Actually, that was also another decent example of people trying to make you feel like shit for needing any help.

Never mind that I did have other trouble reliably going shopping, and really was running up against some harassment. It all got cast as some individual mental health problem that I just needed to toughen up and get over–a.k.a. “Stop Being So Ridiculous (Yet Again)!” and “If You Would Handle Situations Properly, There Wouldn’t Even Be Any Problem!”

Meanwhile, that really was not causing extra trouble for anyone. She was doing the exact same shopping as usual–and at that point my parents usually had their own food stamps, thanks to both being disabled and often unable to work. It was still apparently necessary to snark and act like that about it whenever she was having a bad day and needed somebody to unload some of that on.

(That also occurred to me as an unfortunately good example of some of the reasons why I still hesitate to say anything when I am having trouble or need even relatively simple/routine help. Especially if it could be interpreted as Clatterbane Just Being Inconveniently Ridiculous.

And too relevant an example, given some of the reasons I haven’t been getting out much lately. Which also involve often not having the spoons to also deal with actual bad behavior from complete fucking strangers out in public when I am already struggling. I know my partner is unlikely to pull that shit, but it still makes me nervous just thinking about it. Not to mention needing to ask anybody to take up more slack.)

rowanhampton:

Very tired of our lives being seen as not worth living.

[Image Description: A two-part illustration in monochrome dark blue. The illustration features five disabled people: A cane user, a manual wheelchair user, a person with an invisible disability, a person with a prosthetic leg, and a power chair user. The first illustration focuses on their feet, captioned “We are NOT disposable.” The second illustration features their smiling faces, captioned “We are not a fate worse than death.”]

Source: rowanhampton

Plastic Straws Aren’t the Problem

cardozzza:

nezumiko:

end0skeletal:

The anti-straw movement took off in 2015, after a video of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in its nose went viral. Campaigns soon followed, with activists often citing studies of the growing ocean plastics problem. Intense media interest in the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a floating, France-sized gyre of oceanic plastic – only heightened the concern.

However, plastic straws only account for about .03 percent of the 8 million metric tons of plastics estimated to enter the oceans in a given year.

A recent survey by scientists affiliated with Ocean Cleanup, a group developing technologies to reduce ocean plastic, offers one answer about where the bulk of ocean plastic is coming from. Using surface samples and aerial surveys, the group determined that at least 46 percent of the plastic in the garbage patch by weight comes from a single product: fishing nets. Other fishing gear makes up a good chunk of the rest.

The impact of this junk goes well beyond pollution. Ghost gear, as it’s sometimes called, goes on fishing long after it’s been abandoned, to the great detriment of marine habitats. In 2013, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science estimated that lost and abandoned crab pots take in 1.25 million blue crabs each year.

This is a complicated problem. But since the early 1990s, there’s been widespread agreement on at least one solution: a system to mark commercial fishing gear, so that the person or company that bought it can be held accountable when it’s abandoned. Combined with better onshore facilities to dispose of such gear – ideally by recycling – and penalties for dumping at sea, such a system could go a long way toward reducing marine waste. Countries belonging to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization have even agreed on guidelines for the process.

That’s where all that anti-straw energy could really help. In 1990, after years of consumer pressure, the world’s three largest tuna companies agreed to stop intentionally netting dolphins. Soon after, they introduced a “dolphin safe” certification label and tuna-related dolphin deaths declined precipitously. A similar campaign to pressure global seafood companies to adopt gear-marking practices – and to help developing regions pay for them – could have an even more profound impact. Energized consumers and activists in rich countries could play a crucial role in such a movement.

(Source)

Straws help many disabled people drink. Including me.

I feel like if anything straw bans do more harm than good, because it’s a ‘change’ that doesn’t require any real change at all. Most people who don’t need them barely ever use straws, so avoiding them costs them no effort. But it feels real good, like something big has been done.

myceliorum:

You can get a lot of disturbing information about someone’s values…

When they start from the assumption that there’s just too many of a certain kind of people, and then go from there.

