

Anand Yang on "forgotten histories of Indian convicts in colonial Southeast Asia" and how the British Empire deported South Asian political prisoners to the region to simultaneously separate activists from their communities while forcing them into labor.

Sylvia Wynter on the “plot”; resisting the plantation; "plantation archipelagos"; and the “revolutionary demand for happiness”.

Pelin Tan on “exiled foods”; food sovereignty; building affirmative care networks in the face of detention, forced migration, and exile; connections between military rule, surveillance, industrial monocrop agriculture, and resource extraction; the “entanglement of solidarity” and ethics of feeding each other.

Avery Gordon on haunting; spectrality; the “death sentence” of being deemed “social waste” and being considered someone “without future”; "refusing" to participate; "escaping hell" and “living apart” by striking, squatting, resisting; cultivating "the many-headed hydra of the revolutionary Black Atlantic"; alternative, utopian, subjugated worldviews; despite attempts to destroy these futures, manifesting these better worlds, imagining them as "already here, alive, present."

Jasbir Puar on disability; debilitation; how the control of fences, borders, movement, and time management constitute conditions of de facto imprisonment; institutional control of illness/health as a weapon to "debilitate" people; how debt and chronic illness doom us to a “slow death”.

Kanwal Hameed and Katie Natanel on "liberation pedagogy"; sharing of knowledge, education, subversion of colonial legacy in universities; "anticolonial feminisms"; and “spaces of solidarity, revolt, retreat, and release”.

[redjaybathood]

This is very important. In Crimea, russians, again, start to use fake criminal investigations to incarcerate Crimean Tatars. This is not new - but it is the new mass wave of searches on trumped-up charges and arrests.

Translation of the thread below.

1/9 Mass searches in Crimea

10 Crimean Tatar families. 10 homes, where russian "security forces" broke into at dawn. What do we know about the newe wave of mass searches on the Crimean peninsula? 

2/9 4 activists of "Crimean Solidarity", Bakhchysarai, as well as 6 religion leaders and activists from Dzhankoy district, became victims of the rampage of the occupatoinal forces.

Among them, the former Imam Remzi Kurtnezirov, who has a severe disability.

 3/9 "Security forces" behaved themselves very rudely, despite the presence of elderly and small children.

Over the course of the searches, they took documents, tech, and literature. Moreover, the relatieves of the detained people state that the books were planted.

 4/9 FSB agents, when asked by the relatives, replied that they are looking for weapons and illicit chemicals. 

The men are charged with Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - the same one that the Hizb ut-Tahrir cases are fabricated under.

5/9 After the searches, Crimean Tatars were taken to FSB HQ in Simferopol. 

Currently, some of them were allowed a lawyer but the pre-trial detention measure was not choosen yet.

6/9 Names of the detained: Rustem Osmanov, Aziz Azizov, Memet Lumanov, Mustafa Abduramanov, Remzi Kurtnezirov, Vakhid Mustafayev, Ali Mamutov, Arsen Kashka, Enver Khalilayev, Nariman Ametov

7/9  

According to preliminary information, this is the third largest wave of searches on the alleged involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir. 

The most massive searches took place in March 2019, when 24 Crimean Tatars were targeted.

8/9 CrimeaSOS analyst Yevhen Yaroshenko notes that detentions in the "Hizb ut-Tahrir cases" in Crimea are intensified approximately once every six months.

This is due to the targeted plan for certain categories of "cases" that intelligence officers have to fulfill.

9/9 Repressions against Crimean Tatars are one of the principles of russia's criminal policy on the peninsula. 

In order to stop the occupiers, we must respond firmly to every manifestation of lawlessness and effectively oppose it

[a-little-revolution]

Hello, I really wanted to express my personal gratitude to you for having this blog and sharing your voice. For context, I am an able-bodied and intellectually disabled person of color who is of short stature (not a little person). You are the *first* online activist I have encountered who takes seriously the cultural and accessibility issues that come with being short (LP or not), and having related proportions like small hands and short legs. These traits are also very often racialized in my experience as an Asian person, another angle that I have seen no one talk about despite its prominence in my life.

It pains me immensely how normalized it is even among "progressive" circles to mock and shame short stature, and to dismiss the people who vocalize being hurt. It reminds me of how my disability is treated, even amongst the most otherwise progressive people. The things you say about "physical comedy" strike a chord in me because it is deeply damaging to see my proportions only emphasized as comic relief, and even more damaging to see otherwise inclusive people laugh along. I often feel universally ostracized and belittled; I have been denied the dignity and respect of adulthood due to my race, my disability, and yes, my stature, and very, very few people take me seriously on this issue. Again, you are the first person I have seen online treating this with any measure of dignity. Even though I am not myself a little person, I thank you sincerely for helping me feel seen and for allowing me to discover a community with which I feel solidarity.

Hello!! I'm so glad you've found my blog helpful!! Yes, there are several access and social issues that go beyond simply people with dwarfism, to all people of short stature! We may not have the same history or face the same medical discrimination, but the culture surrounding being short and the world that is built for the average heighted (white man) can be just as debilitating and easily overlooked!

I'm happy to provide this solidarity, especially when it means that blogs like mine can be valuable to a variety of demographics. Little people are a small minority, and face one of the last socially acceptable forms of discrimination - all allies are welcome here.

Elliot (they/them)

[decolonize-the-everything]

I'm so tired of logging on seeing queer discourse (among other kinds).

