#disabilityrights

Can I interest you in some  ✨sticker mail ✨?

Hi :) Welcome to Vandalpark, the small, GenAI-free sticker business I’ll use to put out messages I wish the world would see a little more of. Shop launch is on Monday, May 11th at 11:00, and I can’t wait to get cracking and find my designs new homes on your various belongings across the Netherlands  ~

I’ve got so many more stickers in the works and still more ideas, so if this sort of thing speaks to you, I’ll be posting each shop update here, but I’ll always respect your time and avoid spamming you (I’ll still remind you before launch so you’ll be the first to know!). This will be a relaxed corner of the Internet for chill browsing time - or just using the sticker designs as a little mood booster for your feed :)

I also have an email newsletter below with a maximum of one email per month if you’d like to be the first to hear about new designs and any offers. 

If you have any questions, comments or requests, please use the contact form on my website once it launches on Monday; this is where I streamline what I’ll be reading instead of comments on each platform. Thank you for understanding <3

Disabled people were often scolded for spending so much time on social media / on our phones, yet when lockdown came, everyone realised the value of technology to keep in touch,

Disabled people were told they were lucky that they could spend so much time in bed, yet when lockdown came, mental health illness cases rose because people had to do just that.

Disabled people were laughed at for suggesting socialisation virtually with friends and family, yet when lockdown came, group calls and virtual family quiz nights held relationships together.

Disabled people were rejected when asking for the flexibility and accomodations to work from home, yet when lockdown came, these accomodations were easily made.

Disabled people asked for virtual doctors appointments and were told it wasn't possible, yet when lockdown came, it was the only option.

Disabled people were crammed into crowded places causing accessibility issues, yet when lockdown came, social distancing improved access.

Disabled people requested more online shopping and deliveries for essentials, yet when lockdown came, this was seen as a necessity.

Disabled people who wore masks before Covid were mocked, yet when lockdown came, wearing a mask was enforced.

Disabled people were met with jealousy when they stated they were unemployed, yet when lockdown came, many realised the true struggle of not having anything to occupy their time.

The hypocrisy of the abled people who would mock, deny and minimise the disabled experience who were then forced to live in a similar way needs attention. I hope that there is more compassion now. I hope that knowing the changes and accomodations disabled needed are possible results in more accomodations being made. I hope that companies choose to continue to support those with disabilities, even if that was never their intention. I hope that something good could come out of this devastation.

Comment below any more Covid contradictions you can think of!

ID: green background with cream text reads "covid contradictions" brown text reads "disabled people often asked for requirements that were rejected, yet during the pandemic, these became essential." Below is an image of a white woman wearing a yellow coat and brown mask.

New episodes of HEnabled are out! Sometimes marketing with a disability can be tough so excuse the VERY belated post 😅 The following episodes are now out:

Pad's Story: Navigating university with a new ASD diagnosis.

Sam's Burning Questions: My friend Sam does not have any disabilities but wanted to learn more about disability in a judgement-free environment; I gave him a platform to do so in this episode.

Marie-France's Story: Getting reasobable adjustments in both university and internships with a late ADHD diagnosis.

"Laughter at Daw" by Layne unveils the harrowing journey of Abigail (Abby) Thornton, an intellectually-disabled young woman trapped in a cycle of abuse and neglect. As Abby’s hallucinations worsen, she endures unimaginable pain, from fire to murder, while struggling for justice at Greenway Developmental Center. With the help of her advocates, Abby fights back, shedding light on systemic failures and the power dynamics that threaten her future.

You may be a bit confused by the last word in this title-wouldn’t this kind of blog post usually be called “Why I Don’t ‘Light it Up Blue”? I obviously don’t do that either, but I also have issues with the color gold being used in the context of autism. To start, a history lesson.

