#stop being ableist | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

endlessdreamerxoxo · 2 years

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So there is apparently a Tik tok trend for an airport life hack where able-bodied people are requesting wheelchairs to get through TSA and customs faster.

As someone in their twenties who can walk but still needs a wheelchair in an airport because I can't walk long distances or fast with my disability, this trend is very frustrating. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten dirty looks from elderly people or been made to wait for a wheelchair because people assume that I'm fine when I'm sitting down and not moving. Idk. There are a group of disabled persons called ambulatory users who rely on mobility aids while still being able to walk on good days. They are often stigmatized by people's assumptions. Please don’t this! You are making it harder for people who are invalidated on a daily basis for not being "correctly disabled"

#disability awareness #disabled community #disability #cerebral palsy #serious topics #stop being ableist #ableist bullshit

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hyperlexichypatia · 1 year

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"Long Adolescence" and Disability Liberation

Cultural discourse around infantilization of young adults, particularly when justified with spurious "brain science," is a disability issue.

Even in disability spaces, I see the argument made that 18-25 year olds aren't "real adults" yet, because "science proves" that "the brain doesn't fully mature" until age 26. This concept harms not only young adults, but also disabled and neurodivergent people of all ages.

To get the basic facts out of the way: The brain does not "fully mature" at age 26, or any other age. The human brain changes continuously throughout the lifespan. There is no point at which the brain stops changing until death. There are certain brain changes that commonly occur in the mid-twenties, but declaring these changes "full maturity" is completely arbitrary.

So why has the "Brain fully matures at age 26" myth taken off, and what is the impact of it? Mostly, to justify economic and cultural norms. It just so happens that this myth of "brain maturity" happened to take off during a period of economic downturn, especially for young people newly entering the workforce. But it's okay, mainstream media outlets tell us, that young adults are increasingly unable to afford to move out of their parents' homes, to access healthcare independently of their parents, to get married, or to have children of their own -- in fact, it's a good thing, because young people are too neurologically immature for these things anyway.

A context in which I've recently had a lot of arguments on this topic is the claim that young adults are too young to consent to romantic relationships with older adults, or that such relationships are "pedophilia" or inherently unethical. This is an argument that has a lot of traction in social-justice-minded spaces, because it's ostensibly about sexual abuse but it's actually about infantalization, and it has deeply harmful implications that go far beyond your squick at May/December relationships.

"BUT HYPATIA, YOU HEARTLESS LIBERAL, older people who preferentially date younger people (especially older men who preferentially date younger women) often ARE fetishistic and abusive!"

Yes, they are. So are lots of people from privileged groups who preferentially date people from marginalized groups. It's a problem that needs to be addressed, but the assumption relationships that are "mixed" along a privilege axis, or that marginalized partners cannot consent, is still far more harmful, because it has implications beyond relationships.

"BUT HYPATIA, YOU HEARTLESS LIBERAL, we're protecting young people from abuse!"

No, you're not. Young people often enter unwise relationships -- relationships they KNOW are unwise -- because it's their only recourse for escaping the control of their parents. Normalizing the idea that young adults should still be under protection and control of parents or guardians ensures that young adults have fewer safe options for escape and autonomy. This creates a ripe opportunity for abusive, manipulative, and exploitative people to offer young people freedom from parental control. The harms done to young people by attempting to "protect" them from their own decisions are far greater than the harms young people can cause themselves by making unwise decisions.

"But people don't magically become mature adults on their 18th birthdays! Shouldn't there be a transitional period for young people to gradually assume more adult rights and responsibilities, with support, guidance, and scaffolding, and protection from predators who would take advantage of youthful inexperience?"

Yes, that's exactly right! There should be a transitional period! That is, in fact, the purpose of childhood. And adolescence. The fact that an 18 year old is not significantly different in maturity from a 17 year old is not an argument for giving the 18 year old fewer rights; it's an argument for giving the 17 year old more rights.

Adult rights and responsibilities should be gradually rolled out, over time, with support and guidance, and special protections in place due to the inherent vulnerability of youth. But the 18th birthday should be the end point of that transition, not the beginning. Because although the brain never stops maturing, rights are important, and the allotment of them should not be delayed any longer than absolutely necessary.

What does all this have to do with disability?

A lot. First of all, any time the argument is made that a group of people should be denied rights based on the structure of their brains, neurodivergent people are affected. The argument that young adults should be denied full autonomy because they're often financially dependent on parents/family also has implications for disabled people -- many disabled people will never be "financially independent," no matter how old we are. There are more specific ties to disability, too. Part of the justification for restricting the rights of young adults is that certain psychiatric disabilities are, or are presumed to be, more prevalent in, or originally manifesting in, young adults. Forcing young adults into involuntary psychiatric treatment is justified because, after all, they're too neurologically immature to realize that they're neurologically defective.

