token northener

- Inter-disability couples

- Multiple people with the same disability presenting in different ways

- Disabled people who do not have a specific diagnosis

- People with multiple disabilities

- People whose mobility support needs change from day to day or depending on activity

- People who don’t hate being disabled

- People with progressive conditions shown adapting rather than played for tragedy

- Disabled people who are not “good” or “innocent” (but not villains either!)

- Disabled people with multiple marginalized identities, rather than always being white middle-class cishet people who happen to be disabled

- Groups of friends with more than one disabled person

My disabled YouTuber friend now gets harassed when she uses a plastic bending straw (an accessibility tool, something she NEEDS in order to drink, no alternative currently works) in her videos.

Reminder right here: no matter how someone looks, their disability will not always be apparent to you.

But when my disabled friend is denied emergency evacuation plans out of a building because the elevators get shut off and she uses a wheelchair, does the building owner get shamed or harassed? No.

Those are the power dynamics at play here.

If you see me out and about by myself, I (gasp) got there all by myself. I will be getting home all by myself, too. I don’t need your help. Leave me alone.

Your attempts to “help” me when I do not need help are 100% about you and 0% about me. If I needed help, I would ask for it. Also, I do not owe you any personal information and I am not here to make you feel better about yourself. In fact, my life has nothing to do with you and is none of your business.

I had a train driver start calling me “buddy” earlier this week, before forcefully (not aggressively, but in a tone that made me feel very unsafe) saying “you’re coming with me”.

That wasn’t even my train.

Even if your intentions are good, infantilising and otherwise ignoring consent when it comes to disabled people, especially mobility aid users, is neither okay, nor welcome, nor safe. We’re still full people, and those of us who can go places ourselves will go places ourselves, and those of us who cannot won’t—so don’t try and force yourselves upon us.