This Is Ableism

June also sees awareness for mens mental health, PTSD, and scoliosis!

Let me know if there is any other awareness in the month of june!

Additions! - Caribbean American Heritage Month and National Indigenous History Month (in Canda)

A woman on tiktok said she brings her teenage HSN autistic son into women’s public toilets. I politely suggested to her getting a radar (disabled toilet access) key because that seems like a perfectly acceptable reason to use the disabled toilets and it’s safer/more dignified for her son.

I’m getting replies disagreeing with me, calling me ableist, saying that’s not a valid reason to use the disabled toilets, that I’m speaking over autism mums, that I’m making it weird, etc.

Was I being ableist or does my suggestion seem fair?

for example, i've recently seen LSN autistics trying to claim autism doesn't cause nonverbality and that if someone is nonverbal it has to be because they also have an intellectual disability, even if they don't.

i've also seen someone talk about the "trend of calling severe developmental delays autism" and asking "how is it autism if someone is 30 but mentally 5, wouldn't that be more akin to intellectual disability or severe developmental delay" and that "autism doesn't impact intelligence" so "why do people call intellectual disability autism or profound autism"... uhm... because autism causes developmental delays and many autistic people are intellectually disabled. the reason you see people with intellectual disabilities and severe developmental delays referred to as autistic is because they are.

i find it very gross. can people stop trying to rewrite autism to exclude autistic people they find are less palatable for their own gain

This is ableism!

Therapist (to my parents): [Dead name] can't be Autistic and even if [old gender] was [old gender] would be very low on the spectrum

My parents (and i) taking this to mean the therapist was trained in autism assessment and that this "diagnosis" is set in stone: ah yes this makes since we see nothing wrong it's just anxiety attacks because of noise. Carry on

Me years later realizing that I am in fact autistic and that therapist used an ONLINE quiz (I remember it being some quiz site not even an official site that you'd expect therapist to use)

This is also the same therapist that called my older sibling crazy during one of their sessions. And is also the one who had a ridiculous number of clocks that made noise out of sync which was a sensory nightmare to me. But then he'd say that it's OK and I'm just having a panic attack despite me having a meltdown, covering my ears, crying, stimming, ect.

I'd like to note that I am afab and at the time I was 14-15 and very talkative so perhaps it was sexim because you know how woman are underdignossed with autism and get told their symptoms are because of anxiety disorders and adhd. qnq. I am just realizing now that that couldn't have posibly been a real autism eval because thoes aren't just a buzfeed quiz

-♾️

tfw both of these posts are ableism.

specifically the anon in the first post, and choco in the linked post.

idk if it would work better to screenshot from that link to blur names, or just post this ask.

that's in your hands now- 😅

From both sides in the post, this is ableism.

Link

(post I have seen on Twitter)

Are you? are you a good fucking person?

Adding to the ask from a succeeding ask:

Please add to the ask about how Disney has no disabled characters.

Lilo is generally considered by most people to be autism coded. But it is never confirmed in any official media so it doesn’t count.

Also I just completely forgot Quasimodo. He is the singular no asterisks canonically disabled Disney character. And he’s from a story they didn’t make.

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first noticed it through a headache, inability to focus on the show we're watching.

i was told to go to my room so they could watch it without me and that upset me. i don't like when they watch things without me. even if they said they'll rewatch it with me.

that might be my own inflexibility at play, but it feels especially more hurtful when it's paired with a demand.

because demands tend to make me shutdown, become "defiant". i couldn't move.

and my mum is the one who tells ME off for phrasing things poorly to my similarly demand sensitive sister. when she made demands that pushed me into a shutdown. and called ME abusive...

i didn't realise for a while that i didn't need the noisy person to leave the room, but my mum. that was what made me feel the most frozen.

i think it has been years since i have had a physical shutdown. and with that time, my mum is still just as bad to be around throughout them.

the same way she called me verbally abusive when i had verbal shutdowns. because i couldn't respond to her. i was "giving her the silent treatment".

(For context, I am autistic, have auditory processing issues, and multiple anxiety disorders) At school, I have accommodations which mean that I can leave class for a bit when I get overstimulated or have a panic attack. A few years ago, I was going through a period of abysmal mental health and extreme anxiety. PE was hands down the worst, most overwhelming subject - panic attacks most lessons due to overstimulation, verbal shutdowns caused by it which lasted all day, shutdowns and dissociation which made me lose all ability to function and communicate. My PE teacher at the time was a horrible person. Whenever I needed to leave class (which was most lessons), she would either stop me doing so, or make me go back into the gym after about a minute (not enough time to recover at all). I tried really hard to mask and push through it but I just couldn't.

One day, I became extremely overwhelmed, had a shutdown, and stopped being able to move or communicate at all. I was sitting against a wall, and the teacher came up to me and somehow got me to leave the class. She then told me off very severely, saying that I 'needed to participate', 'didn't have any excuse', 'had to do things that [I] didn't want to do' and 'couldn't get out of it just because [I] felt like it', completely disregarding the fact that I was disabled and could not participate in that class. This caused me to have a panic attack and start crying. Finished with her lecture, she sighed, and walked back into the classroom, leaving me, sobbing and hyperventilating, alone.

I was an obviously disabled child, and she yelled at me, caused me to have a panic attack, and then just... left. Her work completed, her point made, the 'messy', 'ugly', disabled reality of who I am and what her words and actions did was so unsavoury to her that she couldn't even stand to look. This makes me so unbelievably angry.

I know all these are mental issues but I just see this sort of behavior more common among those with mental disabilities and illnesses.you can have the exact same disorder as someone else and it doesn’t make you a better person just because your symptoms are more socially acceptable.

in er doug ross in the break room was making fun of kerry weaver, and I get that she isn't that great (actually I don't she's my queen but oh well) but he was also mimicking the way she walks because she walks with a crutch and it made me feel really sad because like I use crutches and I hate when people make fun of me for it

this was on like s2 though so it's from the 90s so I get that things were a lot less progressive back then but do we really need to be making fun of someone for their disability?

-🌿 🌑 if it isn't already taken

WE HAVE TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF ARTHRITIS OML

im fine with telling people about my disease because its super rare and its really interesting that i somehow have it (pemphigus vulgaris) but then i get so much pity after explaining it…

i guess im just used to it now so i dont understand people being devastated over it.

I found that the National Eye Institute doesn't have info on iridodialysis aka Coredialysis and also Polycoria. (Might just be a lack of research than outright ableism)

https://www.nei.nih.gov/search?terms=Coredialysis

https://www.nei.nih.gov/search?terms=iridodialysis

https://www.nei.nih.gov/search?terms=Polycoria

More on Iridodialysis if anyone wants:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridodialysis

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12997591/

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/iridodialysis

I believe it may just be a lack of research, the oldest article, from Cleveland clinic, is from 2023, with the others being around 2025 in publish or edit dates.

First three links

link 1 link 2 link 3

last three links

Same! I’ve gotten to learn about so many different disabilities since making this blog!