Another premise in the argument that young adults aren't fully "real adults" is that young adults are often college students, while "real adults" are out of school. This is, first of all, factually untrue -- colleges are increasingly recruiting students of all ages, and students older than 26 are far from rare. When I was arguing with someone who claimed that a romantic relationship between a young adult and an older adult was wrong because the younger adult was "probably still in school," I pointed out that most college classrooms are a melting pot of ages, and, in fact, many older/younger couples meet in the same college class! More specifically to disability issues, though, the assumption that "student = still basically a child" disproportionately harms disabled people who, for a variety of reasons, may take longer than "average" to graduate. The entire framing of higher education as a "life stage" is a centering of a class and ability experience that is far from universal.

And look, I don't really care if you're judgmental of May/December romances. Fine, judge them. No one is making you approve.

I care that universities consider it appropriate to notify students' parents about health information, and that states are making it easier to involuntarily commit 18-26 year olds, and that underpaying or not paying at all younger workers is justified because "They're not really old enough to be independent anyway," and that people with fallopian tubes aren't allowed to have tubal ligations until they're 25, and that transgender people aren't allowed to access gender-affirming surgeries because of "brain maturity," and that disabled adults are denied civil rights because they supposedly "have the mind of a child." And all of those rights violations are enabled by this pervasive myth that people can't become "real adults" until they've financially succeeded in a bad economy, or until they've graduated an inaccessible higher education system, or until they reach some arbitrary level of "brain maturity" that some neurodivergent people will never reach. That's a harmful premise, no matter how well-intentioned.

#ageism #youth rights #stop being ableist #ableism #neurodiversity #brains are weird #liberation #mad pride #capitalism

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autopsyfreak · 5 days

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living with NPD is having an internal struggle with who you are, how you look, how you’re being perceived, etc. that doesn’t match the way you act externally.

it’s having debilitating crashes over your own appearance and other aspects of yourself, whilst simultaneously trying to make sure others still know you’re better than them, that you’re still superior to them.

this condition hurts us more than a lot of people seem to think. if you seriously believe that those around us suffer more from our condition than we do, then you’re severely uneducated about the internal sufferings of having NPD.

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nicxxx5 · 2 years

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family members NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED to do research when someone gets an autism/neurodivergent diagnosis because i guarantee you what you think you know is either incorrect or barely scratches the surfaces of what the diagnosis is. and as a personal note i am so so so so SO tired of experiencing ableism in my own family

#actually autistic #autistic #autism #autism spectrum disorder #asd #adhd #attention deficit hyperactivity disorder #neurdivergent #neurodivergencies #neurodiversity #neurodivergent #stop being ableist #ableist nonsense #ableism #tw ableism

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ettadear · 1 year

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i love myself as i am, but sometimes i really just wish i wasn’t disabled. i hate that i’d do anything not to be. my dad said that he knows it’s “uncomfortable.” but uncomfortable is tying your shoes a bit too tight. wearing pants 1 size too small. taking a test when the classroom is too hot or too cold. uncomfortable doesn’t make you suicidal. uncomfortable doesn’t make you give up once in a lifetime opportunities you’ve been working towards for years. my pain is not “uncomfortable.” it’s hell.

#deep thoughts #chronic pain #chronic disability #chronic illness #disabled #fibromyalgia #chronic fatigue #babe with a mobility aid #cane user #carpal tunnel #stop being ableist #ableist parents #ableist nonsense #fuck ableists #ableist bullshit #growing up

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wxrmeaterz · 15 days

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yall do realise how exclusionary emoji codes n shit are right? and in that same vein censoring or tagging by using misspelled words or replacing letters in a word with symbols

eg:

🏖 may be used as "TW example"

and tags may be used like

"TW 3xamp!3" instead of "TW example"

jesus fucking christ so many people have been saying this for SO FUCKING LONG! screen reader users exist. dyslexic and low vision people exist. people new to communities exist.

stop being fucking ableist and exclusionary just cus u want to be special challenge GO!

#endos dni #actually did #stop being ableist #polyfrag did #did system #did alter #did osdd #osdd #cdd system #osddid #endos fuck off

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consider-your-potatoes-mashed · 10 months

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Why do abled people always fucking suggest the most basic things to “fix” disabled people’s problems/disabilities and act like they know better than we do???

If you, a person who does not live with the disability you’re trying to “fix”, can think of a solution off the top of your head without any research, experience, or even trying to actually understand what we have tried and what we’re actually dealing with don’t you think that we might’ve already or are already trying that???

