Chaos

This site has certainly shifted when it comes to disability rep over the last 4 years so please don't forget about wheelchair users, paraplegics, quadriplegics, class 3 Powerchair users, hoist users and any other severely disabled wheelchair users during your celebrations!

Decided to look into it and as a warning to all of us I will let you know they absolutely can, for the same reasons controllers for consoles start to. General use over time can cause it, build up of debris and things like that. Pulling it too hard in one direction can also cause it. You should be cleaning your wheelchair anyway because it’s what is sanitary and helps the equipment last longer, but definitely pay some extra attention to the base of the joystick so nothing gets in the way of the sensors.

it still speak over & saviorism. n in some cases even gaslighting, n not using that word lightly.

have had verbal speaking people (plural!! many occasions!) so desperately think they doing me favor when they tell me “no actually you not struggling with communication 🥺you great with it” when am saying hey being nonverbal naturally mean am struggle w communication, n have many other language cognitive struggles that make communication even harder.

some they keep insist even when tell them no, assume am say it because am just… unconfident n low self esteem n falling for deficit language n also assume have never heard of well, autism advocacy for past decade (bc context of convo be abt autism).

n have had some actually argue with me about… my own experience? n when naturally as person who struggle with communication (that they conveniently deny, while said struggle actively helping them), cannot argue back as easy as they (person w communication privilege) do, try get other people help explain, they then call me… deploying other people n dogpiling them.

a fundamental principle of disability justice is being able to recognise when someone might be more disabled than you.

[plain text: a fundamental principle of disability justice is being able to recognise when someone might be more disabled than you]

It's easy to point at ableds who will refuse to acknowledge others disabilities, not notice inaccessibility, or cringe away from catheterisation, stomas, hygiene problems and all the troubles that come with disability. It's simple to recognise that that's not okay.

But sometimes within the disabled community people don't do that well. And it's hard because there are of course many people fighting the internalised ableism that demands they downplay their disability. But the answer to that is not saying "nobody is more disabled than anyone else". This is not true. This has never been true.

Disability justice is a framework and movement that builds on the disability rights movement, and has ten core principles. The second is "leadership of those most impacted" - being led by the people of our community who most know the subject and systems at hand. You can't practice leadership of those most impacted if you don't stop to consider who they are. You can't practice it if you aren't always ready to recognise when it may not be you. You can't practice it if you don't work to uplift the disabled people around you so that their voices can be heard.

This principle is what made the disability rights and independent living movements so powerful. We remember names like Judy Heumann and Ed Roberts as figureheads of these movements (with their work not limited to the US), but one look at their work shows they deliberately and always put in the work to uplift others in their community. From community consulting to practical assistance to recognising that we all have different needs that we deserve to have met - as simple as just waiting for someone to finish their sentence if they speak slowly, and not demanding everyone meet arbitrary communication standards - they understood that there is no disability fight without a deliberately built "us" to fight together.

As non-Americans, we have our own unique issues with government disability support programs- none of them are the same. As a Canadian, a hot button topic for me is MAID (which I unfortunately see a lot of Americans making tasteless jokes about, but that's besides the point). As a Nova Scotian, it was specifically the lack of targeted disability rights protections in law. As an Ontarian, it's now the hurdles required to get onto ODSP, only for it to pay way less than cost of living.

Those don't apply to Americans- many of you probably know very little about them- so do you feel comfortable reblogging them, getting in on the conversation? I don't, when I'm faced with posts about American disability law.

While I think that specific posts about these issues are important, I'd really love to see folks opening up discussion on things that exist across borders. The skepticism suffered by service dog users, lack of access to adult changing stations, the stigma around "gross" disabilities, the treatment of people with motor control challenges like they're less intelligent, general lack of public respect for autonomy of disabled bodies... the list could go on and on. These are, for the most part, issues that exist across borders.