ableism:

you can reserve a space on the train for your bicycle in the default online booking form.

to get a wheelchair space, i have to book the ticket then exchange several emails with the railway company, as if the concept of wheelchairs is entirely new to them. sometimes there’s no email address and they try to insist i call them, which is inaccessible to so many people. then they demand i show up half an hour early, at which point they typically act as if they’ve never heard of you or they have a wheelchair ready because no one told them i have my own. when i arrive at my destination, i cross my fingers that anyone has bothered to call ahead for someone to get the ramp out, and usually have to resort to asking another passenger to flag down a member of staff. i leave long after all the other passengers and crew. and don’t even get me started on airplanes.

now apply this principle to literally everything.

oh and the only reason i have to do any of this is because they didn’t build the trains to be level with the platforms. i only need their “assistance” (literally just a ramp) because they didn’t factor me in in the first place. all that effort, MY effort, for “help” i shouldn’t need.

being disabled is so much WORK. contacting everywhere you might go in advance to find out if it’s accessible, then you get there and “oh there’s just a few steps” or you have to call them on some number so they can get the one guy who has the key to the rickety elevator but oh wait he’s on vacation, or they’re using the disabled toilet as a storage closet. everything i do comes with layers of effort that abled people can’t even imagine (i know, i used to be one).

now bear in mind that on a good day i have like 25% of the energy of an average person my age. i need most of that to, you know, eat and so forth. so having to spend half my energy dealing with this type of bullshit renders so much of the world inaccessible to me, because i often physically cannot jump through all these fucking hoops to like… enter a building or get on a train.

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson photographed by David LaChapelle 

This is some 90s nonsense right here.

I HAVE NEVER SEEN THESE BEFORE AND I’M ALREADY ON A HIGH FROM KINKY BOOTS AND NOW I’M IN SENSORY OVERLOAD

Tag yourself I’m Gillian surrounded by eyes

this is so aggressively nineties.

do people who are against trigger warnings absolutely lose their shit and scream about free speech and george orwell when they see age-based discretionary warnings displayed before certain movies and tv shows or do they just hate it when the purpose of a content warning is more explicitly meant for the mentally ill

[Wondermark] this is the coolest thing.

@king-and-her-lionheart you will LOVE this

@copperbadge I thought you might find this interesting :)

TAG YOURSELF, I’m a yard-sale of androids

@tangleofrainbows @art-of-zirio

@criticaltheology for “an itself of yahwehs” @ladymurgatroid for . . . well, all of it

“it would be impossible for this disabled character to be played by a disabled actor because of the things this character can do in this movie” well then maybe…… you fucked up in the writing of this disabled character……

This would be especially terrible for rural people.  I don’t live in Alabama, but I do live in a rural area with no public transportation, period. 

Unless someone can drive you somewhere in a car, when you’re in a very rural area, you can’t go anywhere at all.  Even the closest gas station is over 10 miles away from my house.  It’s an additional 10 miles to a grocery store or doctor’s office.  And some of the specialists I see for my health are over 200 miles away, which is like a 400 mile round trip.

Cars are very important in many cities, particularly for people who live in neighborhoods without good public transportation and for disabled people for whom public transportation may not be accessible.

But there’s no way to really survive for most in rural areas unless someone in the household or a consistently available community member has a car to take you places.

please note this also intersects with ableism as many of us are not able to reliably take public transport.

isn’t… like… everything in America based around having a car?

Yup.

your choice will be between being able to buy the food and being able to get to where its available

so either way, you don’t get to have food

Arthur Orr submitted this bill, so if you want to drag him to hell for it, here you go:

DISTRICT 3 ADDRESS:

P.O. Box 305 Decatur, AL 35602 Phone:(256) 260-2147

MONTGOMERY ADDRESS:

Suite 730 Alabama State House 11 South Union Street Montgomery, AL 36130-4600 Phone: (334) 242-7891

FIELD OFFICES:

Decatur 2128 6th Avenue SE – Ste 504 Decatur, AL 35601

Huntsville Madison County Legislative Delegation 726 Madison Street Huntsville, AL 35801 (256) 539-5441

Athens Limestone County Legislative Delegation 110 College Street, Suite E4 Athens, AL 35611 (256) 262-9038

Perfect. 