Gold for autism was an idea that goes as far back as the  2000s. The earliest instance I’ve found of Au is 2004. I know this thanks to the Fandom Rescue Project on Web Archive, who preserved tons of Yahoo Groups forums before Yahoo shut the feature down permanently. A lot of early autistic organizing was done via Yahoo Groups, among other platforms. My source supplied me with more than six hundred megabytes of data related to autism and disability-focused groups. In one of them, AutAdvo, there was discussion of an “Autistic Underground”, which had the abbreviation Au. It has the Latin phrases “perservateur pa Excellence”, and “Aut víam inveníam aut faciam”. Those translate to “persevering excellence” and “I will find a way or make one”. A user named Janet Norman-Bain, whose alias was “Jypsy” talked about Au also being the symbol for gold, and using it as an abbreviation as they “mine info”. She also suggested that “years from now we’ll be the select few who know what it *really* means”. It appears as if they were right, eighteen years later. I do not believe this is directly related to the Autistic Union, often symbolized with Âû, nor do I think it was something their creators knew about and deliberately built off of. There was talk of autism and gold separately a few years later in a separate Yahoo Group list, so it’s entirely possible that many different people have thought the same thing about linking autism to gold without necessarily knowing other people had the same idea before them. 

Another thing from early Neurodiversity history that Âû is reminiscent of, which is more concerning, is the passport to Aspergia, as well as other monikers people would use to identify themselves. Aspergia was this fictional island devised by someone named Edan. It had a website with a forum that lasted from 2002 to 2004. Aspergia was supposedly the land where all autistic people are genetically descended from, and it suggested that autistic people are “Aspergian Mutants”. It deliberately uplifted people with an Asperger’s diagnosis over those with an autism diagnosis, with one of its writers, TheASMan, publishing a book titled Tears For Aspergia. This book lamented that some advocates were pushing for autism to be seen as a disability (which it is). Passports to Aspergia were orange wristbands, and autistic people would wear them to show that they were aspies. This feels similar to the Âû moniker. Back when blogging was really popular on the internet, people would use specific buttons and tags, and this included autistic bloggers. Older social media platforms used to be more customizable than the most used ones are now, and I think including Âû in the username is part of trying to reclaim that personalization. Again, I do not think these are directly related to Âû, but I do think they have the same line of thinking behind them.

Many people use the Âû letters in their username, and surely not all of them are bad, nor are the people connected with them, right? Yes, there are perfectly fine people who are within this network, and most of them are probably unaware of these issues. However, many of them also display problematic behavior and espouse dangerous beliefs. They can be very opportunistic, flooding the comment sections of people who make pretty minor mistakes. It’s a common practice within the Neurodiversity Movement to protest and organize this way, and it can be very effective, but many people in these circles will see something pretty minor, like someone who uses person-first language for autism, or puzzle pieces, and practically form a picket line around them.  They’ll also claim that the way they think is how “the majority of autistic people'' feel, rather than explain the merits of their argument.

Finally, and most importantly, using the gold for autism creates a feeling of separatism from the rest of neurodivergence and disability, specifically in the context of the gold infinity symbol. The gold infinity symbol was first used circa 2014 by AutisticUK, a UK-based labor party organization. It was taken from the pre-existing rainbow infinity symbol that symbolizes all forms of neurodivergence, meant to be an infinity symbol exclusively for autistic people. I really don’t see the need for this. Now the rainbow symbol has its own somewhat problematic origins, being made by the creators of Aspies for Freedom, but I personally like the way it looks, what it represents, and I think it’s been used in mostly decent ways over the years. There’s certainly an essay to be written about AFF themselves. I’ve always envisioned the Neurodiversity Movement to be about more than just autism and for autistic-led spaces to include more than just autistic people. I feel like what will truly liberate us as a community is if we have cross-disability solidarity. This is something the Disability Rights Movement has struggled with since the beginning, so it’s not a problem exclusive to us neurodivergents, but it is still an issue all the same. The founders of Autism Network International had the right idea, and utilized a concept that has sadly been mostly lost to time-cousins. Mel Baggs wrote an excellent blog post about this a few years ago: https://ballastexistenz.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/cousins/ 

intersectional_feminismmm 🤍🤍🤍

Major CW: R*pe, CSA, ab*se, abortion

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