Why is it so hard for disabled people to find safe, accessible places to live?
Seven years ago, while sitting in my eighth-floor apartment with my toddler, I heard a voice over the intercom: Our building had a gas leak, and we needed to evacuate. A few weeks prior, a coffee shop down the street had exploded from a gas leak, killing two people and injuring at least 25. Terror struck me: Our elevators were powered down—and I use a wheelchair. I was trapped, unable to take myself and my child to safety.
The fire department quickly determined that it was a false alarm. Still, I didn’t stop shaking for hours. After a similar episode a few months later, my husband, David, and I bought a duffel bag the size of a human. We invited our neighbors over for pastries and asked if anyone would be willing to help carry me out during an emergency; my toddler could ride in the bag with me. A few neighbors agreed, but I couldn’t ignore that my survival—and that of my child—was contingent on who else might be at home, and who might remember our request and be able to reach me. Eight months later, we moved out. We vowed never to live in a high-rise again. Yet nothing could free me from the indignities of seeking housing while disabled.
I’ve been disabled for 14 years, and in that time, I have resided in both the United States and Canada but have never lived somewhere safe where I can use all (or even most) of the rooms—an experience familiar to many disabled people who must find homes in a housing system that was not designed for them. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 6 percent of U.S. households include someone who has difficulty using their own home because of accessibility problems. I know people who cannot do things as basic as enter their own bathroom. Jessi, a wheelchair user, told me that for three years, while she was pursuing her Ph.D., she had to take sponge baths because she couldn’t find a house that had a shower she could get to from her wheelchair anywhere near the university. (Jessi and many of the other disabled people I spoke with for this article requested to be identified by only their first name to speak candidly about their living situation.)
Setups like this are not only alienating; they’re humiliating. And they’re a continuation of disabled people’s historical mistreatment and exclusion, a legacy that shapes housing to this day. I was reminded of the so-called ugly laws, which forbade disabled people from being seen outside their home, when a condo we considered buying included a “warning clause” in its contract advising us that a local school “provides education to students with physical and developmental disabilities” and “may cause disturbances to the occupants of the Condominium.” The official “ugly” statutes may have come off the books in the 1970s, but this condo building still felt the need to alert residents to the proximity of disabled people.
And that’s just one way the history of discrimination influences current buildings and houses. Many older school buildings in the U.S. and Canada are not accessible to disabled students, in large part because disabled people were granted the right to education only in the mid-’70s. Most houses lack elevators and ramps, and for years, builders had little motivation to include them, because most disabled people were sent away to institutions rather than integrated into family life. Many of the most abusive and inhumane facilities for the disabled are now closed. But as long as disabled people like me can’t find suitable places to live, we won’t be able to fully participate in our communities and family. One disabled person I spoke with told me she has considered assisted living—even if it would mean being farther from friends—because she hasn’t been able to find a home with a setup that would let her live on her own.
Making older homes accessible is hard. Renovators have to contend with stairs, unreliable elevators, narrow doorways, level changes, high thresholds, small bathrooms, tight kitchens, narrow hallways. Many of these homes need near-complete remodels, putting the cost out of reach for many people.
Relying on collective support can ease the burden. Jayne Mattingly, an author and artist in Charleston, South Carolina, told me that her friends banded together to build wheelchair ramps for her. David Gissen, a disabled architectural historian and the author of The Architecture of Disability, told me that, in urban areas, neighbors can split costs for updates that benefit everyone; for example, residents in a group of brownstones might share an elevator.
For renters, the thicket of housing laws is complicated and varies based on where they live. In some cases, tenants may be expected to foot the bill for modifications; in other circumstances, landlords may be required to pay—but the requirements can include loopholes for changes that create an “undue financial and administrative burden.” And, as I learned, the “undue burden” standard can be slippery and applied too liberally. I spent months trying (and failing) to persuade a property-management company to install buttons that would enable me to open the exterior doors of my apartment building. Over and over, other disabled people told me how frustrating it could be to have to fight to get their needs met. For Farah, a PR representative in Los Angeles with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, a condition that, for her, affects muscle development in her limbs, the process was deeply intrusive. She told me that when she requested a shower-door replacement in her current apartment, her landlord came into the bathroom with her and asked Farah to explain how she gets in and out of the shower.