They are banning books, self expression, and HRT outside. You realize this? Our government is building cop cities, increasing police budgets, and bloating the military budget. They dropped affirmative action, disability lawyers don't want to bring forward lawsuits because they don't want to provide the supreme court an opportunity to gut the ADA because even they know it's hostile towards disability rights, NYPD interrupted BLM over their permit to celebrate Juneteenth.

I do not know how to make it more clear that literally none of us have room to fuck around and those of us are that are seriously wanting to make some change are watching y'all like teachers in a room full of kids that haven't got the hint to be quiet.

And before y'all say "we can care about 2 things"

Good for you, but as a community if one thing has been made very clear it's that as a collective we can not split our focus. When we do shit like this happens:

And that's just the attacks on queer rights! And that's just this year so far.

That averages to over 100 bills per state targeting the queer community and our rights.

•••

Can we please focus on our collective oppression and solidarity instead. We all have shit to work on okay? Nobody is a perfect ally, even people in your community and yeah that's messed up! But maybe we can set that aside for the sake of our literal rights and lives. At least for a bit.

like is it just me or does it seem tone deaf as fuck to be calling members of your community ignorant bigots for having internalized xyz (that they weren't even fully aware of) when there are powerful, financially backed think tanks and white supremacist orgs currently spending every dime they have on elections and to spread as many hateful policies as they can? Esp when those policies are having devastating real life effects on real people and costing lives?

Like idk.

Yeah the lesbian cashier who assumed my gender is an asshole, but I think it'd be a better use of my time to address the crowd outside that's discussing whether or not to blow up the Queer Store I'm standing in. I will have my whole life to check queer assholes and educate and accuse other people of not being good enough allies to me specifically, but that's only if I do everything I can to save both our lives first.

For the record, because I know someone is reading this in bad faith: I'm not saying the transphobic lesbian should be let off the hook or ignored. I'm saying that her education is secondary to the much more urgent need to work together and save our lives.

Likewise I'm so fucking tired of seeing of the transphobic lesbian whine and complain about how her space is being invaded by evil trans customers when there is literally a crowd outside that wants to kill them both.

[intersectionalpraxis]

I've seen a lot of (usually white) feminists talk about how western/European women should also replicate/do '4B' as well just as Korean women have -without recognizing or understanding the context with which 4B arose.

The current very right-wing South Korean President, Yoon Suk Yeol, is very much responsible for continuing to put the health, well-being, as well as safety of Korean women at risk. Whether it be through him vehemently stating gender discrimination no longer exists to attempting to abolish the ONLY organizing that focuses on supporting women -the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

He has also only added a handful of women into his cabinet AFTER he was criticized for not having done so in the first place. When he was elected back in 2022, my solidarity has and will always remain with women and folks who experience marginalization in South Korea, such as those in the LGBTQIA+ and disability community, among many. I will, nor should NO ONE ever forget how this man campaigned/how he was elected in mass by misogynistic men.

President Yoon Suk Yeol also remarked about creating incentives for MEN by lowering their mandatory military service if they have more children with their wives... needless to say, 4B is specific to the lived experiences and realities of living under patriarchy in South Korea in many elements of her daily life. I stumbled on this video on my fyp, and this Creator gives SO much great context to 4B, and for those who can watch/listen I highly recommend this video as a start to understanding Korean feminism.

[queerprayers]

any tips/advice for someone who is not catholic who wants to participate in lent? like how to choose what to give up etc?

Cheers to not letting Catholics have a monopoly on Lent, beloved! Last year I answered a similar ask that might be helpful. Here are the thoughts I have right now!

[CW: discussion of eating/fasting in italics] My most important note/disclaimer: Fasting is not for everyone. It is a beautiful tradition (for Catholics and non-Catholics) that can change people's lives, but if it's going to be a part of your practice, do it on purpose, knowing yourself. It inherently changes your relationship with food--and for people who have always had enough to eat, who have never struggled with disordered eating, who have never been seriously ill, there can be a solidarity and new perspective in fasting, in realizing how sensory experiences and comfort and mortality go together, how privileged you are to have the choice to go hungry. But for those who have struggled with food insecurity, or have lived through/live with eating disorders/disability/illness, or any other experience/relationship with food/the body that changes your perspective, fasting will often be a re-traumatizing or triggering practice that doesn't change your perspective so much as reinforce unhealthy ones. Something I think about: why fast if you cannot feast? Lenten fasting brings us to Easter feasting--if that's not accessible to you, if that wouldn't be joyful or affordable or healthy, fasting probably isn't either. Okay, all that said:

There is so much diversity in what a Lenten practice can look like, and I can't tell you what will be most meaningful for you, but I'll give you some ideas and some questions that have been helpful for me to ask myself! Lent existed way before the Catholic/Protestant divide, and exists among so many diverse communities, and there is a path here for you if you want one.

"Giving up something" is the most common language used for Lent--fasting technically refers to anything abstained from--and generally that's really useful! Jesus's forty days in the wilderness was time that he had nothing but God, and during Lent we can get closer to that experience. I give things up not as punishment or a test of self-control (those ideas trigger unhealthy behavior patterns for me), but as a letting go of something that is in my life but doesn't need to be, and may deserve reconsidering. Sometimes it's a bad habit, but sometimes it's just a conscious allowing of my life to grow simultaneously smaller and bigger. There is space for grief during Lent, but we're not just making ourselves feel bad--I've never found forced emotions to be spiritually helpful. Emotions come and go--we're doing this on purpose, and whatever we feel about it, we make space for that.

