I Totally Need a Real Title

Stepping out of my tumblr hiatus because I saw some recent statements, and it’s hard for me to just not respond.

I’m not going to link or reblog anyone because I don’t really want to get in on the conversation, nor do I want to talk to the people who said the things that prompted this response from me.

Edit to add: I am fine with reblogging. I did not want to post this as part of an existing conversation.

This is rather US-centric, because I’ve been mired in that system and it’s the one I know best:

I will say that because there are so many kinds of disabilities that often what is oppressive and limiting to people with certain kinds of disabilities won’t be to people with other kinds. Dave Hingsburger writes frequently on wheelchair accessibility issues that are very real and very much a matter of institutionalized oppression. The lack of accessibility reflects both a lack of awareness and a lack of concern for people with disabilities who need those accessibility features in order to be able to access things. Something as simple as getting through the front door can be needlessly complicated or downright impossible if there are stairs and no ramp. Just because a business that lacks accessibility does not have signs explicitly saying “no wheelchairs allowed” does not mean that there isn’t an attitude toward disability reflected in the building’s design that bars access to people with disabilities.

I referred to Dave’s blog because this kind of accessibility is among the most obviously available (or most obviously lacking). The use of braille on signs is another example.

But accessibility extends well beyond these things, and impacts people who have neurological disorders, developmental disorders, mental illness, chronic pain disorders, and the like that are typically considered “invisible.” I would argue that they are not truly “invisible” in a literal sense, but in the sense that people can see the signs but often do not know (and often do not seem to care to know) what those signs mean. A friend of mine was so depressed she didn’t see the point of doing much of anything at all - and this was obvious to me. Not invisible. But others might characterize her as lazy or melancholy or angst-ridden or something else mockable and easily dismissed as a real problem.

In my case, I have moderate sensory processing difficulties that makes loud noises, bright lights, fluorescent lighting, chemical smells, cigarette smoke, and crowded places difficult for me to navigate and tolerate. Encountering perfume in public places has actually caused me almost immediate sensory overload, headache, and panic attacks. I am not allergic as far as I know, but this is not a trivial problem for me - it makes it difficult to impossible for me to function in a public place where people who use cologne and perfume have congregated. It’s inaccessible to me. When I use fluorescent lighting, I have more migraines more frequently, and other issues become worse simply because of the constant exposure. Soon, incandescent light bulbs are supposed to be phased out entirely, replaced by CFLs - which also cause problems for me, due to color, intensity, and during the period (months) when it’s slowly degrading to the point of burning out, it causes migraines, dizziness, nausea, anxiety, panic attacks, and aggravates my other sensory issues. I am neither unique in this nor am I close to having the most severe reactions to these things. It will soon be against the law to purchase the light bulbs that work best for me and are most affordable. In my own space, I can switch to LED lights most likely, but I expect public places will continue to stick to fluorescent lighting.

Anyway, I know that realistically it is impossible to accommodate everyone everywhere, and I certainly wouldn’t say it should be attempted, but I do think a lot of accommodations and the situations that require them are seen as merely bad situations and not really legitimately a problem. And that minimization of problems caused by disabilities? Is a hallmark of oppression.

The actual real unemployment rate in the US is probably somewhere around 25%, counting everyone who does not work but goes uncounted for arbitrary reasons (like, gave up on looking for work for 12 months or more). But if you start looking at people with disabilities, the percentage increases, as long as you include those who are not in the labor force as well as those who are counted as “unemployed.” Overall, the rate is generally much higher in the US for people with disabilities. It’s difficult for me to find exact percentages on this, but I can find estimates on the basis of particular disabilities. This page about autism actually quotes an overall percentage that seems accurate:

Nobody knows what causes autism, or how prevalent it is. About one percent of children in the United States are diagnosed with A.S.D. Only a small percentage of adults with autism are employed full-time in either the United States or Europe. This is a problem that extends to people with many other disabilities, as well. In the United States in 2010, of 14.7 million people between the ages of 16 and 64 with a disability, only 4.2 million — less than one in three — were employed.

The link goes to a department of labor page that I can’t decipher, unfortunately. However, I would not be surprised if those numbers supported “less than one in three people with disabilities are employed.”