Even when landlords are open to making modifications or when disabled people can cobble together the funds to do so themselves, some updates can be difficult to implement, depending on local preservation requirements. Advocates for preserving historic structures argue that architectural authenticity links us to our heritage and that certain historically significant neighborhoods should not be altered. Some point out the role that buildings have in maintaining an area’s character.
It is true that older structures can connect us to the past. But inaccessible architecture also perpetuates a history of isolation and excludes disabled people from both private and public spaces. I can’t count the number of times I haven’t been able to attend an appointment or event because I couldn’t get into a building.
More painfully, I had to abandon my dream of building what would have been my first fully accessible home, after a neighbor started a monthslong campaign against the construction. He argued that the house, which would’ve been the first in the neighborhood that could accommodate a wheelchair, wouldn’t fit in. That neighbor hosted a meeting (upstairs, in a building without an elevator) where about 50 community members and a city councilor discussed how to stop the project. I later learned that, at the meeting, one person suggested that I didn’t need a wheelchair-accessible house, because I could simply be carried up the stairs, like other disabled people they knew.
Looking back, I’m struck by the fact that those meeting attendees were inadvertently paving the way for their own eventual exclusion. Bodies and needs change over time, and accessible housing makes it easier for people to remain in their home as they age. Yet the inevitability of aging does little to make the housing system friendlier to the disabled or the elderly. As Wanda Katja Liebermann, a University of Oklahoma architectural historian and the author of Architecture’s Disability Problem, told me, people have a general “inability to imagine themselves as needing access.” I have certainly encountered people who find it frightening to imagine a future in which they can’t walk up the stairs, or in which any uneven surface might present a tripping hazard.
But imagine what would happen if, rather than cementing society’s fear of disability, buildings were to make more room for frailty. Could it be that aging would become a bit less terrifying? At the least, accessible homes would let disabled people, the elderly, and the injured fully take part in their household’s daily routine. Their lives, and those of their family members, would be all the richer for it.
Where my family lives now, I must spend most of my time in the primary bedroom. While in bed the other day, I heard the kind of body-on-wood thump that all parents recognize, followed by my 1-year-old crying. The baby was safe: David was comforting him. But it felt wrong on a primal level that I couldn’t be there too. I texted David, but his answer took time; he was focused on our child. “Bring him here,” I wrote. Finally, David carried our son upstairs, where I wrapped my arms around his soft body, his snotty face pressed into my sternum.
I’ve experienced too many moments like these, trapped upstairs while my family laughs, argues, sings, or cries, just out of reach. In these moments, I ache not only for the memories I’m missing but also on behalf of my disabled ancestors—the many people who, like me, made their families better but, because of ignorance and fear, were hidden away.
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The Murderbot Diaries are a power fantasy about being aromantic and still developing extremely important dedicated emotionally intimate partnerships where you are a top priority in a person's life, equal to their other family or romantic attachments despite your own emotional difficulties. And having guns in your arms
see this is exactly what I'm talking about. this labour is so incredibly invisibilised that there are real human beings, walking about amongst us, leading normal lives, etc., who earnestly believe that machines can make an item of clothing from start to finish.
Hey just in case someone on here doesn’t quite understand how labor intensive making a garment is, here is a list of things that (to the best of my knowledge) cannot be done by machine alone, from a costumer/tailor in training
Cutting - in my opinion, the most labor intensive part of the process. The amount of time/effort needed varies depending on the pattern and if seam allowance is included or marked separately, but no matter what this process can not be done by machine. Each and every panel and piece of fabric that goes into a garment must be cut by hand by a person.
Pinning/clipping - pinning (or clipping) is the stage at which you align the pieces you are going to be stitching together and hold them together with — you guessed it! — either pins or clips. This can not be done by machine.
