Trevor Noah interviewing Judith “Badass” Heumann

Judy Heumann believed in the inherent value of each disabled individual and would never back down on what she thought was right. Her friends and fellow activists remember her as a strong leader.

Judy Heumann

December 18, 1947 - March 4, 2023

She’s Jewish and born to immigrant german parents who migrated in the 1930s

She has been in a wheelchair for nearly her entire life due to contacting polio at a very young age.

Due to her wheelchair, she was actually barred from most schooling including kindergarten as her wheelchair was deemed as a “risk.” because it could be “in the way” if there was a fire.

She was the first wheelchair teacher in New York after suing when she was once again denied her license for the same reasons she was denied kindergarten.

She worked as the Assistant Secretary of Education for OSERS for 8 years

Her parents, especially her mother, were big parts in her becoming an activist as her mother Ilse was a community organizer and fought hard to get her daughter as much education as she could, it was her activism that helped her daughter and other disabled children be allowed to enroll in High School instead of being separated into a specific disabled school. (We don’t have time to go into all that but tldr; those schools sucked and its a genuine accomplishment disabled kids no longer have to learn in like, cramped attics that didn’t teach anything)

She was a founder of the organization Disabled in Action! She didn’t just organize sit-ins, she helped RUN the organization that was organizing them!

The president she butted heads with the most was Richard Nixxon, this isn’t that important I just know everyone loves when he gets dunked on

She helped CREATE THE INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION ACT!!! I cannot express to you just how important that is, if you have basically any kind of disability, this act is a big reason you were able to go to a public school instead of being shoved into a warehouse.

The Black Panthers helped with the 504 sit-in! They helped bring food because the organization also included black disabled people, and one of the members of both, Brad Lomax, asked for help!

She had a podcast! You can go listen to that podcast right now!

Honestly just check out her website in general

She also founded the Berkeley Center for Independent Living!!

Honestly I could keep going on but she’s genuinely one of my heroes and was an amazing person who it is not an underestimate to say changed the world for the better.

oh its like talking to a fucking funhouse mirror with these people tbh. its the same with that one guy who was like "checkmate MRA, women in the 19th century were legally property and couldn't wear pants!!" when that. is literally an example of how trans men were also directly systemically affected by misogyny.

these people never stop for one single second to think of trans men who never get to transition. they never think about the countless trans men throughout history who have lived and died as women. who have been subject to child marriage and clitorectomies and been treated as legal property. they don't think about trans men in countries right now who go through all of those things, who legally cannot be outside without a male guardian because they are legally female, who cannot even get their own passport because they are legally female. its so fucking frustrating.

radical feminism has its hooks so deep in some parts of the trans community, and frankly a lot of people have internalized trans separatist talking points. even if they don't realize it they don't seem to think of trans people as a coherent group. all trans people's experiences are seen as just a shadow cast by cis men’s privilege and cis women’s oppression, and our experiences are reducible to cis men and cis women's experiences but slightly different.

people will tell you that people seen as men are gender-policed much more harshly than people seen as women and every little deviation towards femininity is noticed and punished, and that's why trans guys have it easier. but you'll also hear people tell you that people seen as men have so much more wiggle room, men can be all kinds of sizes and shapes meanwhile people seen as women have to fit into this tiny little box, and that's why trans guys have it easier.

these are two entirely contradictory lines of logic, but they lead to the same conclusion. because the conclusion is the point. its a backformed theory of gender. people believe, for whatever reason, that "trans guys have it easier" is an objective fact, and then storytell an explanation for why that is that sounds right to them. [...]. its about people just feeling, on a gut level, that trans guys must have it easier, by which they really mean, transmasculine suffering isn't socially visible, and it isn't natural for me to imagine it, therefore it must not exist; yet, trans suffering in general clearly exists, so there must be some reason that transmasculine suffering feels so abstract and immaterial to me and others.

once you start to see this you can't unsee it. people will just say insane bullshit that could easily be used to make the opposite point they are making

here's an example of this in action:

"if someone masculine happens to have something feminine about them, it is dissuaded"

when you are on a date, and someone has an interest you don't quite get, instead of saying lol lame, try saying hmm i don't quite get that, please explain that to me, and then listen as the other person talks about why that thing is something they are in to.

you might learn something which recontextualizes the matter, and you will definitely learn something more about your date, which is the entire point of dating.

you don't have to be a superfan by the end, but you will have shown you can be chill and take an interest in stuff, which is much more likely to result in a second date instead of being ditched in a coffee line.