For me this comes most from my mother saying that I need to change my diet (even though I have so many sensory issues surrounding food and have tried and failed so many times), that I need to lose weight (ma’am I am trying), that I should try stretching (you know what I’ve tried that for years and guess what it just stretches my ligaments because I’m fucking hypermobile and it ends up causes me more pain), that I need to exercise more (I’m trying but I’m also limited by pain. Pain that keeps me from being able to exercise most of the time. Pain that usually gets worse when I try to exercise), that I should try to not use my mobility aids because I’ll become reliant on them (ma’am they help me. They are not hurting me. They are what keeps me able to do stuff you want me to be able to do. Why should I try to not use them???), and so much fucking more

Like seriously abled people stop pretending you know our bodies better than we do I promise you you don’t. Even doctors (as shit as they might be) are supposed to listen to us before they even start to make recommendations (yeah many don’t but they’re supposed to)

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acozyassistant · 1 year

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Communication is a human right

#ableist society #stop being ableist #stop being a dick #sign language #deaf culture #hard of hearing #human rights #ablism #disability rights #disabilties #disabled #politics #american sign language

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shitpostingforserotonin · 1 year

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optimisticfrogcollective · 1 year

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✨To all the spoonies: I work an office job and so far my only accommodation is being able to always have my headset on.

I am trying to think of more things I need, but a lifetime of masking and ableism is making that difficult.

Please comment or reblog with some of your accommodations at work/school/at home/with friends, I feel like it could be helpful for so many people! ✨

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artsykerfufflespam · 1 year

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Ableist Story Time!

Sooo it was my final day of driver ed, stopped at a red light, all going fine, humming n tapping my fingers, just stimming a bit, only some very minor and infrequent facial tics... I wasnt hardly doing anything "odd", merely not masking. And then the driving instructor asks me "Did you take your medicine today?".

ō_ō

Bitch? What?

1. Thats not something you ask a stranger

2. Her tone was,, idk how to describe but it didnt help make what she said less-ableist-feeling/ less offensive

3. In asking that she was essentially saying "i think youre acting crazy" and/or "you seem unfit to drive because of this behavior" (the behavior was extremely mild and its not her job to decide if my illnesses prevent me from driving or not)

4. I don't take medicine for tourettes or for ASD, so idek what "medicine" she was referring to. She doesn't know me. If I wasn't on any medicine she would essentially be telling a stranger that she thinks they need to be medicated.

In summation, the rest of the drive was not particularly great. As we drove faster and my anxiety worsened my tics too slightly, and knowing that she was judging me for it certainly didn't help me relax. Simply stimming is enough for someone to think someone should be medicated. I spend most of my time with accepting, and usually also ND, people, so this was my first encounter with someone like this in a while. It was a shock to say the least, a shock that people are still so un-understanding.

Feel free to comment or rb your opinions, if I'm overreacting or if you have similar experiences. Personally i think this exchange was ridiculous and embarassing and incasive and abelist.

#tourettes #asd #ASD #actually neurodivergent #actually autistic #actually autism #autism spectrum #stimming #tourette's syndrome #actually tourettic #tourettes experience #fuck ableists #ableism #ableist tw #stop being ableist #ableist bullshit #ableist people #being my autistic self

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hyperlexichypatia · 6 days

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You don't have to be "happy" to deserve the freedom to control your own life.

It's easy to justify people's right to live their lives as they choose with "Let them do whatever makes them happy!" or "As long as they're happy, who cares?"

I've said this! But it's not a very effective argument. Because how can you prove that you're "happy" -- a subjective emotional state?

Queer people, disabled people, fat people, Mad/neurodivergent people, people in stigmatized relationships, are constantly told that we're wrong about our own happiness. That we think we're happy, but this false belief is part of our Mental Illness(TM). No one Like That could ever really be happy!

And this prejudice is fundamentally unfalsifiable. We can't prove our subjective feelings. If we could, people would somehow redefine "happiness" to exclude what they don't approve of.

I made the mistake of reading the comments on this article about age differences in relationships which literally has the headline "They say they're happy. Why is it so hard to believe them?" Of course, the commenters were all too eager to answer the rhetorical question. "If they were really happy, they wouldn't need to say so" (maybe they're sick of being asked). "People in situations like that don't know what's really going on, they think they're happy!" (what, exactly, is the difference between thinking oneself to be happy and actual happiness?).

(Side note for the relationship-specific version of this: I also see a lot of "They think they're in love!" and I have to ask: If people in relatively new relationships are told that "You only think you're in love, you're actually in lust/ a crush/ new relationship energy," and people in established long-term relationships are told that "You only think you're in love, but it's actually complacency/ not knowing any better/ helplessness," is there a magical medium-term relationship duration at which people can actually love their partners?)

You can never prove that you're "really happy," because if someone has already decided that your identity/lifestyle is incompatible with happiness, they will never believe you.