Stitching - the actual sewing. This can be done by a sewing machine, but that machine still needs to be operated by a human being.
Ironing/pressing - two words that mean the same thing. The iron itself is a machine, but once again, it needs to be operated by a human being.
Finishing - depending on the technique you use, there are certain finishing techniques that can only be done by hand. But, let’s assume we’re talking about fast fashion, which is usually just finished with a simple overlock/serger. Once again: these machines need to be operated by people.
These are just the basic steps to making a garment, and don’t include textile arts that I am not as knowledgeable about, such as weaving, knitting, and crochet. Also, it is important to note that there are a lot of things that can only be done by hand, such as certain stitches and decorative techniques.
Also, the machinery being operated in textile factories is not equivalent to a domestic sewing machine. We’re talking about one of these guys:
See that gray cylinder under the table, behind the knee pedal? That’s the motor. These machines can sew through your fingers bones and all and not even stop. The people in these factories and sweatshops are operating heavy machinery, and are subject to all the risk that comes with that in addition to all of the work I mentioned above.
Please respect textile workers and continue the fight to eliminate the use of sweatshops and exploited labor in the fashion industry!
China blocked multiple attempts to bring Myanmar to justice while ASEAN countries accepted and hosted Myanmar's junta and their illegal earnings!! Guilty, guilty, guilty as hell. Everyone is guilty
We have learnt that they were flown from Delhi to an island in the Bay of Bengal, put on a naval vessel and eventually forced into the Andaman Sea with life jackets. They then made their way to shore and are now facing an uncertain future in Myanmar, which the mostly-Muslim Rohingya community had fled in huge numbers in recent years to escape persecution.
"They bound our hands, covered our faces and brought us like captives [on to the boat]. Then they threw us in the sea," John, one of the men in the group, told his brother by phone soon after reaching land.
Rohingya refugees tell the BBC they were flown from Delhi and forced into the sea off the coast of Myanmar.
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This is what I was alluding to when I discussed that the volume of name changes you have to make as a trans person highlights the ridiculous amount of documentation attached to you.
sometimes a post here makes me REALLY emotional in ways I can't immediately square and one of them was a post I saw recently about the paralyzing fear of transitioning because it makes you confront the regret of not having done it earlier and that you have to believe the relief of doing it now is worth how hard it is to look at the life you didn't have but could've
which is not my personal emotional relationship to transition but I'm realizing IS my relationship to my stupid fucking probably-asthma. If I actually go to a pulmonologist and they diagnose me and treat me that would mean it was diagnosable and treatable THIS WHOLE TIME
the thing about both parenting and medicine is that social structures around these things create such intense, unbalanced reliance relationships that it's STUPIDLY easy to end up traumatized fully accidentally, by someone dropping the ball in a situationally reasonable way one or two times
which is. bad. it's bad that systems work this way.
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My Five-Month Battle for Reimbursement of a Covered Expense
Hey! One of my partners wrote a really good blog about fighting with Cigna.
My insurance plan covers laser facial hair removal as a gender-affirming procedure for transgender people. My partner, a trans woman who is on my insurance, got this procedure done, and getting it reimbursed was like pulling teeth.
Representatives of my health insurance company, Cigna Healthcare, told me falsely that my plan didn't cover the procedure when I called them to ask about my claim. Even after I got my employer's Human Resources department involved, Cigna continued to lie to me and deny my claim despite the terms of my plan. It took me five months, 12 phone calls, 3 emails, and an HR ticket to get my claim reimbursed.
Currently, most people get insurance through their employers, because it's much cheaper than buying insurance on the open market. The insurance company's revenue is determined by their relationships with employers, not patients. In other words, the employer, not the patient, is the customer.