Ideas of things to give up:

eating out/getting coffee/buying drinks/little treats

impulse buying/nonessentials (you could pick a category, like clothes, or go all out)

alcohol/drugs/smoking (if this would be starting a recovery journey, I am not the person to ask for advice on that but please do seek help)

social media (you could choose one app to give up, or set time limits--it doesn't have to be all or nothing)

scrolling-on-your-phone time before bed/another time when you get sucked in

another form of casual entertainment (like TV/video games--again, you can limit this rather than cutting it out)

sexual activity (I talked about this here)

makeup/other appearance-related thing (I must confess I have considered doing this and always chickened out. I know that's because it would force me to rethink too many things, which is a probably a sign I should do it one of these years.)

a social habit, like gossiping or getting into arguments online

overscheduling/not having rest days (this is often unavoidable, but rest is necessary and holy, and perhaps this is the season for sacrifice in honor of rest)

single-use plastics/another environmental choice

Note: I don't think any of these things are inherently bad things. This is a list of things we can change/investigate our relationship with or have a season without them as a distraction, not things I think we shouldn't be doing or we should feel bad about.

One of the most important things I've realized is that so often I have given something up and not done anything about it. Like I didn't watch TV for forty days and was mad about it and then Lent was over and I watched TV again. Perhaps this strengthened my self-discipline, or made my life better in a way known only to God, but ultimately nothing happened. I didn't consciously do anything else, I didn't learn anything.

Now, when I give up something, I purposely do something with whatever space it leaves. If I'm not watching TV, what am I going to do when I would usually watch TV? Am I gonna pray? go to bed earlier? call my grandmother? Am I gonna cancel my Netflix subscription for a couple months and donate that saved money? Or maybe I'm gonna give up watching mindless TV, and find stories that resonate and make me think. Don't give things up to check a box, but to reexamine your relationship with them, make everyday things sacred, fill the space/time/money/energy you now have with God, and ultimately to set this time apart.

The other way of looking at Lent practices is things you can add. Often, as I mentioned, they go together--you can pair up something you're no longer buying with somewhere to donate to, or give up an activity and replace it with a new one. I always caution against Lent-as-self-improvement--obviously I can support improving our habits, but I've seen too many people use Lent to restart their new year's workout plans, and while exercise can be a way to care for ourselves, if new year's and Lent are treated the exact same way, what's different about this season? What makes this Lent?

One of the questions I've been asking myself recently is: What are you gonna do about it? When I'm investigating a belief, or learning something new, or reframing an old thought process, I ask myself: What am I gonna do about it? Lent is a path to Holy Week--something I and many others commemorate as the week when God was put on trial and literally killed. I genuinely believe God died and was resurrected--how does this affect my life? Believing something like that and not letting it change you is, to me, inauthentic. When I'm considering a belief, I think, if this were true, how would it change me? Would it lead me to Love? Lent (and Christianity itself) over and over asks us to do something about what we say we believe. Faith without works is dead--and faith is a work, something I do.

It's almost Lent, which is preparation for the Resurrection, which fundamentally changes our understanding of what it means to be alive--so what are you gonna do about it? Not because doing something will make God love you more or make you a "better person," or even because you'll succeed or change your life, but because how can we not? We are of course welcome at Easter having done nothing, but I can't imagine knowing what's coming and not letting it change me.

Ideas of things to add to our lives:

start a prayer/Bible routine--I can now wholeheartedly recommend (as a Protestant who connects with ancient traditions but not always Catholicism) Phyllis Tickle's Divine Hours books! For Bible study, I like The Bible Project's videos.

read a book--it can be anything that connects you with God! (I had a lovely experience with Lenten Lord of the Rings last year, and this year I'm properly going through the Quran)

pick a subject to research (theological or anything else)

start to attend worship services or commit to attending more--this could include going to several different places if you don't currently belong to a church

research places to volunteer for or donate to

do something politically active, like calling your representatives, researching the next local election, or attending a protest

donate to the next [insert number here] posts you see online requesting mutual aid

start a physical practice like taking a walk or stretching

write a letter or call someone regularly, especially with people you've been wanting to connect with more or have unresolved conflict with

start/commit to more regular therapy/other health treatment

ask for help--maybe you're the one who needs mutual aid, or reaching out to, or support cleaning your house or with your kids. there is no shame in this.

These are all obviously things we can be doing year round, and certainly we can use Lent as a season to start something we want to keep with us! I'd also encourage us to have something that's only present during Lent, or something that we do more or in a different way.

You asked how to choose, and I don't have a one sentence answer to that (...obviously), but perhaps in these days before Lent you can look at your routine/habits, the places where God is present, the things you do to distract yourself from life (not a crime--just something to be mindful of), and you can see where Lent might be able to come in and change you. The thing that's nagging at you that you know might be helpful, the thing you're not in control of and just do, the time you take up or the money you spend that might not be bad but also doesn't lead you anywhere. We can't expect every aspect of our lives to be purposeful and present, or to be continuously improving ourselves (in fact, that sounds terribly stressful and unsustainable)--but we can look around us. We can have a season that looks different because everyone I've ever known has a brain that craves ritual in some way--and either we do it on purpose, or we fall into it. Do something (or don't do something) a little more on purpose this season.

Another think to think about is what Sundays will look like for you--the "forty days" don't count them. There's no fasting on Sundays--my mom says every Sunday is a little Easter. "Sundays in Lent" is such an interesting concept because it's very much Lent, but the rhythm of our weeks breaks through. When I give up soda, I'll have one as a celebration on Sundays, but a prayer/reading practice I'll continue through. It's up to you and depends on what your rhythm/habits ask of you.