Like I just read a post that touched on the idea of aging baby boomers as a burden on younger generations. Which already says a about unspoken bigotry against old and disabled people: Setting taking care of someone as a burden shows a lot about both values and understanding of how things do work versus how they ought to. But then…

It veered into a discussion off the problem being the parents of boomers fucking too much and producing all these babies. The idea being, there’s just too many of them. I am not trying to put on the spot who said that nor did I even check who said it, I don’t know that they personally wager thinking these things but many people who say them are, is common to think this way, I’m not exempting myself, I’m not calling anyone out, I’m just discussing the ideas, so please nobody take this as an invitation to attack anyone. We all hold ugly ideas we’ve never looked at. I’m looking at them. If you think you’re above this, look harder at yourself.

(Also full disclosure: I’m late gen x, one parent earliest possible boomer, one parent silent generation. More disclosure: I’m massively unimpressed by most things I hear about generations and what they mean.)

So as soon as you’ve decided there’s just too damn many old people, poor people, people from the “wrong” countries, disabled people, brown people, any kind of people… You’ve just told the world you on some level don’t value that kind of people. I have never seen a discussion that starts from that idea end anywhere good. There’s something wrong, terribly wrong, with the assumptions you’re starting with.

This is different from the occasional discussion of numbers that is necessary. I’m originally from California (Okie descent) and there’s more human beings in California than the amount of water in California can support. But even discussing that, you have to be extremely careful not to slide into assumptions about which Californians matter.

But discussions of “overpopulation” in more general terms almost always mean there’s too many brown and/or poor and/or “third world” people, not actually something more generic like it sounds. They hide the same ugliness as the hordes of aging boomers idea.

A completely different take on the number of boomers:

Many disability rights activists have been hoping that as boomers age and more become disabled, this will lead to more support for disability rights causes. Among others, it could lead to some stage of dismantling the stranglehold nursing homes and other deadly and soul-destroying institutions have over the way assistance id’s provided to disabled and elderly people. Whether this happens is still up in the air but it’s a notably more positive take on the idea of “hordes of aging boomers”. And one that, like most disability rights ideas, most people have neither heard of noir considered. Since most boomers as burdens ideas come from the same ugly place nursing homes come from.

kyidyl:

thebibliosphere:

maefromjanuary:

thebibliosphere:

Dystopian novels: only the strong survive.

Me reading dystopian fiction growing up and internalizing the message in the narrative: there’s no place for me in this world, I’d be dead the moment the regime took hold. I’m not strong enough. I couldn’t stand the suffering. Maybe the narrative is right. Maybe only the strong survive.

Me now as an adult getting ready to rip the pin from the grenade with my teeth and brandishing a molotov cocktail in the other hand: IF I GO DOWN I’M TAKING YOU MOTHER FUCKERS WITH ME, BRING IT ON IF YOU THINK YOUR HARD ENOUGH. YOU THINK YOU’RE SCARY? MY IMMUNE SYSTEM IS EATING ITSELF AND I HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE. COME GET SOME

We used to talk about how we would survive a zombie apocalypse, in high school, and I had one friend that would go, “Well you won’t last that long anyways, so why should we plan for you?” and I would agree, because I didn’t realize how deep I had internalized the idea that my disability made me not worthy of survival.

Flash forward to college, when my new friends and I are having a very similar conversation and I go, “I won’t last, so I guess I would just feed myself to the zombies” and my friends had a very strong response of, “NO, we are going to rob pharmacies. We will all learn how to get insulin from pigs or bacteria. You are not going down easy, you are too much of a fighter for that.”

I still remember the first time on tumblr, on a post discussing the zombie apocalypse, where I said “hey just leave me behind with the shotgun, I’ll only slow you down” and I think it might have been @undead-tealeaves who said “fuck that, we’ll pick you up and run while you aim” and honestly it might have just been meant as a throw away comment but it made me want to cry. And it meant a lot to me, it really did, like this was a comment from over two years ago and it still pops into my head and makes me feel emotional.

Like it really is the little things like your friends being like, come the dystopian government or the ends of the earth as we know it, whichever comes first, we have you. Because we have each other. And the survivalist community that is willing to ride and die for each other, will be the one that thrives and outlives the bastards trying to put us down. Hopefully long enough to see the new dawn, but hey, you don’t always get to see the garden you sow.

This shit right here is what pisses me off the most about almost all post apocalyptic fiction. Like bro I did not spend 2 million years evolving this big ass brain for the express purpose of social interaction JUST to leave squad behind when it gets rough. It is deeply offensive ™ to me as an anthropologist and this is why I love Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire because she does none of this nonsense.

naamahdarling:

thebibliosphere:

This post brought to you by Rage.

