daco-broman

we could’ve just chisled in the fuckin date on it it’s not some stone age creation

armedandgayngerous

yhea because the squid people that inherit the earth will know when Christ was born

They 👏 Will 👏 Be 👏 Catholic

"idc about surveillance, i've got nothing to hide." Okay well maybe you should then? Get some goddamn. flavor in your life already

Every person on this planet is one accident away from becoming disabled. Every person on this planet will become disabled if they live long enough. You are not an exception. Neither are your loved ones.

If you feel like disability rights aren’t relevant to you, remember that the only thing standing between you and being disabled is time. 

A comment from @politicsistheopiateofthemasses:

Who, precisely, is out there in the world acting as the champion opponent to rights for the disabled?  How big is the anti-disabled movement? 

This is actually a very good question, whether or not it’s being asked in good faith.

If, by that question, you mean “Who is actively lobbying against Disability Rights?”

The immediate answer, over the last 30-35 years,  is “The Business Community,” (if such a thing can be said to even exist, beyond political rhetoric). Of course, they don’t call themselves “anti-Disabled.” But then again, Real Estate agents and Homeowners’ Associations don’t call themselves anti-Black, either. But if you look at the consequences of their actions….

For starters, Section 14[c] of the Fair Labor Standards Act allows for Disabled Employees to be paid far below our current minimum wage, as long as the person’s disability negatively impacts their level of productivity. This gives employers an incentive to hire disabled people for jobs they are actually unsuited for.*

Also, I was active in the lobbying to get the Americans with Disabilities Act passed, back between 1989-90. In order to get the law passed at all, a whole passel of concessions had to have been made to appease the “pro-business” lobby in the Senate, including loopholes and vague language like a business is exempt from making itself accessible or from hiring disabled workers if they think adaptations will be too costly.

And have you ever gone through the want ads for secretarial work, and see how many job listings say that one of the job requirements is to be able to lift 20 lbs? That kind of thing only started to happen after the ADA went into effect, so that employers wouldn’t even have to consider hiring physically disabled people.

And the only teeth the ADA has in terms of enforcement is giving the disabled individual person the right to sue in court … which, if you’re dealing with disability, and you’re trying to sue because of employment discrimination, is a real catch-22.

If, by that question, you mean: “Who benefits from suppression of Disability Rights?”

The answer is: “Anyone who wants to maintain the status quo to retain their privilege and power in a White Supremacist, Patriarchal, society.”

You see: the rhetoric used to justify and perpetuate exploitation of marginalized people is all rooted in ableist assumptions. The enslavement of Africans in the 18th Century could be justified alongside the Declaration of Independence because Black people were thought to be incapable of acting and thinking like adults (they were intellectually inferior/impaired, the reasoning went). Women were denied the vote because they were considered too frail and emotionally fragile for political life, etc..

If you check out the history of the Unsightly Beggar Ordinances, which made it illegal for people with certain disfiguring disabilities to go out in public, you’ll see that the first ones were put on the books in the United States in 1867 – right after the end of the Civil War, when former enslaved people were now entering the “general population” (and the last of those laws weren’t repealed until 1970).

And then, there’s Aktion T4 – which was Hitler’s program to exterminate  the disabled ahead of World War 2 – as a way to experiment with efficient gas chamber technology, and also to test the public’s acceptance of eugenics and genocide.

And this rhetoric will continue to be effective as long as people think of the Disabled as “those people,” the rare exceptions, instead of thinking of the Disabled as “me, someday, if I’m lucky enough to survive long enough.”

*Which almost happened to me, right out of college, except I didn’t take the bait. I have spastic cerebral palsy (with bad balance, can’t keep regular time, and hands that randomly grip things too tightly), and the only job my Vocational Rehabilitation social worker had on offer for me was to work on an assembly line putting raw eggs into egg cartons, at a wage that wouldn’t even cover the special transportation I’d need to get to the factory. Meanwhile, I’d gotten my college degree in writing and communications.

I found this post while looking for a different one. I’m reblogging it, because it bears repeating.

I’ll keep looking for that other post. It’s got an infographc I want to make an updated version of, all about how disablism (that is, active discrimination against disabled people) is really useful if you want to perpetuate an authoritarian hierarchy while also discouraging solidarity among the people you’re trying to keep down (one way it’s useful is illustrated by the commenter I was originally replying to, here: people are less likely to believe disablism is even real, so people who point it out aren’t taken seriously).

While I work out what I want my updated infographic to look like, for a new post, please enjoy this old one.

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A well informed autism self diagnosis is just as valid as a psychiatric diagnosis. Additionally, under the given circumstances it is safer, most probably less expensive and you don't need to wait for any appointment.

10 screenshots from a twitter thread by @devprice with white text on black background.

The thread reads as follows:

I hear from many trans & nonbinary people who are actively seeking an Autism diagnosis. My advice is RETHINK THIS. Restricting Autistic people's access to gender affirming care is a major TERF talking point. As legal attacks on trans healthcare mounts, a psychiatric dx is a risk

The high overlap between Autism & transness was one of the main "concerns" JK Rowling rose in her "TERF Wars" blog post. Numerous fearmongering anti-trans articles influenced by TERFs have raised the issue since. if youre trans now is not a good time to seek a formal Autism dx.