(so like i know that this is a silly post, but the fact that all us bills are the same dimensions is actually Really Unhelpful for visually impaired people, and it’s kind of embarrassing that we still haven’t gotten around to changing that t b h)

Craig Ferguson on Tom Cruise attacking Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants to fight Post-Partum Depression. (via themarriageofadeadblogsing)

I have always thought Craig Ferguson was a very smart man. It appears I was right.

(via deliciouskaek)

“It’s not like you go “oooh, I feel really sad” and then your arse falls off.”

(via cephalopuddle)

reading a paper on quality of life among 45-to-70-year-olds with Down syndrome:

“Individuals expressed a desire to be allowed to go to bed when they wanted to.”

:(

Imagine.

I lived in a room and board that failed the burrito test. (”If you’re not allowed to get up in the middle of the night to microwave a burrito, you live in an institution.”) No one stopped me from going to bed, but they did tell me I had to have my lights out by 10, and that I had to be out of the house by 10 the next morning. When I complained to my outpatient program that I needed more help than I was getting, they threatened me with board and care, where my cell phone would be taken away and I would lose contact with the outside world. My case manager sounded so damn smug, like he had caught me out, when he said, “if you’re really as helpless as you say, then you need to be in a board and care.” Like my only options were struggling to do things I couldn’t do, or surrendering my life to an institution.

When I tried to talk about these things with other people, they always rationalized it away. (I told my dad once that my caseworker was reading my e-mails as I wrote them, demonstrating extreme disrespect for my privacy, and he said, “Well, she’s probably making sure you don’t use the internet to goof off.” I was 22 years old.)

 People tend to mock the idea that telling an adult when to go to bed, when to eat, etc., is a human rights violation, even though they would find it outrageous and absurd if anyone came into their lives to do the same thing to them.

And this is what people seem to think when they tell disabled activists we’re just not disabled enough to understand that some people really do need to be locked up and deprived of all autonomy.

Within any community of marginalized people it seems like there are going to be some people whose experience of discrimination was dominated by hostility (”we don’t serve people like you here” “if you’re gay I’m kicking you out of the house” “he’s retarded, he doesn’t even know that we’re making fun of him”), people whose experience of discrimination was dominated by internalized negative stereotypes (”I thought people like me were burdens on their families” ”I felt like if I didn’t marry a man and have kids, there was no other way I could lead a valuable live” “I thought that people like me having sexual desire was gross and disgusting”) and people whose experience of discrimination was dominated by invalidation (”you’re not gay, honey, it’s a phase” “you saying you’re mentally ill is insulting to people with real illnesses” “you’re really white for a black person”)

And obviously lots of people get all three heaped on them, or different things for different axes of marginalization, but I think that a lot of community discussions I’ve seen have broken down along the fault lines of people having experienced fundamentally different forms of discrimination.

And that’s how you get “who is more privileged” debates - is invalidation less oppressive than internalized self-hatred? If you haven’t experienced hostility, are you really oppressed? It’s also how you get the “oh, we’ve solved that” flavor of cluelessness - hostility is easier to see than invalidation and internalized negative stereotypes, and so once hostility has been made socially unacceptable some people might think the space has been successfully cleansed of bigotry.

Also, some solutions can be very frustrating if they’re for the wrong problem - for example, if you think someone’s problem is internalized self-hatred so you tell them “it’s not true that the other kids don’t like you! people won’t see you any differently for who you really are!” when, in fact, they’re dealing with hostility because yeah, the other kids are in fact bullying them for who they are.

I guess the only remedy I have to propose is to keep in mind that another person’s experience of discrimination may be really different than yours, and don’t immediately try to put it on a spectrum as “worse” (and so I should feel guilty over my relative privilege) or “better” (and so I need to defend my place of relative disprivilege). It’s a multi-dimensional space we’re working in. 