Okay, so a few people commented on the main post with this so I want to address it separately without seeming like I’m dragging individual people over hot coals for a public flogging, but no, an ideal world for me is not one without disabled people in it.

“But that’s not what I said!”

Isn’t it?

“Well why on earth would you want to stay broken?”

I don’t, not really, but also thanks for using language that reminds me you think me and people like me are worthless and deserve to be on the scrap heap of life. Also, not all disabled people consider themselves to be broken, so please don’t say that as a sweeping universal ever the fuck again. I get to make jokes about my broken immune system. But you don’t get to call me that. Okay?

“But that’s not what I’m saying! You’re twisting my words! Stop making me look like a bad person!”

No, that’s not what you’re saying directly, and maybe you don’t mean it or realize where you’re coming from, but the sentiment that the ideal world is one where I don’t exist is not a pleasant one for me. And you can argue with me all you like that I’d still exist I’d just be better, but that doesn’t really help me in this life where such a thing is likely never going to be possible.

So you know what my ideal utopia actually is? The one where I’m included in the narrative.

Inclusiveness is important on so many levels. For one thing it can help normalize the things going on now in our reality, and help change the ill conceived notions that somehow my life is worth less than yours simply because it is different or considered to be more difficult.

Finding a way to specifically write me and people like me out of the narrative because you’ve created an “ideal” world, does not include me, and is inherently ableist by default.

But Joy, in this world there is technology to fix these things, how do I make it more inclusive?

Consider, that all technology has limits. It is always advancing, but it also falls short of being god-mode because it is designed by humans, and humans aren’t God. Contrary to some peoples sense of ego. It is also not always available to everyone who needs it.

Unless your utopia is one where everyone and I do mean Everyone, has the means to access such miraculous technology, it’s not a utopia. It is in fact like our current reality where health care technology is limited by what we currently know about the human body, but also, by who is able to afford it.

There’s people out there with my issues leading an easier life because they have access to the latest treatment and the best doctors. I do not resent them this. But I do resent the system that makes it so that I cannot access these things with ease because of a little thing like money.

So if you have poverty in your fancy sci-fi, that’s an inclusive issue. In fact if you have any sort of power struggle, and of course you do, it’s a sci-fi so there’s going to be some form of societal discourse, then you have opportunities to create wider inclusion in your narrative.

But how do I portray it without sounding like a forced mouthpiece?

Idk fam, it’s your narrative, I can’t do all the thinking for you, but a brief example of how to do this could be:

“Her limbs were older ones, earlier models of the prosthetic implants that had come on the market several eons ago but were still widely in distribution due to their nigh on indestructible nature. But they were heavy, clunky things by modern standards, and even things designed to last would eventually start to wear down. He could see the evidence of where patch jobs has been performed recently, where newer tech had been spliced on to make things a little easier. It was ugly and amateurish, but it worked.”

*

“He looked up at them with his mismatched eyes, the slightly milky blue sheen around the pupils betraying them as clone grown.

“One day they’ll be able to fix that,” he said, smiling ruefully as he guessed the reason for their blatant staring, causing Ash to blush furiously at being caught. They’d thought they’d been more subtle than that. “But till then, it works just fine. Now, what can I do for you?”

My world is a magical one where magic like “cure disease” is a thing, how can I make that more inclusive?

In this instance the same principles apply. Magic will typically be the source of your societal advancements, meaning that magic must also have its limits.

Whether it’s making spells and potions that only work to a certain degree i.e. only recent injuries may be cured/mended instantaneously/fully, or, you can do something else like limit it to the skill of the spell caster.

It may also be restricted on your ability to pay for such skills.

In the case of long term disabilities or issues like auto-immune diseases, you could limit the effectiveness of such potent magical cures, to offering only temporary relief.

There are medications out there that make me, someone with auto-immune issues, feel great for a few days, before the effectiveness wears down. They can also become resistive over time as my body adapts to the use of them. There’s no reason your magical realism can’t include something similar.

So how do I write this without making it look shoehorned in for inclusiveness?