Ultimately, let God interrupt you. Let Them seep in the cracks of everything you do and let go of. To be loved is to be changed. Even the smallest thing--like wearing a cross necklace every day--can cause our lives to be filled with noticing God's presence. I keep saying to do this on purpose, but know that I find Them much more often by accident.

And an obligatory note: starting Lent late, stopping your practice halfway through, not meeting a goal, whatever comes up--Easter still comes for you. Lent is for paying attention, for making space, not for perfection.

I also want to add that while a lot of Lenten practices (including most I've mentioned here) tend to be personal, ultimately what is asked of us is interpersonal. We make space in our life and be more present in the name of Love--which we cannot do alone. If a practice is not specifically about other people (like volunteering/donating), ask yourself how it will serve the ways you love others? This isn't a trick question, just something to think about. Personally, my study of the Quran this season will connect me with my Muslim siblings through time and enable me to more fully love the Muslims around me, and my rhythm of the divine hours will connect me with the wider Christian community and center me as I go about my day, allowing me to be more present in my relationships.

Easter comes whether we're ready or not--and I don't think we can be ready. But we can look at the small parts of ourselves, set this time apart, see what we can change our relationship with, and perhaps when Easter comes, we will every year have come that much closer to understanding what it means to live out the resurrection by honoring the death that came first.

Wishing you a blessed almost-Lent, and praying for you and your practice (as well as all those reading this)!

<3 Johanna

[the-delta-quadrant]

queer unity and solidarity between butches and femmes and those who are neither, between lesbians and veldians, between bis and pans and polys and omnis, between aros and aces, between trans and non-binary people, between, between LGB and TQIA+, between transmascs and transfems and transneutrals and trans-others, between aces who fuck and aces who don't, between aros who date and aros who don't, between the fluids and the statics, between polyamorous and nonamorous people, between intersex and trans and non-binary people, between unlabelled people and labelhoarders, between questioning folk and those who know and those who don't care to find out, between closeted and out people, between stealth trans folk and those who who are openly trans, between periorienteds and variorienteds, between mspecs and aspecs and non-binary and intersex people and everyone else who doesn't fit binaries, between people who use old language and people who use labels that were coined yesterday, between those with easily understood identities and those with complex identities, between fat queers and queers of colour and disabled queers and other queers who are marginalised among queers, between queers of all flavours and shades of grey and stripes of the rainbow.

queer solidarity for all, queer unity in the fight against oppression, because otherwise, they will win.

queer unity and solidarity as we exit queer pride month and enter dissbled pride month.

[librarycards]

Hello! Sorry if you’ve posted about this somewhere already/if it’s redundant, but I thought your coinage of “transMad” was very cool and I’m wondering what that term means to you? I’m really happy to see other people talking about madness being intertwined w their gender/transness and looking forward to checking out your reading lists :))

thank you so much for asking about one of my favorite things to infodump about!! rather than rehash a bunch of stuff, if it's okay, I'm going to borrow a few quotes from past!me that i've published in different places // offer you some things of mine to read.

broadly, though, i use transMadness as a way to explore the identificatory, epistemological, methodological, and theoretical implications of an orientation (to use Sara Ahmed's term) toward bodymind noncompliance and self/selves-determination. this orientation refuses to delineate diagnostically between Maddened / transed experiences of the world/our many worlds, and instead takes this shared/overlapping ground as a jumping off point for solidarity and speculation - that is, something that allows us to imagine otherwise worlds / make them manifest through creativity and collaboration.

(Ha, and I claimed i wouldn't talk too much...famous autistic last words)

ANYWAY. here are some clips that might help explain more dimensions of transMadness. note that, in my dissertation-in-progress, i'm focusing on xeno/neogender and/as self-diagnostic cultures among queercrip and transMad internet users. i'm interested in the anti-psych liberatory potential of this digital community work, especially as it centers forms of knowledge and scholarship devalued within Academia Proper, especially because so much of it is made by and for disabled, Mad, queer, trans people, esp. youth. Onward to quotes!

On transMad epistemologies: citation/power/knowledge:

I’ll spend most of this piece looking not at what transMad is, but what it does. First and foremost, transMad cites. Even its name alludes to other portmanteaus: neuroqueer and queercrip being the best-known among them. Many people have offered many different (ever-“working”!) definitions of these terms; today, I offer co-coiner Nick Walker’s (2021) definition of neuroqueer: a verb and an adjective “encompass[ing] the queering of neurocognitive norms as well as gender norms” (p. 196). In terms of queercrip, I also return to its coiner, Carrie Sandahl (2003), who for whom the queercrip (as person and as method/movement) confuses the diagnostic gaze, bears sociopolitical witness, and performs glitchful[4], incongruous, confusing in(ter)ventions into possible community. At base, “queer” and “crip” appear as analogous, reclaimed slurs signifying marginalized transgression. When combined, they describe a loop, perhaps a Möbius strip: crip (ani)mates queer, queer tells-on crip. The specter of crip haunts queer—and even more explicitly, as we will see, trans—and the crip(ped) bodymind holds, moves, and fucks queerly. Who knows where “queer” stops and “crip” and “neuro” begin? Likewise, transMad, whose citational style leaves little room for diagnostic clarity amidst a pastiche of noncompliant text.

