tumblr friendships are hard to maintain like im sorry i know i havent talked to you in 5 months but you’re still super rad and i still consider us friends im just dumb
disabilities = not the problem
ableism = the problem
I will expand on this with an example
The fact I need a wheelchair does not upset me. Going out in my wheelchair does not upset me.
The looks and stares and comments I get from people when I’m out in my wheelchair DO upset me.
I don’t know man… The horrible stabbing pain I feel most of the time? Kind of upsetting
I agree. But everyone feels different about their disability, and it depends on what kind of disability it is too. I don’t mind being autistic, sometimes I even like it, even though people treat me like I’m a dumb kid sometimes and making/keeping friends is hard for me. But I really really hate having an autoimmune disorder. The disability is a problem for me because being in constant pain really sucks, and ableism is a problem because people think I should be healthy and able-bodied because I’m young, so obviously I’m just faking it.
It would be nice to be able to lose the ableism component so I only have my own issues to deal with, instead of everyone’s judgments on top of it.
So, this past weekend, I took my 11-year-old daughter to SuperCon to meet her favorite actor (and favorite Doctor), Peter Capaldi.
She wore a little blue TARDIS-decorated dress and some Doctor Who pins, and she nearly cried with joy when Capaldi greeted her for the photo op. He was a consummate gentleman and such a sweet and enthusiastic person.
An hour or so after the wonderful photo op experience, she and I were sitting at a table in the food court area.
A burly, older man plopped down nearby. He looked at my little girl’s outfit, smiled, and said, “Do you even KNOW anything about Doctor Who?”
WTF, dude?
I was too stunned for a second to even respond, so he started right in with the ‘quizzing.’
“Who are the Doctor’s biggest enemies, and what planet does he come from?” this stranger asked.
Now I had moved past shocked and right into indignant/angry/protective mode.
“I don’t want her to be quizzed on something she loves, because I don’t want her thinking she has to prove ANYthing in order to be a fan,“ I told him.
Looking at my daughter, I said “You don’t owe strangers explanations or information, ok?“ She said OK and looked relieved.
Still he pressed on, patronizing grin and all: “Oh, I just want to be sure parents are raising their kids right.” Then he turned to my daughter again and asked “Who was the first Doctor, then?”
I cut him off right there. “No. I don’t want her quizzed. At all.”
Dude blinked in disbelief, sighed, and left about a minute later.
“Thanks,” my daughter said. “He was making me feel awkward.”
I held her hand and looked into her eyes. “Some men think they can have power over you by making you prove yourself. You never have to do it. They’re just insecure and pitiful, so they want to make you feel like it, too. It’s not only about fan stuff, and it’s not always just men, but be careful not to fall into that trap, ok?”
That crap isn’t harmless fun. It sets up a pattern of approval-seeking, self-justification, self-doubt, and fear of exclusion that is very dangerous for children (particularly girls).
Fuck that.
TL;DR: Do NOT come at me, my little girl, or anyone in my vicinity with your condescending, gatekeeping bullshit.
The next time, I won’t make the mistake of even TRYING to be polite.
jesus christ what is wrong with people. the comic book guy from the simpsons is cautionary, not aspirational
So like… what do gatekeepers… DO in the real world? Like if they’re at an LGBT+ event and a bi woman is like “Hi I’m Emily and this is my boyfriend,” do they like… confront her? When a person at a support group says “I’m asexual” do they just sit silently and stew in their own rage? Like how do you people function in the real world??
An enormous amount of gatekeepers don’t interact with local queer groups and communities at all. The younger ones don’t have access, and the older ones got black listed a long time ago for being vile.
That lack of access, for the younger ones, is why they are so easily targeted by older radfem types, and is why the age of gatekeepers is so skewed towards young people, btw. They have no way to experience actual queer communities, so they get sucked into this awful, dangerous parody of it.
That was a rhetorical question but this is a damn good answer
I keep seeing my comment on my own dashboard and I just want to say to all the people in the notes who are insisting that I’m making this up that I’ve been out and active in queer politics for 15 years now, in various locations throughout the US as well as in international locations my extended family live in, and trust me when I say, nope. This is legit.
