#queer disability

A few quick reminders/affirmations to share today, especially based around academia:

There are likely more disabled people in academia than you think. No, this does not mean you can slap a label of "high-functioning" on them and call it a day - it means you need to make any academic events and environments as accessible as possible.

Many disabled people are also queer. No, you cannot use this as a reason to discredit their experiences with queerness or the queer community as a whole. Disabled people deserve just as much autonomy and respect as everyone else.

Self-diagnosis is a valid form of disability. There are many reasons why someone may be unable to get a diagnosis: financial reasons, waiting lists, limitations to human rights, or a lack of understanding disability and intersectionality from medical professionals. Despite how the media may portray it, many self-dx disabled people have done extensive research into the disabilities they feel a connection with, and/or feel a strong connection to others in the community with similar experiences.

If you're in academia, consider looking into critical referencing practices! Many of them focus primarily on gender and race diversity in citations, which is also important, but a significant amount of disability research is done by able-bodied neurotypical researchers who are looking at disability from an external pov and see it as a deficit. By including disabled researchers more, we can make our conversations within research much more nuanced. Nothing about us without us!

If you're not sure how to make something more accessible, just ask! Maybe there's local communities/organisations you can get in contact with to ask for advice; you can look online to see if anyone's already given suggestions for something similar; or if it's something with a budget you could even hire an accessibility advocate to help. If you're enlisting the help of disabled people beyond basic advice, remember to make sure they're reasonably compensated for their time and labour.

Disabled people are allowed to feel pride for their identity! Disabilities have their pros and cons just like every other part of life, so those feelings of pride might not be there all the time, but that doesn't mean people need to feel ashamed. And if they do feel that pride all the time, good for them!

we recently started at a new practice to receive pain management care, and were honest about taking a family member's pain meds when in excruciating pain. to this, the nurse got angry and rude, telling us we absolutely cannot do that again and it's "against the law." I told her I hope we don't have to. they didn't send us home with anything but an appointment for two weeks out, either.

our primary care provider knows about this and has not said anything one way or the other. we have many issues but the biggest is stage FOUR endometriosis, which is the sole cause of every "worst pain ever felt" record we've had. it's infinitely frustrating to be stuck in a cycle of letting myself be in horrific pain because I'm told to not take other's medication, (sometimes) caving in and taking pain meds that aren't ours, asking for help from medical professionals only to be given nothing, repeat. what kind of life is it to live this way?

TFW you realize that strangers might think your dearest friends are kind of assholes, because they don’t use “person-first” language.  Because I don’t, bc like:

I’m not a person-with-epilepsy, epilepsy isn’t my pet or my backpack or something.  It’s part of me.  I’m epileptic, goddammit!  We don’t do it for any other identity, why ability?

(Just imagine: “Hi, I’m Twitchy, I’m a person with epilepsy, bi/pansexuality, Bostonianism, and paganism.”)

I’m imagining the person who hears my friends mention their epileptic buddy, and who corrects them with, “Excuse me, you might not know it but that’s disrespectful.  We prefer people with epilepsy.”

And the friendly but awkward shuffle of ‘actually Twitchy is a badass nerdlock who prefers to call herself an epileptic bc sugarcoating it never stopped a seizure so why call it anything it aint-’

welcome

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