On transMad epistemologies: multiplicity (h/t @materialisnt):

They encourage us to remove others’ names from our bodies, to reign in unruly citations, to set “boundaries” which violate Mad, crip ethics of care (see Fletcher, 2019). In truth, any framing of individual authorship in which the body text is “mine” and the citations gesture “elsewhere” belie the inherent interdependence of all intellectual life, and particularly of transMad intellectual life. transMad plural scholar mix. alan moss (2022) argues in relation to the pathologization of multiple systems: “all people, indeed all that exists, is a system that itself is constantly enmeshed in several overlapping and interconnected systems.” In short, I am full of Is, and will continue as many more. Just as disability justice helps us understand all life as interdependent and deserving of access, a transMad approach sees our selves as numerous and fuzzy. We have permission to dispense with the need for tidy texts, with our interlocutors, edits, and iterations either obfuscated entirely or exclusively relegated to a bibliography. transMad citation may thus be considered akin to visible mending[6], creating flamboyantly messy, multiplicitous work that does not seek to pass as objective or discrete.

On the value of (crip) failure and/as "virtuality":

Don’t get me wrong: Zoom PhD work is a failing enterprise. That is to say, it is a queercrip, transMad enterprise, which is to say, it is a beautiful, beautiful project. Mitchell, Snyder, and Ware describe such “fortunate failures” in the context of “curricular cripistemologies.”5 Coined by Merri Lisa Johnson, the term “cripistemologies,” refers to “embodied ways of knowing in relation, knowing-with, knowing-alongside, knowing-across-difference, and unknowing,” ways which frequently exist outside the purview of mainstream academia.6 Curricular cripistemologies, then, refer to an intentional, queercrip deviation from normative pedagogical approaches which trades the corrective impulse of “special ed” and other rehabilitative programs, and offers instead a generative noncompliance.7 That is, rather than trying to identify, isolate, and ameliorate difference, curricular cripistemologies lean into difference as it is experienced by disabled students ourselves, querying how atmospheres of in/accessibility shape normative approaches to education and how the embrace of “failure,” not as a last-resort but as a first choice, poses potentially transformative possibilities.

On transMadness and fat liberation: (for @trans-axolotl's Psych Survivor Zine)

A transMad, fat approach to disorderly eating requires making connections with humility and understanding, and, as I discussed above, engaging in compassionate, critical interrogation of our own anti-fatness.

[...]

A transMad, fat, abolitionist politic is one that makes room. We imagine beyond the cage, even if the details of that imagining are not yet clear. Just as we have carved micro-sites of support within violent digital and in-person contexts, just as we have learned to think about our lifeworlds beyond the paradigm of “recovery or death,” we can also reconceptualize fatness not as the enemy, but as another form of bodymind noncompliance in alliance and/or entanglement with disorderly eating practices. For thin disorderly eaters, this requires us to fundamentally challenge the way we view food and embodiment, even while maintaining a Mad respect for alternative ways of approaching reality.

On xenogenders, virtuality, and self-determination:

It is this very “irrationality” –– the “unrealness,” the “you’ve-got-to-be-kiddinghood,” that is most frequently weaponized against xenogenders, as well as their newly-coined sets of xenopronouns. The perceived and actual virtuality of xenogenders is often placed against the notion of “actuality,” in this case, of “real” (or “practical”) genders and pronouns to be used in one’s “real life.” Disabled activists have rightly resisted the distinction between online and (presumed-offline) “real life,” given that this categorically excludes homebound bodyminds, as well as those without IRL social and support circles. That said, I believe the virtual –– as almost, not-quite, proximite, making-do –– is incredibly useful in thinking about xenoidentities as transMad tools –– particularly, as transMad tools of underground collaboration / co-liberation.

[...]

What if gender was a project we wanted to fail? That is, what if trans- was a process not of getting better, not of moving-toward a bodymind more sane, more straight, and more cisheteropatriarchially desirable, but rather a line of flight on a longer trail to illegibility? Indeed, what if we replaced pathology’s narrow “path” with a trail lighted by the language of our comrades, whose linguistic interventions make and break gender in ways heretofore unimaginable? Xenoidentities, both individually and as a trans-gressive M.O., are fundamental to a broader transMad project of crafted, collective illegibility; intersubjective citation (imagine what it feels like for someone to be the gender that you coined!); and collective care that refuses a politics of cure. Crucially both virtual and digital, xenoidentities are furthermore a manifestation of the power of trans, predominantly disabled digital counterpublics, who overturn the hierarchy which places the IRL-real above the digital-unreal, making unruly, Mad space in which (with apologies to Donna Haraway) a hundred xenoselves might bloom.

On Maddening queer "diagnosis":

In her indictment of all “Kwik-Fix Drugs,” Gray further indicates the practice of forced treatment as in and of itself as a project of violent normalization, regardless of specific target or reason. The intentional ambiguity between her narrative of Madness and her narrative of asexuality disrupt mounting demands for a healthy (sanitized, neoliberal, and consumable) queerness. A Mad ace approach identifies these demands as, indeed, comparable with cis heteronormative notions of sexual maturity and responsibility – the idea that participation in culturally-normative sexual practices is a prerequisite for health (Kim, 2011, 481) and thus, personal autonomy (Meerai, Abdillahi, and Poole 2016, 21). By fusing the “lack of sexual appetite” attributed to her medications for bipolar disorder with her asexuality, Gray destabilizes the binary between healthy-sexual-diversity and unhealthy-psychopathology. She is once again disrupting contemporary queer impulses to dissociate from ongoing histories of pathologization. Here, Mad and queer/asexual activism are as inseparable in text as they are in Gray. Gray and her comrades collectively refuse both sexuality-as-“rehabilitation” (See Kim 2011, 486) and asexual acceptance predicated upon normative “health” (Kim 2010, 158) – that is, they Madden asexuality. Twoey, in her own voice, remixes the sources of her own pathologization, staggering the supposedly-divine pronouncement of the DSM across pages and bookending its extracts with her own writing and art. In this undermining of the DSM’s epistemological polish, Gray disrupts the domination of written prose over poetry and visual art, while also critiquing the role of the DSM in commercialized health “care.” Her zine opens with the lines “sex sells and sex is sold / sex was being sold and i didn’t buy” (Gray 2018, n.p.). Gray indicates a pathology perceived not only in a refusal to practice sex, but also in a refusal to buy (into) it. After all, a refusal to buy into existing sexual paradigms is for her also a refusal to buy into a feminized reproductive mandate.