An Autism dx does not unlock access to any beneficial therapeutic treatment, bc there is no "treating" Autism. Formal diagnosis makes us vulnerable to legal & psychiatric control and gets our competence challenged -- you dont need to subject yourself to this. diagnose yourself

I am close with dozens and dozens of Autistic people, and I have no idea who has a diagnosis and who does not. It does not matter. There is no reason to ask, no reason for others to care how someone identifies and how they arrived there -- all that matters is community support.

also if you cannot afford to pursue a lengthy & expensive lawsuit, it's unlikely a formal diagnosis will actually protect you from discrimination at work, in school or in housing. if you have the means great, but most don't. disclosing disability can be more risk than its worth.

if you need a dx to access resources such as disability benefits or extra test time, by all means go for it, but be cognizant of the potential costs. you could be denied for surgery, lose control of your assets, be found legally incompetent, lose custody of your kids...

Tweet replies to this thread:

By Greysquirrel @/treerat93

My autism dx was forced on me at age 2 and kept me out of the military in my 20s. It’s been nothing but destructive. I was beat up in sped and believed myself to be stupid my entire life because of it. I can’t even buy life insurance.

By Emily Johnson @/emily_rj

In some states, people with autism face being denied organ transplants, are at higher risk for forced sterilization and/or denied contraceptive and reproductive care, and have a higher risk of police brutality I considered this and decided informal diagnosis was best for me

By AK Faulkner is sweet and...

In the UK, an autism diagnosis is already a significant barrier to gender-affirming care. The GICs automatically try to discount dysphoria as autism during your initial assessments with them. If you arrive pre-diagnosed with autism they write your dysphoria off as that.

I've frequently encountered people who are like "well I want an autism diagnosis because I'll be more comfortable calling myself autistic if I have it confirmed officially" and while I'm not going to tell other people how to live their lives (I strongly believe in letting people make their own risk/reward decisions even if they choose what I think of as the foolish option) I do want to caution anyone who thinks that way to please check to make sure these feelings aren't bleeding into the way you treat other self-diagnosed autistic people

This is something to keep in mind with diagnoses in general. Having official recognition is important in cases you are seeking accomodations, disability, or certain treatments. But a lot of cases are like this where there aren't treatments, or the treatments are over the counter/diy friendly.

Sometimes if you have a good doctor they'll even let you try medication without it! My PCP was actually willing to let me try meds for ADHD without an official diagnosis! I am really grateful for that, especially since they ended up not working out, so if I had gotten the diagnosis just for the sake if trying them, I'd be subjected to additional ableism with no positive trade off! Not everyone will be that lucky, but it's worth a try before resorting to painting a target on your back.

missouri’s trans healthcare ban specifically stipulates that someone needs to be screened for autism. fake it. mask as best you can. lie. do whatever you need to avoid a diagnosis unless you absolutely need accommodations to live.

Explicitly include antisemitism in your word string of racism, sexism, transphobia etc that isn’t welcome in your safe space. 

Explicitly include antisemitism in your anti-fascist texts. 

Explicitly include antisemitism in your approach to intersectionality. 

It’s not optional. Include that shit. 

yesterday i was hiking with my dog and passed by a family with their 14 yo princess of darkness trotting behind them in very unsuitable clothes and uncomfortable shoes that clearly weren't meant to get dirty on forest mud. oh the quintessential teenage experience of doing something in a way that is stupid and sucks because it's important that it's your own way 🫡

The experience of being a teenager, especially, is relentlessly being forced to do things by authority figures who have arbitrary power over you. As a result "Okay, I'll do it, but I'll do it in the least compliant way possible" is a persistent and entirely sympathetic element of being a teenager

Okay as someone who professionally works with kids, I'll weigh on on this and say: the thing about defiance and "brattiness" is they are defense mechanisms for having no power in your life.

Kids and teens do not have power in their life. Even in the most ideal of circumstances. They can't really make informed choices about voting or houses and especially in America, the entire social structure is hostile to letting them go where they want to go.

So OP is absolutely right and put it beautifully. "it's important that it's your own way." I've seen preverbal babies force their shoes off their feet in response to a completely unrelated obligation because I can force them to take a nap but I can't make them take a nap AND nicely keep their shoes on. It is arguably a pretty stupid defiance, but defiance isn't about being smart.

It's the scream of a person without power insisting if they have no choice but to do this, they will do it their way! And that's more important than practicality. It's more important than being reasonable.

I firmly believe that deep down adults aren't less bratty or defiant than kids are- they're just given more leeway and power so they're more used to having control and use that to cope. The average 30-year-old would absolutely have a meltdown in the pasta aisle if they were regularly dragged to places they didn't want to be by another adult who they were never allowed to be away from or choose where they were going besides very limited exceptions.

(also disclaimer that in using the term "bratty" I am by no means condemning this behavior. It's born of a frustration that is completely understandable.)

kundlejenner64

That elderly couple who volunteers at the soup kitchen after church on Sundays and attends every town hall meeting has done more community direct action than 99% of internet leftists 🤷🏽‍♀️

kundlejenner64

#lol this post is stupid spup kitchens were created by the gov after they literally destroyed black radical organizers lives#and since when does going to a town hall meeting and working within the system help anybody in any significant way

100% agree homeless people should just starve and dumpster dive till le epic revolution happens!

and for sure local politics is so stupid it only handles dumb things like your schoolboard, judges, infrastructure, and rent laws! now tweets? Thats where the real work happens! 

Local activism stopped garbage collection from being privatized in my hometown and local activism is what defunds the police and keeps libraries and community gardens open and gets done most of the things people waiting around for a revolution claim they want.

The weird former hippie suburban wine moms donating bags of quinoa chips and money to the food pantry I go to sometimes have done more for me materially then any defeatist political rant on tumblr ever has.

I love how the npcs either know you’re Link Link, the hero of legend, or they just say things like “Woah you’ve got the same name as that sword guy!” and of course Link just doesn’t explain that actually he is Him™️

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average "accessible" college campus

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