This is why I had to contact HR in order to get any meaningful progress on my claim. When the employer is the customer, the employer must be involved in any claims process complicated enough to require human judgment. This means the patient must disclose private medical information to their employer, which can expose them to discrimination. I was lucky in this case, because I'm already out at work and the procedure wasn't for me, but I still had to pass personal medical information through a member of my employer's HR team. If I were a trans woman getting my own laser reimbursed, this process would have forced me to out myself to my employer.* Ideally, there would be no such thing as employer-sponsored health insurance at all.
*Applications of this dynamic to other types of claims, such as disability care and fertility treatments, are left as an exercise to the reader.
When I was training to be a paramedic, we had one student ask the instructor what to do in the event of a marijuana overdose. The instructor said "Tell him to take two twinkies and call you in the morning."
If the Please Do Not Eat That Professional thinks it's inconsequential enough to be funny, then the concerned caller knows it's no big deal. When I was a kid my mom called poison control because I ate not one but several crayons, and their advice was to make sure I didn't stray too far from a toilet for a few hours because suppositories are made of wax, too.
Also several years ago I ate half a sandwich while wondering why the hell it tasted so funny only to realize the Goo Gone I'd been cleaning with was leaking, and did so onto my sandwich. Poison Control now has an online form where you can put in what you ingested/how much/when/etc. and someone basically triages those out, so the kid who just drank a bunch of drain cleaner isn't in line behind the kid who ate a crayon. I got a call like twenty minutes later from a nurse who told me I was fine.
Oh! And if you want to know what the tool looks like, it now gives a "this is not a real case" option to let you test it out, so I became a hypothetical worried patient who accidentally took 1000mg of ibuprofen (max dose should be 800) instead of 1000mg of acetaminophen (which has a max dose of 1000) and ran the entire thing. It took me less than two minutes from this:
To this:
Below this screenshot I was advised to drink some water and that if symptoms developed in the next four hours, I should only be concerned in certain cases (e.g. nausea is normal, heart palpitations are a problem).
So what if it's a serious problem? Suddenly, hypothetical Nina was cleaning xir bathroom sink and got hit with some Drano splashback with xir eyes and mouth open! Here's what the tool suggested. As soon as I selected that I'd gotten Drano in my eyes, this popped up:
So I hypothetically went to rinse my eyes, came back, and indicated it'd also gotten into my mouth and onto my skin. Here was the result:
And finally, hypothetical!Nina made an extremely bad decision, then decided this wasn't how xe wanted things to end after all. So I selected the option that says I'd attempted self-harm, and this popped up. (I didn't get it in the screenshot, but there's a drawing of a sad snail at the top of the screen. I think it's supposed to remind you someone is there, this just isn't the best route to reach them.)
The tool covers literally thousands of substances, and it's fast to use. It'll ask your age, assigned sex at birth, what you were exposed to, how (ate/drank it, breathed it in, got it in your eyes, etc.), how much you were exposed to, how long ago, whether you notice any symptoms, and what zip code you're in. That's it, and it's right here if you need it, and as they told me when I said I felt dumb over my Goo Gone-ified sandwich, they'd rather I check and be fine than not check because I "felt silly" and end up dead.
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Is there anything sadder than the little chunk of Kikis Delivery Service when Kiki says “I used to really like flying before it was my job” and then gets so burned out that her magic stops working and she cant talk to Jiji anymore and she tries so hard to FORCE the magic that she breaks her mothers broom and stays up all night, alone, trying to make a new one and crying?
And I know it is all ok in the end- Kiki has friends who look out for her and she takes care of herself and finds her place.
But fuck, those 20 minutes just hurt my heart so much.
when i say autogynephilia isn’t real in any meaningful sense, i don’t mean that trans women don’t get turned on by themselves being hot. i mean that it is perfectly normal to do so and many cis people also do that
also you totally can transition for sex reasons. that's a thing you can do. your reason can absolutely be "god it would be so hot if i was a girl" and you're not a weird pervert for thinking that because cis girls think "god its so hot that im a girl" allllll the time. they really never stop thinking it
you can want to get bottom surgery solely so you can neopussy bounce on another trans girl so hard that it makes her want one for herself. that's totally legal
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