[shymaashsqqura]

Hello, Dear Doners

I'm Sami, one of the members of the family who used to cherish the lives of others wherever they go. My family and I lived in a warm house full of love. A home where each of us had a life filled with happiness, passion, and love for our community with a sense of responsibility for contributing to improve it. Let me take you on a small tour of the lives of my family members, just a glimpse of our life before this war.

Rifat: My father and the eldest in this warm family. He worked as an English language teacher and aimed to serve the community by providing English language lessons. It didn’t matter whether free or paid, his focus was on improving people's proficiency in English and helping them to pass academic exams and job interviews for international organizations. Rifat worked hard and devoted himself for over 25 years by teaching thousands of youth seeking a better future, providing training courses on how to teach the English language, and making it easy for non-native speakers.

Naeema: She graduated long ago with a degree in Arabic language but she chose not to work as a teacher. Instead, she devoted her life to maintaining her family, and ours, and providing all the needs to ensure a cohesive and lively environment for us. She was also dedicated to helping others with no expectations for anything in return. She always aimed to share her expertise with those in need to help them change their life for the better.

Rawan: She graduated with a degree in social psychology. She had worked with numerous international and local organizations in mental support, child protection, women's protection against GBV, and g initial psychological first aid. She carried a noble message about maintaining social solidarity and protecting the most vulnerable categories in Eastern societies, such as people with disabilities, women, and children.

Sami: This is me. I completed my studies in two departments. I majored in law in the English language, and also in information technology. I worked in various fields, starting with youth empowerment training to ensure a better future. Then, I became a trainer in gender equality, training journalists on press rights, and social media influencers on women and child violence protection. Later, I coordinated training sessions related to writing entrepreneurial projects related to technology and the green economy. Eventually, I formed a team called "Haya Team," and we began creating digital content discussing youth and societal issues. For example, we started a podcast called "Haya Podcast". We were visible on all social media platforms to raise awareness among young people and to contribute to improving prevailing social ideas. I helped my team set up a fully equipped podcast studio to make it a platform and a wide space for young people to express their opinions and aspirations.

Shaimaa: She graduated from high school with high grades and high hopes to work in the humanitarian field where she can benefit herself and others. She chose to study nursing and attended many courses to be highly responsible and knowledgeable in her field to assist herself in her study preparing for job opportunities that are no longer available in Gaza.

Mohammed: He had recently graduated from high school and aimed to study a vital field. He was energetic and loved to stay active and busy. He was between two choices to study law or nursing. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to choose as the war had just stolen his dreams. He didn’t start his university life yet.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-a-palestinain-activist-from-gaza-save-his-familys-life?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet-first-launch&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer

Ahmed: Ahmed completed his studies to qualify for the final academic year. Last September, he became an official Tawjihi student, the last year of high school. He was studying hard and dreaming of his university life a few months from now. He was determined from the beginning to intensify his studies to achieve a high GPA for studying dentistry. He didn’t know that the next month, October, would be the end of all his innocent dreams of a better life.

Abdullah: Abdullah excelled in everything, whether in his studies, intelligence, or compassion. Despite his young age, he always ranked first in everything.

Lana: The youngest middle schooler and the spoiled child of the family. She had often neglected her studies due to excessive pampering. However, she managed to get high marks. She was the most indulgent and spendthrift among us all.

As you have noticed, I narrated our stories in the past tense because we lost everything. When I say everything, I'm not exaggerating. We lost all our material and intangible things—the spirit that gives our life meaning and a purpose. When I say we lost our home, I mean we lost the idea of home, the idea of one family gathering around and sharing the same space. I am now with some of my friends in a displacement tent in Rafah, while my brother Mohammed is in the northern area of the Gaza Strip living on the top of the rubble of what was called “our home”. The rest of the family is in a displacement tent in the Al-Mawasi area. We find it extremely difficult to stay in touch due to the very poor communication and the lack of internet in most areas of the Gaza Strip. We are now trying to reunite and live in a safer place, but this costs a real sum of money. The money that we lost a big part of it after bombing our house, and with the harsh conditions of war, we spent the rest. We are still stuck in Gaza, a place we love but has turned into a mass grave. Help us, help me and my family to unite again to share one meal as one. We had a good life in Gaza and the war has come and erased all of our hopes and dreams. By helping us evacuate Gaza you will give us hope of having a new beginning. It feels heavy on my heart, but it’s our last attempt to stay alive, to live like any ordinary human on this planet.

[aronarchy]

https://twitter.com/jayuubee69/status/1621888394560262144

A weak point for a lot of leftists/Marxists is disability/ableism. They care only for labour justice and not disability justice. They seek only liberation for workers and not restructuring society away from meritocratic goals.

People are more than tools to be used or discarded when not deemed useful. This doesn’t just apply to workers deserving freedom from exploitation. Your “leftism” must care for those deemed to not have labour value, not just those who do and are getting used rather than valued.

Your better society must be understanding and caring of people’s differences. It must be accommodating. It must value disabled people.