If your main concern is feeling like you’re having to shoehorn in people that actually exist in our very real reality, vs being able to write endlessly about dragons, then I’m going to suggest you need to reevaluate your way of thinking, both on a personal level as well as an authorial one. Because it sounds like you have some issues and biases you need to address when it comes to this. This alone doesn’t make you a terrible person. It makes you ignorant. And ignorance can be remedied by opening up to new ways of thinking and listening to the experiences of others. What makes me question your statement that you’re a “good person” is not your well meaning ignorance, but your continual statement that you’re “not ableist but” and then giving me some paltry reason not to be inclusive in your narrative because it essentially boils down to “your existence ruins my story and actually thinking about this as more than a passing thought is irking. Why are you making this into a thing? No one cares. You got your representation in Game of Thrones that one time, why do I have to think about this. I only want to feel like a nice person, why are you making me uncomfortable, it’s my story, I should be able to do what I want and if you don’t exist that’s my choice”.

Which you’re right. It is your choice and it’s also mine to call your work sub par and mediocre and never buy any of it ever again and give my hard earned money to a better writer who does give a shit.

But as for an example of how to show and not tell with your narrative that doesn’t involve you immediately reevaluating your life and who you are as a person:

“She raised the potion to her lips. It tasted bitter, like sour berries picked before they were ripe. It burned as the magical effects pooled through her body. Anything designed to cure diseases always did at first. There was only so much magic could do for someone like her, but least she could be certain the goblin bite wouldn’t fester into anything worse. She didn’t need rock joint on top of everything else.”

*

“The healer looked down at him from behind their blue silk veil.

“This will hurt,” they said by way of both warning and apology, voice light and soothing, though he couldn’t determine much else about them beyond that as they set their hands on his broken leg.

“And I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for the missing foot…”

“That’s all right,” Finn said, gritting his teeth as the magic seared through him, burning white-hot until it cooled to a pleasant tingle, like dipping his non-existent toes into clear blue waters. He could almost feel them wriggling as the magic sought to replace something that wasn’t there. “I’ve got an insert for that.”

The healer nodded, looking towards his boots.

“Perhaps we can do something about making you a better one,” they said, continuing to move their hands up the length of his thigh until the glow of magic around their hands dimmed and they gave him a reassuring pat on the leg before reaching for his boot and the weighted insert inside the toe.

“These soles have seen better days. I dare say that’s the reason you slipped in the first place.”

*

“The magical limb glowed faintly in the darkness. Which would have been fine, were they not a thief.

Mal paused before moving any further through the darkened house, pulling out a thick dark glove from their doublet and pulling it on. The magical was still somewhat visible undearneath, but at least it no longer looked like a disembodied magical hand floating through the darkness.

They could, of course, have extinguished the magic. But it was never worth the trouble of finding a mage to ignite it again. And besides, two hands could carry more than one.”

So you see, it’s not impossible to include disability and disability aids into your fantastical narratives. It is also entirely possible to make it witty, funny and poignant, as well as something you only ever mention in casual passing to remind the reader hey, Character McNoLegs uses a floating wheelchair, so they’re going to stay behind in this instance and be the getaway driver, because scaling the tower that doesn’t have a ramp isn’t exactly in their wheelhouse of strengths right now. This does not however make them redundant to the narrative, nor does it make them a burden.

It just requires a little creative thought on your part, which happily should be in your wheelhouse of strengths as an author.

Supposedly.

And if this seems snarkier than my usual replies, I’d apologize, but I literally, figuratively and spiritually do not give a fuck. The giveafuck well has run dry, you’ve caused a drought of fucks in my general vicinity. Fucks are rationed until such a time people stop crawling out the woodwork to tell me they’re not ableist but, and then saying something horifically ableist.

Here’s a thought, all that time and energy you’re putting into giving me reasons before 9am as to why, in an ideal world, I wouldn’t exist, and bending arse over backwards to justify your reasoning reasoning when you could just as easily put that same energy into not being a) ableist and b) a lackluster mediocre hack spending their time reminding me you wish I didn’t exist, but hey, you do you.

I’ll be right over here. Far the fuck away from you and enjoying the use of the block button.

Now if you’ll excuse me. I’m going back to fucking bed.

I once had a fairly popular (and very skilled and thoughtful) writer tell me that the absence of people like me – people with mental illness – as well as other forms of disability was because such “problems” had been solved a long time ago. High-tech medicine made possible what the social model of disability alone could not eliminate, so either disabilities were no longer really disabling because the people were adequately accommodated (good!) or they had simply been … bred out (not good! AT ALL!),

They didn’t seem to understand why I found a world literally without people like me in it sinister in a very visceral way. They saw the loss of people like me as a net good, as part of what it would take to make a truly healthy society.