#i’ve been staring at scully’s face in the last gif and crying with joy off and on for the last HOUR#’aRE YOU BROKEN? HAVE YOU RECENTLY SUFFERED MASSIVE HEAD TRAUMA? HAVE YOU BEEN REPLACED WITH A SHAPESHIFTER? DO WE NEED TO PULL OVER???’#’do you remember the time he tested evidence by putting it in his MOUTH? or the time he almost opened radioactive material in public?#remember when he ACCIDENTALLY GOT HELD IN A GULAG?#what about when he wandered off and got EXPERIMENTAL BRAIN SURGERY because he wanted to know what would HAPPEN?#what about—’#and skinner’s like ‘okay okay i just thought maybe if i said it i could will it it to be true shut up’ via plenilune

Tru facts

you know whats bs? the fact that many disorders are only diagnosed if theyre “a significant hindrance to your functioning” except, neurodivergent people are literally forced to “function” in a world made for neurotypical people, so how can you even tell what impairs our function when we’ve been forced since birth to act as though we’re functioning perfectly fine and to push ourselves to unhealthy limits to do so

i don’t pass as neurotypical and i’m doing fine

to all the family members and caretakers and educators who think autistic children need to learn to ‘act normal’ so they won’t be bullied: no, they need to be protected from aggressive jerks so they won’t be bullied. just like every other child. and while autistic adults do often need to put on a performance of neurotypicality in the workplace, that is a problem with ableist work environments, not a problem with the autistic adult.

because i’m self-employed, my livelihood doesn’t depend on the biases of a neurotypical boss. so i just don’t bother passing. i wear soft clothes that don’t drive my sensory issues crazy, even though they’re unfashionable. at restaurants, i order the same thing every time. i stim in public, rubbing my buzzed headfuzz and tick-tocking my feet rhythmically back and forth, touching my fingers to each other in a certain order, drumming with my thumbs on my knees or the table or the steering wheel.

i talk about my special interests and let people see i’m excited, and if they don’t want to hear about it, it’s up to them to come up with a subject change. i don’t try to guess what people mean when they’re vague; i say, “i’m not getting it, can you put it in more concrete terms?” i say, “i’m a bit faceblind, i know i’ve met you before but i can’t place you.” i say, “i have loud ears today, can you keep it down?” i say, “nonverbal. text me.” i touch my mouth and pantomime typing.

i say, “i’m autistic. here is how to accomodate my needs.”

if i’m the disabled one, i shouldn’t have to accomodate you. stop demanding that disabled people accomodate abled people. you’ve got it backwards.

“three non-Muslim women wear Hijabs for a day” turns out Islamophobia is real.

“two straight men pretend to be dating for a day” turns out homophobia is real.

“wealthy family tries living on minimum wage for a month” turns out it’s impossible.

“man dresses as a woman for a day.” turns out transphobia is real.

“woman pretends to be deaf and applies for jobs.” turns out ableism is real.

It turns out everything minorities, disabled people, and the less fortunate have been telling you exists actually exists. But thank god someone “like you” was here to play dress up as one of us for a day so they could confirm it, because for some reason you couldn’t believe one of US even though we’ve been talking, shouting, SCREAMING PLEADING AND ACHING about these things every day our whole lives. Congratulations. Let’s see if now you at least try to do something about it.

Lol savage

I no longer believe in the human race.

This is the laziest shit ever

How lazy can humans get?

Have you never met white ppl?

yh but if you look outside your own personal reasons for using this, laziness, it actually looks a really great and practical way to put on your socks if you have a disability that hinders you from otherwise being able so without someone there to help you 

you do realise that there are people out there who literally have to travel door to door helping elderly people, disabled people and people with chronic illnesses to put on their socks? people are paid to help put on pressure socks to help with oedema? don’t you realise that if these people could have one of these tools, these caregivers could be doing something else and that this therefore is an incredible tool designed to cater for some of the most healthcare dependent people in our society? do you guys even realise there are other people living other lives?

i really wish i had this when my spine was broken and i had to wear a medical metal corset which made bending down impossible. i had to ask my mom to help me with socks and it was kinda humiliating.

My dad spends an hour in the morning getting dressed because he has no one to help him to get his socks on because his ankle is fused. If he had this it would literally save him an hour.

“Oh but people are so lazy!”

fuck off you ableist pieces of shit

Honestly I don’t even get how you could look at this and think “lazy”. This looks like more work for an otherwise able-bodied person than just putting their sock on the regular way. It’s pretty obvious this is meant for people who have trouble bending over, like come on.

You know how people go straight to “lazy” on this? Because we’re trained to think of most accessibility modifications as lazy. The disabled = lazy message is deeply embedded in our culture.