Everyone should be cared for and seen as equal/valued equally. Society should not be ordered by “worth” or “value.” Value interdependence over enforcing independence.

Eugenics isn’t just a process but an ideology. An ideology of superiority among human variation. By this logic, I deem meritocracy inherently eugenicist.

Another big weak spot for a lot of them is sex work, But that’s another topic.

I feel the need to add this: I want to be very clear: I am NOT saying capitalism is a meritocracy. I am saying society needs to be restructured away from meritocratic (or supposedly meritocratic, since the illusion of meritocracy is what gives people faith in capitalism) goals.

Seek not to create the meritocracy capitalism claims to be but isn’t. Care not only for giving power to “contributors.” Society must take care of everyone and value everyone, beyond ordering them by “worth.”

I understand people critique “those who don’t contribute” aimed at capitalists who have power over workers and exploit them and use them for their own profit and that’s obviously not what I’m defending. I’m anti-capitalist. I’m also disabled, and I’m concerned with some Marxists’ views/rhetoric and lack of disability justice.

It is absolutely absurd the amount of leftists who seem to have absorbed capitalist propaganda and see disabled people as leeches on society. See disabled people needing care and support as the same as rich people having servants just because they can.

We have less labour value to exploit, and are thus more exploitable because “we should be grateful for being offered any job” and they can get away with paying us less and treating us worse.

It also means we are among of the LEAST value to capitalism—those who can’t be used to create profit are useless. they want to kill us—this isn’t hyperbole, we recognise the ways they subtlety (or sometimes not so much) enact eugenics. we NEED your solidarity and support.

Anti-capitalism is inherent to disability justice but disability justice clearly isn’t inherent to a lot of leftists’ ideologies.

[ftmtftm]

Hey!

I enjoy following trans guys on here because they tend to talk about masculinity in complex and interesting ways without tending to fall into MRA type pitfalls that are a lot harder to avoid in a space like Reddit. My question with that as a cis(ish) guy is always like...do you...want solidarity from cis guys on stuff like this?

Given that tumblr is kinda unique among social media spaces in that the norm is posters who are either women or queer, I don't see a lot of conversations between cis and trans guys for me to go off of as a norm. Y'all seem way more busy dealing with (what must be very tiring) discourse with women about whether being dudes automatically rounds trans men up to being oppressors.

Like, the defense I usually see mounted against that very simplistic mentality is--as you've said a fair bit and I would absolutely agree with--that patriarchal society doesn't give a fuck how you identify and short of someone who's managed to "pass" going completely stealth, there isn't even the option of being granted a very contingent male privilege. 

Building off of that response I tend to go further and say "Yeah, and I mean, even if you were a cis dude, the hurdle isn't suddenly over if you're assumed to be biologically male, broad swaths of male privilege are contingent on performing hegemonic masculinity. If you don't, won't, or can't play that role, you're just trading being viewed as a failed woman for being viewed as a failed man. And again, that's only if you're someone who can "pass" and who is willing to go stealth in the first place."

But I don't know if me saying that would be recieved as...helping? Considering me saying "yeah, dudes aren't suddenly welcomed with open arms if they have a "he/him" pin and some stubble, there are absolutely core social advantages compared to women, but there are also punishments for failing to adhere to patriarchal standards that some men will be constantly incurring" causes a knee-jerk "THATS MRA BULLSHIT" response in the average tumblr user, which you seem to have to deal with plenty even when you're just quoting bell hooks or something.

So yeah, don't know if chiming in on the experience of grappling with hegemonic masculinity is like... helpful solidarity or muddying the waters? But I figured I'd offer at least.

Oh this is a very fascinating ask because in many ways I'm inclined to say yes absolutely, it can be incredibly helpful. There are some ideas presented here I'm a little hesitant about and I think it can be situational because of that. Ultimately though it is probably more dependent on your own personal threshold for dealing with bullshit than anything else to be frank.

Like I was just saying in response to a previous ask - some of the most productive conversations I've had personally about gender were actually with an older, disabled, cis man who was my coworker. The social perception of his gender was really dependent on his age as a man in his 60's, his class as a blue collar maintenance man, and the disabilities he had due to life circumstances and his lifetime of physical labor. This was also, socially, at odds with the fact that he was a poet and an artist and a deeply emotionally aware/intelligent person - which goes against a lot of Patriarchal expectations for men. The Patriarchy doesn't really give a shit about the emotionally in touch, disabled, working class, maintenance poet because he is not an asset to maintaining system.

So I do think there is absolutely space for solidarity between trans men and cis men in that regard! There is always more that joins us than divides us. Always.

I do think, however, that it might be smart to gain more experience - of any kind - outside of online discourse before entering into specifically online conversations (though I'm also guilty of jumping into this one too sometimes I'm not gonna lie).

When I say "experience of any kind" I really mean it though. Be that life experience, academic experience, interpersonal experiences, etc. I would just start with talking to people about their lives and engaging with their lived experiences and also letting them engage with yours!

I think here in this specific conversation on Male Privilege cis men hold a dual positionality of both people impacted by the same systems and as allies. To specfically be a stronger ally is to spend a lot of time learning before speaking yourself - while also never forgetting that the learning is never "over" - in my opinion.

Like, that's expressly why I took a break from writing about gender theory for a few years to explicitly spend time just reading racial theory so I could be a better ally as a White person and understand the ways in which White Supremacy both uplifts and harms me and the social positions I hold due to my race. I'm currently spending a lot of time reading intersex theory, but not directly involving myself too much, for the same reason. It's a similar concept here but with gender and Patriarchy.