Do I want people to have to go through what I went through? No! But does leaving people like me out of narratives actually help that to happen? No! It allows us to be slotted neatly into a “problem” that was “solved”. Really, it was a narrative “problem” the author chose to “solve” by eliminating folks like me instead of envisioning ways in which the literal inevitability of the existence of mental illness could be addressed in ways that were not terrifically ableist.

I pointed out that such a world would have required a sweeping act of eugenics to achieve, and that whether it was accomplished “humanely” (by selecting only “defect-free” embryos) or not, readers like me aren’t going to be charmed by your fantasy world if it involves the fantasy of us not being there. They responded by saying their alien culture did have morally gray underpinnings, that to get where they were things weren’t nice for a while, and you know, I would have bought it if it had ever been interrogated within the material itself, but it never was. The vividly-realized culture was almost exclusively depicted as one where people lived in harmony and with purpose, the needs of all fulfilled by all. It was very utopian and attractive and I was on board with it right up until a clearly mentally ill character was forcibly removed for correction. Not treatment, not really, but correction. It was specifically framed in that way. As if it was an act of willful noncompliance to be mentally ill. And I swear I had a full-body nope reaction to it. The author wasn’t interested in having the problems with this explained to them. It was a non-issue to them, completely.

While I do think their work is incredibly imaginative and brilliant in a lot of ways, I took down my positive reviews and unsubscribed from everything. If you can’t be brilliant enough to envision ways to help people like me instead of eliminating them, I don’t need you. If you give me no other way to see myself in your narrative besides “suboptimal, deselected for breeding, flaw eliminated” and then decide not to address the moral ramifications of that, like, ever, I’m not going to keep paying you. I do not want to read about a world you paint as better than ours in almost every single imaginable way, a world I would actually really really enjoy living in, where people like me were deleted.

You don’t get to paint people like me as problems to be solved just because your vision of a perfect world doesn’t include us, and then tell us that it was all for the best, really, because people in your ideal world wouldn’t have to suffer like I have.

Write for the disabled audience you have, or you are writing for the people who want us gone.

anniebasterd:

fullyarticulatedgoldskeleton:

When people ask, “How can I tell if someone is disabled or just lazy?” I think about my parents.

My parents have known me my whole life. When they’re not actively contemptuous of me, they do seem to be somewhat aware of my general personality and character. In one of his nicer moments, my dad has called me “sweet-natured.” They can tell that when I make them a surprise breakfast or lunch that I enjoy being helpful and doing nice things for people.

They know from watching me grow up that I have always had trouble keeping my room clean, getting homework done, and keeping my desk tidy at school.

The longest I can push myself past my limits is about nine months. Then I collapse and end up less functional than I was before I pushed myself. This has been a pattern throughout my middle and high school years. I would go to public school for about a year, and then collapse and have to do the rest of my education at home. My work history follows this pattern, too.

I once sat in a therapy session with my dad to talk about the constant struggle we were having at home because he wanted me to help out more and do better in school. When he asked me why I didn’t do things, I broke down in tears, because I couldn’t explain it. “I just CAN’T. I want to, and I CAN’T.” Nobody listened.

My mom asked me why I don’t do things, and I said, “I just can’t. I sit there for hours trying to convince myself to do things, and I can’t. Move.”

And she said, “Don’t think about it, just do it,” completely missing the point.

When I got older I found words for the things I was dealing with. I got professionally diagnosed, and I’d look up information about my diagnosis and e-mail articles to my parents explaining what my disability is and why I can’t do things.

My parents have firsthand information about my character (helpful, likes doing things for others) and my history with disability (can’t consistently keep things clean, can’t manage a daily schedule). I’ve talked to them extensively about my diagnosis and given them information about it. They have known me my whole life, and I’ve always been this way. And they still, STILL choose to believe I’m just a bad person who doesn’t try and doesn’t care.

My disability isn’t invisible, people refuse to look at it.

People like problems they can yell at. They like having a target for their frustration. They don’t want to admit disability is real, because they want problems that they can either solve, or blame someone else for. And the disabled person themself is their scapegoat, someone who can’t ever opt out of their role because the disability is never going to go away.

