Disability Tag - Tumblr Posts
happy disability pride month to disabled people who are often forgotten about or trampled on to validate other, differently disabled people.
happy disability pride month to people with brain damage (regardless if abi or tbi) who have to hear neurodivergent abled people use "but the brain is an organ!!" as an excuse to invade physically disabled specific spaces. happy disability pride month to intellectually, cognitively and similarly disabled people who's voices are ignored and disregarded because of being perceived as "stupid" or "less smart", or "less worthy" of being heard and listened to. happy disability pride month to people who are visibly autistic, cannot mask, or aren't low support needs and are perceived as "stereotypes". happy disability pride month to people who are amputees, paralyzed, deaf, or blind and are dismissed and overlooked for it because of it being a "well known" or "common disability", causing people to forget that "well known" doesn't automatically mean "understood" and "respected". happy disability pride month to those who are disabled by/due to rare, unknown, or uncommon illnesses or disorders, ones that don't have wikipedia pages, ones that aren't ever mentioned when speaking in the topic of disability, ones that people have to google, and therefore aren't heard or valued. happy disability pride month to people with disabilities that are seen as "old people/elderly" disabilities and are mocked for it. happy disability pride month to disabled people with disabilities that are or make them look "gross", "strange", "scary", or "creepy" to abled people and are avoided or made the butt of jokes as a result of. happy disability pride month to anyone i didn't mention here.
YOU'RE ALLOWED TO SPEAK. YOU'RE ALLOWED TO EXIST. YOU SHOULD BE HEARD. YOU SHOULD BE LISTENED TO, VALUED, LOVED, ETC, JUST AS ANYONE ELSE. YOU ARE A PERSON. YOU ARE NOT A JOKE. I CHERISH YOU AND YOUR EXISTENCE HAVE A GOOD MONTH!!!
Twitter Thread
Unrolled Version
[ID: Screenshots of a Twitter thread by Charlie Knight [they/them], @CKnightWrites, posted around 4:18pm, July 3rd, 2021:
Since it’s Disability Pride Month, I’d love to address something I see many issues with out in the wild:
Wheelchair etiquette
There are appropriate and inappropriate ways to interact with someone who is in a wheelchair. Knowing them benefits all involved.
A non exhaustive 🧵 [thread]
1. Outside of emergencies, there is no reason for you to touch someone’s wheelchair unless asked. If we’re in the way, treat us like you would anyone else and say “excuse me.” If it looks like we’re stuck, treat us like you would anyone else and ask if we need help. Don’t touch.
1. (Cont) [continued] l can’t emphasize how important this is.
A wheelchair is an extension of our bodies. If you wouldn’t lift and move an abled person without asking, don’t push a wheelchair.
Grabbing my chair = grabbing me. It’s assault.
3. Don’t speak over or about us. Meaning, don’t look at my husband and ask “do they need help getting in?” when l’m right there. This is another infantilizing move and it’s horribly disrespectful.
4. Do not assume that someone in a wheelchair isn’t ambulatory (mobile). Sometimes, a person using a wheelchair can walk and will. This should not be a shock and is not an opportunity for questions about our disability.
5. Unless we’re in a setting where it would be appropriate (you’re our doctor and we’re in the office/hospital, or you’re paying us at an event to speak about it) there is no opportunity for you to ask questions about our disability. That’s just rude.
6. The above goes for your children, too. Disabled people are not a learning opportunity - do not turn us into one by telling kids that staring/pointing is bad but they can ask us questions. No, they cant. It’s still rude, and it’s not our responsibility to educate your kids.
7. Don’t move our wheelchairs after we’ve transferred out either, not until we say it’s okay and know where it’s going. If I transfer out of my chair at a restaurant and the waitstaff whisks my chair away, they’ve effectively taken my legs and hidden them. No, thank you.
8. Don’t go out of your way to avoid saying things like “talk [take] a walk.” We’re pretty likely to express things that way too, and “take a roll” as a cutesy alternative is not as funny as you think.
9. Use the word “disabled.” It’s not a dirty word. Alternatives like “differently abled” are infantalizing and gross, and terms like “handicapped” and “crippled” are both outdated and (often) offensive.
Disabled. Get comfy with it.
10. Don’t say things like “wheelchair bound” or “confined to a wheelchair.” Mobility aids like wheelchairs give us our freedom; they’re a good thing, not a trap.
All of these are general rules of thumb, esp w/ strangers or ppl you don’t know well. You may know someone in a wheelchair who is fine answering a kid’s questions, you may hear a disabled person using “cripple” for themself. Obviously, that’s okay. This is a starting point.
The big takeaway from this should be to treat us like you would anyone else - not as a broken, not as a freak show, not as a child. All it really takes is basic respect and acknowledging that we’re people too.
Thanks for trying to do better and Happy Disability Pride Month! 💜
Sidenote: I personally am open to questions about this, about disability etiquette here. My DMs are open, comments welcome.
Please do not assume that every disabled person wants to be an advocate or an educator. Someone RTing this thread is not an invitation to ask to them ?s [questions].
/end ID]
Gaza has a large disabled population. Wissam is just one of tens of thousands, who need medication and care, facing the devastating choice of being slaughtered at home or out on the streets. All districts in Gaza but one have been declared combat zones.
I sort of hate how people with disabilities are always expected to be an “inspiration” and in good humour about their disability. We must conform to this idea, hide the worst of our symptoms to make others more comfortable. They are disgusted by our rage. Shout out to disabled people who don’t want to be an inspiration, who are pissed off and sad.
Gaza has a large disabled population. Wissam is just one of tens of thousands, who need medication and care, facing the devastating choice of being slaughtered at home or out on the streets. All districts in Gaza but one have been declared combat zones.
Gaza has a large disabled population. Wissam is just one of tens of thousands, who need medication and care, facing the devastating choice of being slaughtered at home or out on the streets. All districts in Gaza but one have been declared combat zones.
I wasn't going to derail the disability pride month post for people with peanut allergies but in relation to that topic
I have never seen another allergy that has been so viscerally hated and mocked by people working in education like nut allergies. I've seen fellow teachers cringe that their classroom was the "nut free" classroom that year. Support staff that are trained and willfully don't follow cross contamination protocol in the lunchroom because it's too "tedious" or "time-consuming". Full preschools + childcare centers that refuse to accommodate nut allergies. Schools where the only free lunch is a PB&J. Before/after school programs and summer programs whose food curriculum has nuts and doesn't provide an alternative activity.
Allergy discrimination is so so insidious and prevalent. It's happening behind their back and it is everything from the exposure joke to possibly causing someone to go into anaphylaxis from willful ignorance.
Also other parents in the classroom are guilty too. The "not my child not my problem" brain rot means that those lunchboxes are like bombs for airborne exposure allergies