The way adult gatekeepers act gets them thrown out for being vicious more often than not, and leaves them with two options: make their own closed groups where they can interact with like minded bigots away from the main queer spaces in an area, or go online.
Most of them these days pick “go online,” and that’s how they end up finding young queer kids who, for any number of reasons, have not been given access to queer spaces in person, and work on indoctrinating them.
I have seen it happen in person, and I have seen so many people who narrowly escaped that indoctrination, usually when the gatekeeping groups that tried to absorb them revealed themselves to be bigoted in other ways (racism is a common one) that made people realize they needed to leave.
It’s a real thing. Sorry. I’m glad so many of y’all apparently “haven’t seen it” but it’s very much Out There.
All true. However I do find that in many places the most vocal nasty biphobes, aphobes and terfs get blacklisted but the more subtle ones don’t. That is why many bi, asexual and trans people do have the kind of real like experiences this post started out asking about.
Things like being asked is your ‘sure’ about your identity and getting a very disproving look when you say you are. Adding ‘but are you really part of this community?’ as a question to every single debate again and again. ‘Forgetting’ to invite your group to an event every damn time. ‘Forgetting’ to use inclusive language. Etc. Microaggression upon microagression. These things happened in all LGBT spaces I’ve interacted with.
good thing tumblr isnt on the level of other social media websites because I cant imagine a future employer diving into this hellhole after receiving my resume
When you say you’re the victim of abuse you are supposed to, by the common understanding, be able to bring up very specific episodes of that abuse in order to “prove its really abuse”.
But a lot of abuse just doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes they just wore you down constantly. Sometimes you couldn’t put your finger on it, but felt all of effects none-the-less. Sometimes its so plain awful that you’ve repressed it. Sometimes it was so damn insidious that you normalized it until one day years later you mention it and someone gives you a look of shock and you realize it wasn’t normal.
All of you. Any of you.
You are all just as valid as someone who wrote a whole damn memoir on the thing.
The stories coming out of this post are absolutely heartbreaking.
thank you for this post
Yet, in trying to portray the migrant experience, the video turns migrants into one-dimensional characters: humble, heroic, noble, self-sacrificing, so “good” that no one should ever question our worth or worthiness. A six-minute video could never do justice to our varied and complex identities and experiences. I get that. But it’s also possible to do better. It’s possible to advocate for immigrants without falling back on the “deserving,” “good” immigrants, “felons not families” narratives that throw those of us who can’t fall under those categories under the bus. While I understand the impulse to emphasize our goodness, especially as the Trump administration paints us as rapists and criminals to justify our detention and deportation, idealizing migrants as heroes and saints also dehumanizes us. It’s possible to say we belong in this country because the freedom of movement is a basic human right. It’s possible to tell migrant stories and sing freedom songs without claiming that our value comes from “getting the job done.”
Saw something expressing anger at healthy people who take up the seats for disabled people on the BART, and it reminded me:
Last year when I couldn’t reliably stand up for very long (I got dizzy and lightheaded very easily, I was supposed to do as little exercise as possible) I was sitting in one of those seats and someone got frustrated with me for not giving them up for an elderly person. I apologetically gave up the seat and luckily stayed on my feet just fine. I know people do sit in those seats thoughtlessly, and I think it’s totally okay to say ‘excuse me, I need to sit down, can you help me find a seat’, but if you assume people are healthy off ‘young and not visibly unable to walk’ then you’ll end up getting mad at lots of disabled people for using the disabled people seats.
And disabled people who have this happen to them a couple times will probably start avoiding those seats if they possibly can, because they expect to be challenged on sitting in them, and on the whole you’re not making things any easier for disabled people by policing on their behalf. If you need a seat, ask. If you see someone in need of a seat, by all means help them find one. But don’t assume anyone who looks healthy is rude; lots of reasons someone can’t stand on a moving train are invisible.
That autism feel when you’re trying to communicate with an allistic and they suddenly go “Don’t give me that attitude! Don’t talk to me like that! No, don’t you act like you don’t know what you’re doing!” and you have absolutely no idea about what you did wrong.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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