Sometimes using a wheelchair means you can no longer get to the places that used to be important to you, and not because of man-made inaccessibility. I have sat with someone as they cried because they could no longer visit the place they had scattered a loved one’s ashes because not even the most expensive wheelchair in the world could handle the terrain. As much as I wanted to, my wheelchair meant that I couldn’t position myself in a way that would allow me to give them a proper hug. In that moment, our wheelchairs felt more like heavy weights than freedom.

And sometimes wheelchairs are like the legs of someone who can walk but would maybe benefit from a wheelchair themselves. Sometimes wheelchairs are exhausting and painful and you’re counting down the time before you’re able to be lifted into bed. Sure, like painful legs, you can do more with them than without, but constantly performing gratitude for something that hurts you is exhausting. And again, not because you need a better wheelchair, but because those are the limits of your body and the technology that exists.

No access info for any of the venues

Box office is inaccessible

Google “[festival name] accessibility”; get info on their “accessible pricing” (pay £1 less if you want to). No mention of free tickets for essential carers

Do a lot of disability detective work; most venues don’t have wheelchair access

One claims to be accessible, look inside: “we’re an accessible venue. There are three steps to get in, but we can help you with those”.

“Everybody welcome*”

We have people who can carry you up the stairs

Even worse than "3 steps but we can help you!" what do you mean you're going to carry someone up the 1 to 2 FLIGHTS of stairs? What?

So I carefully explained how I have a manual handling plan that sets out how I can safely be moved and that I cannot just be lifted by a random stranger who isn’t familiar with my disability. And that even if they got me up the stairs, my wheelchair is twice as heavy and there is no way they’d get it up the stairs.

I asked them, knowing that, what was their plan once I was upstairs, just lay me in a corner somewhere and hope I didn’t get stepped on*? Cause that doesn’t sound like a good party

It didn’t change anything. Events continued to be in the same venue, and they stopped trying to include me at all.

so. you want to bring a heavy, fragile powerchair upstairs? a powerchair that, if you drop it, could mean... failing out of school, losing a job (and unemployment for months-years), dying of pressure sores? it's not low stakes.

Because of that price tag, in the UK most people who rely on NHS funding for a CRT powerchair don’t have access to funding for a backup chair. I’d imagine this is similar in other places. Without my chair I’m completely housebound with no independent mobility.

That means if you drop and break my chair I can’t get to my workplace, can’t access healthcare, do my shopping, sit in the garden, visit my elderly relatives or housebound friends, or anything at all that means leaving the flat.

It can take so long to get new parts for a powerchair and even longer to get assessed for a whole new chair. Where I live if you can’t get to the wheelchair clinic (say because someone threw your only means of mobility down a flight of stairs) you’re waiting even longer for the assessment to get prescribed a new chair and the wait for any new part to be fitted is also longer because there are only so many engineers, OTs and physios and making house calls takes much longer per visit.

Twice in my youth (once in high school and once in college) I was in situations where I was asking someone out and I could tell they were calculating in their heads the risks of rejecting me, and both times I said, out loud, "you can say no, I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't prepared for either answer." And then they said no. This wasn't some spark of special wisdom I had - I knew to do it because feminist conversations among my age group brought it up regularly. This isn't happening nearly enough anymore.

More recently, I was really glad when we got to "rejection sensitive dysphoria" in my IOP program and it was one of those symptoms where the therapists really emphasized how it affects others. Because it does.

There are days when grief comes one wound at a time.For us, it came all at once.My father is critically ill in the hospital.My daughter Farah is still fighting a rare kidney disease.I'm exhausted, terrified, and running out of options.I need someone to help save my family.I'm pleading with anyone who still believes kindness can save lives.I wish I were asking for hope Instead, I am asking for help Please donate or share our appeal Your compassion could be the reason we make it through this nightmare. I urgently need money for the medication prescribed by the doctors when my father is discharged from the hospital so he can continue taking it. It costs us 320 euros 🙏🏻

🙏🏻"I'm terrified that one day I'll have to say goodbye to my father while watching my daughter continue to suffer. No one should have to carry this much pain."Please donate now, I desperately need your help🙏🏻💔

Please reach out your hand and support them by either donating or sharing the fundraiser.

"After they overheard that ICE was at the courthouse to arrest someone, they improperly accessed court databases to determine who was not born in the United States," a DOJ detention filing says. "They then snuck every suspected illegal alien who was at the courthouse out a back door, where ICE, who was waiting in the parking lot for their target to leave the building, could not see them."

Pro-choice goes both ways, and everyone should have the right and medical support behind whatever option they choose without discrimination. Simple as.

My friend Mohammed, who helped hundreds to donate to his uncle, a safe donor, has been using stomach medication for over two years due to the war and the stress he endured.

His wife was shot in the chest. Can you imagine living with a bullet wound in your chest from the army?

Despite all of that and all the documentation, no one is standing by my side. Everyone has left me alone to struggle through my days and bear all these burdens alone. Your financial assistance would be a great help in coping with this immense hardship.😭💔

Gofundme. Paypal

Detective Gordon, watching as he walks by, being transported to twenty years prior when he was a rookie cop first on the scene for the Wayne murders and finding a shocked eight year old little boy standing in a puddle of his parents’ blood. Remembering how he wrapped his jacket around him and carried him away in a hurry, tucking his face into his shoulder and whispering, “Don’t look. You’re going to be okay, I promise you’re going to be okay, just don’t look.”

Gordon watching as the supposed playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne does everything he can to comfort Dick Grayson, this little boy from the circus he’s never even met before, because he knows exactly the kind of pain he’s going through in this moment.

Eight year old Bruce letting out the most distressed sounding sob Jim has ever heard. Bruce gripping the shoulder of Jim’s shirt, crying out, “Mommy!” while Jim holds him tighter. Bruce trying to look back towards the alley, still calling for his parents, but Jim tucking his face back into his shoulder so he doesn’t see their bodies.

“Just don’t look,” Jim whispers.

Twenty years later, Bruce carries a shocked eight year old Dick Grayson out of the circus tent, rushing to get him away the sight of his parents’ dead bodies. Dick not letting go of him even as Bruce tries to set him down on a bench. Dick coming out of his shock with a shaking, rattling breath and a choked back cry. Bruce whispering to him, “It’s okay if you cry. You can cry as much as you want, chum, I’m not going anywhere. It’s going to be okay.”

Dick letting out the most distressed sounding sob Bruce has ever heard. Dick gripping the shoulder of Bruce’s shirt, crying out, “Mommy!” while Bruce holds him tighter. Dick trying to look back towards the tent, still calling for his parents, but Bruce tucking his face back into his shoulder so he doesn’t see their bodies.