#disability issues

I hate posts of this genre so much. God forbid your DISABILITY actually DISABLES YOU???

If you genuinely think like this, you need to unpack why you think being an autistic person who can easily mask makes you so much better than autistic people whose autism DOES make them “weird”.

For fucks sake. Stop treating autism like it’s just a fun silly quirk that makes you better than everyone else (including MSN/HSN autistic people, who some of y’all basically treat like we’re a different species) instead of acknowledging that it’s a fucking developmental disorder. I’m not saying you can’t be proud of your autism, but trying to separate yourself from people who are more obviously disabled than you just makes you look like an ableist piece of shit. If autism is somehow not what you’d consider a disability for you, okay I guess, but you need to acknowledge that it IS a disability for MOST of us.

Like, imagine spending a massive portion of your life pushing through tears, pain, and exhaustion before finally achieving what you've set out to do and winning a trophy... And at the awards ceremony, someone jumps onto the stage, takes the trophy from you, and starts using it to hit an audience member who's disabled like you. I think I'd become the Joker.

So we’ve always wanted a quick term to describe the intersection of transphobia and disablism/ableism, esp as someone who has a Neurogender. Ableism is inherently part of transphobia and many trans people are disabled in one way or another, so I feel like this would be a really irrelevant term.

So without further a-due, 

TransAnapirophobia: the intersection between transphobia(including transmisogyny, transandrophobia, exorsexism, etc) and Anapirophobia(a general term that includes ableism, disablism, sanism, etc)

I’m currently very tired and dissociated so I do not have time to list out some of the examples of TransAnapirophobia, but I will be doing that to this post in the future to further elaborate upon that

But I do want to add this quote from the transgender law center

“Ableism is at the core of transphobia — transgender people are often labeled “sick” “mad”, “ill”, or “freaks” for simply being trans. This is a deliberate use of ableism, well known for its success in determining who is worthy and who is disposable. We are told that to be “sick” “mad” or “ill” — terms many of us now use to empower ourselves — means that we are perceived as less than human. That we are to be feared and neglected, rather than respected and valued. Even as transgender identities and experiences become more mainstream, being disabled, deaf, and ill have not. To be trans and disabled means that our genders and sexualities are under greater scrutiny. We are infantilized, fetishized or both. All of the expansive and gorgeous parts that make us who we are are never welcomed together. More often the complexity of our lives and experiences are used to dilute our rights to agency, resulting in trans disabled people being relegated to where we always are — a life where we are repeatedly disposed of.

What’s more, ableism at its core both perpetuates and is fueled by white supremacy — the two oppressive forces intertwine to shape and define the concept of the “other” as being dangerous and disposable. White supremacy creates conditions in which white disabled people are pitied while Black disabled people are feared. We cannot address ableism honestly without also addressing the ways that white disabled, sick, deaf, and mad people benefit from white supremacy, even within the violence that ableism presents”

TW: Ableism and use of derogatory language towards disabled people. if that makes you uncomfortable I suggest not reading this post.

I find the Kindergarten series commentary on disabled people, specifically Monty, to be incredibly interesting and honestly kind of refreshing.

I feel that most media out there tends to land on opposite ends of the extreme when it comes to how it portrays disabled people. You either have them treating disabled people as somehow "worse" than abled people, or you'll see them treating disabled people as if they are somehow gifted because of their disabilities.

As someone who is both physically (needs glasses) and mentally (ADHD) disabled I can tell you that it is neither glamorous to deal with these things, nor does it make me any better or worse than anybody else. Which is also true for Monty.

Even after being crippled by the original janitor, Monty is still portrayed as incredibly competent and capable of pulling his own weight in spite of his disability, but we can also see how being in a wheelchair does present its own challenges such as no longer being able to use the stairs and, most egregiously, how others treat him.

Monty is constantly picked on by both kids and grown ups alike, whether it be having his wheelchair taken apart at the command of Carla, or being regularly called derogatory terms like "Invalid" and "Cripple" for literally no reason other than people simply not liking him.

This all leads to Kindergarten 3 where Monty finally gets the chance to fight back and prove his own worth.

One of the big reasons why I like Helicopter Parenting so much is because it highlights that ableism extends beyond simply being disabled.

Throughout the entire mission Felix makes his ableist worldviews abundantly clear, calling Monty terms such as "Incompetent", "Invalid" and "Cripple" and refuses to let him see his father not because of anything he actually did, but simply because he personally doesn't like the idea of his dad working with someone who he sees as lesser.

Keep in mind that Felix has literally no reason to dislike Monty throughout most of his mission. At the very beginning of the day we "fix" Monty by giving him the goo battery, restoring mobility in his arms. He's basically as "abled" as a physically disabled person can be at this point. So really Felix shouldn't have a problem with him, and yet he does. Because being disabled is never really the problem for these people, it's the fact that they're different. They're not seen as "normal" and so they hate them for it. Nothing you can do will ever satisfy them because they already see you as broken beyond repair. Which makes our ability to turn the tables on Felix at the end all the more satisfying.

After spending the whole mission being unfairly discriminated against, Felix finally gets a taste of his own medicine when Monty has his chopper shot down.

"Let's see how Felix likes being crippled for a change."

Some might read this as the game treating disabilities as a punishment for bad actions which is obviously a stupid mentality, but what we're really seeing here in my opinion is a classic case of laser-guided karma. Felix spent the whole mission bullying a disabled person purely out of pettiness, so naturally his punishment is being turned into the very thing he despises. Being disabled may not be in itself a punishment, but for someone like Felix, it absolutely is. As sad as it may be, sometimes the only way to get it over someone's head that what they're doing is wrong is by forcing them to live out the exact same circumstances you did.

Now, do I think the Kindergarten games have perfect disability representation? No. There is definitely something to be said about the use of outdated terminology like "differently abled" that's present in these games, or how the series treats Monty no longer having to use a wheelchair or Nugget no longer speaking in the third person as "fixing" them, implying that being disabled somehow makes you broken.

At its core however, I believe the Kindergarten games offer some genuinely good insight on how disabled people are treated by the wider world and how they're often seen as lesser beings purely because they don't fit society's definition of "normal".

“Oh but nondisabled people will lie about being disabled to get benefits” I literally do not give a fuck about if a few genuine liars like that slip through the cracks here and there as long as it means it’s easier for actual disabled people to get insurance and other benefits instead of having to jump through all of these ridiculously invasive and disability unfriendly hoops that inherently require a system built by nondisabled people to determine if we as disabled people “deserve” help or not.