I do also want to make sure it's very clearly stated that this conversation isn't really a binary "men arguing with women and vice versa" issue - despite it often being framed that way. Many of the people who have been the harshest towards me personally have actually been other trans men and nonbinary people and less so women. At least in this particular conversation, as I've also dealt with my fair share of TERFs/Radfems but that's unrelated to the convo on trans men and male privilege.

All in all it sounds like you're on a relatively solid path though. The solidarity and allyship is nearly always appreciated - especially when offered in good faith and with the intent of growth. I'd still really, genuinely recommend taking kind of a circular path outside of online discourse into academia (institutionally or on your own!!) or ground work or something like that before coming back around into engaging with the internet directly if you're able to though! It does wonders for the brain and helps give you more space to examine potential biases in safer environments than Tumblr or Reddit imo.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 6, Poll 14

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Zhou Zishu-Word of Honor / Shan He Ling

Qualifications:

He might not count but I wanted to submit just in case. So in order to leave an assassination organization, he has to basically give himself a terminal condition that slowly destroys him over time, killing him after 3 years. So his ability/power is severely limited which is a big hindrance because he only has the strength to fight for a short while before his condition flares up. And over the course of the show he also looses some of his senses. He looses his sense of taste and smell and his ability to feel pain is significantly lost. The reason why it might not count is that they figure out how to cure him at the very end, but he spends the vast majority of the show suffering from this condition.

Propaganda:

He and his soulmate/husband are iconic. War criminal duo. They're both mass murderers who want to settle down with a nice domestic life with their adopted son. He's also got amazing gender. The show also has some interesting things to say about chronic/terminal illness

Val Palafox-Venom and Vow

Qualifications:

He is canonically bigender (uses he/she pronouns) and uses a cane due to congenital disability.

Propaganda:

Val is a bigender assassin/princess's handmaiden who's trying to defeat the guy she thinks laid a long sleeping enchantment over both their parents (among other people), so that she can reunite with her father and theoretically come out to him. So Val embarks on this harebrained scheme to outmaneuver this guy via two different identities (Val has a male persona and a female persona that he keeps separate). It's complicated but also very funny to me, given that the other guy thinks Val cast the curse, but doesn't want to hurt him out of trans solidarity. Bonus that she's perfectly good at fighting while using her cane, but has no idea how to dance with it.

Anything Else?:

This is an act of blatant defiance against your wishes for less obscure media, and I do apologize, but I have no regrets here.

Mod note: lol don’t even worry we submitted a few obscure characters ourselves.

[wheelie-sick]

Hi! I have a genuine question about Deaf people and sign names.

I tried to do some research on it but lots of the answers/resources I'm finding seem to be opinion-based or not exactly relevant to my situation.

I teach moderately-to-severely disabled students in a self-contained classroom at the elementary level. Most of my students have cognitive disabilities (among other diagnoses) and are nonverbal. Some of them are using or learning to use ASL. None of them are deaf/hard-of-hearing.

Would it be appropriate for them to use or create "sign names" for their classmates, themselves, or other staff members? Many are unable to finger spell and tend to indicate people via pointing. One of my students has created a sign language gesture reminiscent of a sign name when referring to a staff member and I wasn't sure if that was something I should accept/encourage or try to find alternatives for.

The two points of view I have come across are that sign names are exclusive to Deaf/HoH people at that sign names are exclusive to those who use ASL as their primary language. I was curious to know if you had any thoughts on the subject.

If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. If not, that's okay, too. I saw your post about your hearing "friend" making up sign names (which I am totally against/understand the culture behind that) and it kind of sparked the question.

Thank you for your time and I hope you have a good day/night!

oh man this is complicated

and a quick disclaimer that I am not the spokesperson for the Deaf community, other Deaf people I'm sure have other opinions

I'm personally of the opinion that only Deaf* (*and cultural Deafness includes people traditionally considered HOH) people who are fluent in ASL should create sign names with some exceptions. I don't think it's as broad as everyone who uses ASL as a primary language can create sign names because I'm quite honestly uncomfortable with hearing CODAs creating sign names even if ASL is their primary language.

the short answer is I think your students' situation is an exception

while ASL is and always will be first and foremost the cultural language of Deaf people it is also a language used by non/semi speaking people who are often just as involved in the Deaf world as Deaf people are. we share the struggle of oralism and we share the struggle of communicating (to whatever extent) in a sign language. we have and should continue to have a lot of solidarity. we also share a community. I know there are non/semispeaking people who exist in the Deaf world because we share a communication method and in the process they adopt Deaf cultural norms. while they are not Deaf they are undeniably hearing members of the community.

though of course not every non/semispeaking person chooses to exist in the Deaf world there is a large overlap

and this on its own would not be enough for me to say "yep! they can create sign names!" because hearing CODAs also exist in the Deaf world and still shouldn't be creating sign names

I think for me the biggest point is that communication is a right and names are part of communication. not being able to use someone's name limits communication and I don't think it's fair to limit your students' communication like that. your students aren't choosing not to fingerspell names they are incapable of it and that is entirely a different situation. this is also not a situation of "hearing person thinks sign names are just So Cool" those sign names naturally came into existence in the same way Deaf sign names did. this isn't a hearing person appropriating a part of Deaf culture because they think it's "neat" this is natural evolution of language among people who use the language as a primary form of communication. (from the sound of it these students didn't even know about the existence of sign names?)

and my personal opinion is that you should encourage it. because it's communication and communication is a right

other Deaf people are welcome to add on with their opinions