My disability isn’t invisible, people refuse to look at it.

grammaroffandom:

buttscentedbreathmints:

listen we’re always pushing back against anti-vaxxers with the science showing that no, vaccines don’t cause autism, but can we please talk about the underlying problem here which is that people hate autistic children?

even if the poorly researched pseudo-science was right and vaccines had any link to autism in children, i would still want myself and my children vaccinated because guess what, there’s nothing wrong with autistic people.

what i hear when people say they don’t want their children vaccinated against deadly illnesses because they believe that vaccines cause autism is not just that they’re horribly misinformed, but that they’d rather have a sick, dying, or dead child than an autistic child. and honestly, that’s pretty fucked up and just goes to show that neurotypical people don’t view us as people who are equally entitled to life.

*PUNCHES REBLOG BUTTON*

lysikan:

ableist-quotes:

Debunking Eugenicists

Here are arguments I’ve seen in support of denying medical care (transplants) to what they consider low-functioning autistics. These are symptoms/ parameters being described:

1. Requires 24 HR care:

So do young children and many elderly people, particularly those with alzheimer’s. A paraplegic will require assistance bathing and feeding themselves. All of these people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?

2. Soils themselves:

So do people with incontinence caused by age or neurological conditions. This is a symptom that can be managed and these people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?

3. Nonverbal:

Many nonverbal autistics can communicate using other methods. Nonverbal autistics are self-aware and able to process information. They may be unable to speak some or all of the time, but so is someone with mutism. These people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?

4. Unintelligent:

Aside from the fact that many autistics have an average to high IQ, and the fact that being nonverbal and experiencing other symptoms is NOT a sign of low intelligence… basing someone’s value on their intelligence is ableist. Most people with downs syndrome have a lower IQ and lead full lives. These people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?

5. Meltdowns/ Screaming/ Self Injury:

Allistics (non-autistics) can also experience mental breakdowns and self-injurous behavior, even if these symptoms are triggered by different reasons. Allistics can also scream when they are upset. These behaviors do not make an autistic “unmanageable” as a patient. People with other psychiatric conditions can experience meltdowns and self-injury sometimes. These people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?

You see… When you target one group with your ableism and try to pretend it’s limited to just these “severe” cases, you’re not talking about ALL autistics or ALL disabled people…

Yes, you are. Ableism and eugenics spreads.

If you don’t support one group of disabled people, you don’t support any of us. And I for one am standing up to say I equally value the lives of all disabled people.

It affects all of us. In every group. In every level of severity or functioning or whatever misinformed labels you try to use.

So when you say that a given group of people shouldn’t be eligible for life-saving medical care because they’ll be a waste of treatment:

YOU ARE SAYING THAT YOU VALUE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES LESS.

Some symptoms may not be as palatable to you, but you don’t get to draw a line between who deserves to live and who doesn’t.

“

Some symptoms may not be as palatable to you, but you don’t get to draw a line between who deserves to live and who doesn’t.

“

That line is gonna keep shifting until it includes you if you isn’t one of the rich, white, able, men (in the US – other countries has their own criteria for who is worthy).

Y’all know the poem that starts
“First they came for the socialists”

You’s doing it again.
“First they came for the autistics”

Is not the same – yet. Learn from history and make it not be the same.

sqbr:

beeth0ven:

not to sound glib but it’s important to support “ugly” cripples, too. those of us who can’t or don’t want to dress up, do makeup, etc. those of us who aren’t conventionally attractive. those of us who don’t have an “aesthetic”

it’s easy to ooo and aah over disabled people who also model, who have perfect makeup all the time, who have a congruent aesthetic all the time- but able bodied people need to also give the same support too those of us who don’t always “look 100%.”

it’s not just with disability, either. conventionally attractive people are always recived better.

also don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a knock on anybody, it’s a knock on a society that thinks beauty = value. but that’s not that fault of any one person!

somebody who doesn’t have on good makeup, who isn’t dressed up- that person is just as valuable as a model.

Not just “not conventionally attractive” either. People with food stains, skin conditions, drool, ratty old clothes, unusually shaped faces or bodies. People who clearly haven’t shaved or had their hair cut or washed in a while. People who stim or don’t make eye contact or speak with a lisp or stutter or not at all. And people who are very fat, and other things that aren’t coming to mind right now.

Not all of us can manage “normal”, let alone dressed up. And the ones who can’t are usually the ones most in need of support.

(I usually can manage “normal”, albeit with a lot of energy I’d rather spend elsewhere. But I know what a difference it makes to how I get treated. This also ties in with gender presentation, race etc)