catgirl, fangirl, just vibing~

DISABILITY ACTIVISM ISN'T TRYING TO BAN STAIRS FOREVER. WE JUST WANT YOU TO ADD AN ELEVATOR.

Accessibility is not a monolith. Okay? There is not some universally accessible way of existence where if you achieve it, you've finally found nirvana or some shit. Maybe the dyslexia-friendly extension that changes it up for some people will cause eyestrain for others. The descriptive audio that makes a movie friendly to blind people might detract from the experience of the Deaf person who's trying to watch the movie.

Disabled people are not immune to infighting and clashing access needs. It happens all the time! And all we can really do about it is try not to take things personally, and create multiple options to try and accommodate as many people as we can.

Being disabled doesn't mean that you want to bring the world down to your level to make things "equal." I can't run, but I'll still cheer for anyone doing marathon training. Frankly, if everyone in the world was magically made as disabled as me, that would be kind of miserable! Like, I'm depressed and tired and my joints don't work. I'm not going to wish that on others.

But what I do want is options for me to be included. I won't run a marathon, but I'd like supportive seating in the crowd so I can watch. And I don't want to be held to the same standards as the racers, either.

So, circling back to the original topic: sometimes, there will be a need for plain language. Yes, this is the official term. To my knowledge, it comes up largely in medical and legal contexts, and is defined as language that is simple and easy to understand. It benefits those with low literacy or cognitive disabilities, and is easier to translate into other languages.

HOWEVER.

Oh my god, for fuck's sake, this is an accessibility option, not an arbitrary limitation we should impose on every single piece of writing ever. Can you have some sympathy for us pedantic autistics whose inner selves are best expressed via pretentious sesquipedalian loquaciousness? Can you sit with me and try to understand neuroplasticity and the idea that improving your literacy will improve your life? Do you have any idea how much benefit public libraries are adding to our society? Can you think about who would benefit from lowering public literacy rates? The artistic destruction as a result of simplifying language?

Maybe I'm biased, but if you read your history, a lot of people don't actually care about disabled populations. Look up the capitol crawl, the ugly laws, the dark side of freak shows. Disabled bodyminds are exploited for perverse fascination and reduced to the margins of society to quietly die. Every inch of ground we have in terms of rights, we have had to fight for tooth and nail. I spend time with my loving extended family and have to explain very basic theory such as "medical abuse is a thing that exists" or "I don't want a cure" while asking myself how many more microaggressions I can endure. I'm not going to lie, it is rough. And I'm on the more privileged side of things, intersectionally speaking.

day 15: haunting ♡

you would receive the supply once a month

the brand/type will vary so you could

Snom (Paradox Drive)

But since I’ve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I… find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. It’s that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it… but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.

As I’m disabled, as I say to groups of friends, “I can’t walk that far,” as I’m in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: I’m boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: You’re out of the narrative, you’re secondary, you’re a burden.

The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; it’s common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that she’s like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, she’s important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork.  In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her household’s moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.