Arguing "I should be free to make my own choices or be myself, because I'm happy this way" will only prompt the response "The fact that you so mistakenly believe that you're happy is proof that you're mentally incompetent, and you should not, in fact, be free to make your own choices or be That Way."

Being constantly "happy" at all times is, also, just a completely unreasonable expectation. Humans have a range of emotions! Experiencing the full range of positive and negative human emotions is not a reason to deny us our rights.

In Jesse Singal's anti-trans hit piece, which I'm not linking to, Singal cites parents of a trans man who oppose their son's right to transition because, according to them, he was depressed after his transition. Now, notably, the son was not interviewed (and he was misgendered throughout), so we have absolutely no idea what his actual emotional state actually was (I don't know if the son ever went on the record anywhere with his own version of his story). But let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that his parents were correct, and he was depressed. So what? Trans people have the right to be depressed! Trans people have the right to the same emotional range as cis people! People's rights should not be dependent on what emotions they do or don't experience.

Additionally, this insistence on "happiness" as a prerequisite for rights, autonomy, and acceptance (willfully) ignores that the denial of rights, autonomy, and acceptance tends to make people unhappy.

Authoritarians think they have a real gotcha with "If you're happy this way, then why are you complaining?" as if people can't be profoundly happy with their identities and profoundly unhappy with how society treats them for those identities.

I am, for the most part, reasonably happy with being a fat, Mad, autistic, queer woman. At least I generally feel no pressing desire to change any of those things about myself. And I am extremely unhappy with the way I am treated for being a fat, Mad, autistic, queer woman.

But there are certainly times when I might think to myself "If I were taller, I could reach that top shelf" or "If I were thinner, I could maneuver into this tight space" or "If I weren't autistic, I could travel more." And at those times, I still deserve autonomy and basic human rights. I might be happy, sad, angry, anxious, excited, blase, or in a state of perfect Zen, and I would still deserve autonomy and basic human rights.

#mad pride #mad liberation #queerphobia #ableism #stop being ableist #neurodiversity

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samijami · 10 months

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YO MY BROTHER IS DISABLED AND RECIPROSEXUAL, AND IF YOU DON'T RESPECT HIM YOU FUCKERS, THEN FUCK YOU

DISABLED PEOPLE, AND QUEER DISABLED PEOPLE, DESERVE RESPECT AND TO BE TREATED AS EQUALS. THEY DESERVE PLACES TO FEEL COMFORTABLE AND LOVED, THEY DESERVE THEIR OWN SPACES, THEY DESERVE THE MEDICAL HELP THEY NEED, THEY DESERVE MOBILITY AIDS, THEY DESERVE TO FEEL LIKE THEY BELONG HERE AND ARE NOT BURDENS TO ABLED PEOPLE, AND SO MUCH MORE

THEY DESERVE TO LIVE AND NOT HAVE TO LIVE THROUGH HELL TO DO SO, SO MAKE IT EASIER FOR THEM, WITHOUT BELITTLING OR MAKING FUN OF THEM

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npders · 1 year

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start using the actual words to what you want to say. stop using disorders to mean "worse" than you actually want to mean.

it does not make it worse or more impressive, it makes you look like an ableist prick. start switching your language. us mentally ill, disordered, neurodivergent, etc; people deserve respect as much as any other person.

you say you advocate for mental health, but if you use disorders as descriptors or adjectives, do you really?

your language matters.

#npd #npd safe #ableism #npdawareness #ableist nonsense #ableist bullshit #stop being ableist #ableists dni #i cant stress this enough

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allamericandork · 2 years

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Well. Looks like I'm homeless for the next week or so.

But, things aren't as bad as they seem. I'm moving to New York City next week, with the love and help of @mysapphicmercy and their family. I'm a disabled AMAB enby, and just need to make it till then.

What happened, you may ask? Roomies booted me.

If you wanna p*yp*l me I'm at @RosieFaust. Anything helps, of course. Here's what the money will be used on:

-food.

-rent at an airbnb.

-public transit fare (I don't drive)

-medication

-hygeine products

#homeless #stop being ableist #ok to reply #ok to reblog

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cataclysmic-cadenza · 1 year

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so I showed my sister the npd tag on here (we both have it) and she started crying because she finally felt, like, seen. and i’m just going to say that if you could look at that child and still demonize, dehumanize, and stereotype every person with npd and continue to use rhetoric like “narcissistic abuse” and shit like that, you don’t fucking deserve to say you’re a decent person. and that’s it.

#actually npd #npd #npd vent #cluster b #actually narcissistic #narcissist #stigma #stop being ableist #ableist bullshit #narcisstic personality disorder #narcissistic abuse #npd abuse

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