Now, a lot of these people are not employed because it is difficult for people with disabilities to get work. Some are not employed because their disabilities make it difficult for them to maintain a long-term work record, and keep jobs for significant periods of time. Some are not employed because their disabilities make it difficult for them to get hired at all. Many are not employed, even when they can work, because workplaces won’t accommodate them properly, which creates a very real, if invisible to most people, economic barrier, and limits economic standing for people with disabilities as a demographic. If you’re disabled in the US today, you are more likely to be poor, more likely to be on benefits, less likely to have a job at all, and if you get a job, you’re likely to have one that is actually harder than it should be due to lack of accommodations - and getting those accommodations as mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act may require taking legal action which can and probably will cost you your job.

This is valid oppression. It is not the same as racism, or transphobia, or homophobia, or sexism, or classism, or any other. But it is valid, it is substantial, and it is institutional. Why else would the ADA itself be written in such a way that you practically have to take people to court to receive accommodations, rather than the bill itself creating legal remedies that makes it possible to get accommodations without being forced into a legal battle that itself may have negative consequences on one’s employment and future employability?

But ableism is not just economic.

In the US, if you need - not just want, but need - SSDI or SSI, you are likely to end up waiting 2-3 years or longer before you’re finally approved. This is because your initial application is likely to be denied. Even if you have paperwork from medical doctors and psychologists saying that you are basically unemployable with a list of reasons as to why you are unemployable, with medical documentation, SSA representatives pick that apart and look for reasons to deny. Often, it’s because of the function report - this is a multipage piece of paperwork in which the applicant must describe their daily functioning. The paperwork does not explain properly what people are looking for when they read it, and so many people fill it out incorrectly, which usually means that despite the fact that they may not be able to work, SSA will tell them they can. So the next step is reconsideration, which is resubmitting your application. This is denied about 90% of the time because the first denial implies that you can work, so the same application is unlikely to make a different impression. So you get to the third stage, which is appeal. Average wait time for an appeal is 1.5 years if you are physically disabled, and 2.5 years if you are mentally/psychologically/neurologically disabled. At least where I live, that’s the wait time. Your mileage may vary.

And it’s worse in the UK, at least recently. The government hired a corporation called ATOS to get disabled people off of benefits and back into the workforce. ATOS has taken this mandate very literally. People who attend their ATOS hearings in wheelchairs, with oxygen masks, with extensive medical documentation as to their impairments and difficulties, leave those hearings with evaluations that say “0% impairment”, forcing them to go through appeals and other bureaucratic procedures in order to get the benefits they never should have lost in the first place. People are killing themselves (or at least trying) because of ATOS evaluations, because they are not able to support themselves, and ATOS is basically throwing them out in the streets. This is oppression.

And some more statistics:

People with developmental disabilities are four to ten times more likely to have acts of violence committed against them. More than 90% of people with developmental disabilities will experience sexual abuse in their lifetimes. 68% of girls and 30% of boys with developmental disabilities will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday.

That sounds like oppression to me.

Parents who murder their disabled children tend to be viewed compassionately, as if they’re the real victims, and their children’s lives are not viewed as valuable at all.

Mental illness tends to result in higher high school dropout rate, lower employment rates, and in general, a lower standard of living that is often dependent upon public services (food stamps/SNAP, SSDI and SSI, Medicaid, etc).

This is partially due to the fact that people who are mentally ill tend to be less capable of taking care of themselves, less capable of managing their own affairs, less capable of holding down jobs and looking for work. And this is partially due to the fact that despite these difficulties, it is often hard to receive support in these areas that will actually help improve their standard of living. I have all kinds of support right now, but none of it is predicated on doing more than the absolute minimum. I am not even allowed to have more than $2000 in savings without risking my benefits. That is to say, my benefits mandate that I remain at the poverty level, because anything I could do to improve my economic standing is likely to deprive me of Medicaid and make me ineligible for the cash benefits I do receive. Which means I lose access to medication that is currently making me more functional than I typically am.

Eugenics was used against people with disabilities - mental as well as physical. People who are still alive today were impacted by those programs, and are still suffering because of the involuntary sterilization they were subjected to. That sounds like oppression to me.

But hey, at least lobotomies are no longer performed - but there are still living survivors whose lives were ruined by the belief that shoving an icepick through an eye socket and turning their prefrontal cortex into soup would cure their mental illness.

Warehousing of mentally ill people still happens.

Deaths like this are all too common, and abuse of developmentally disabled and mentally ill patients is endemic. Judge Rotenberg Center is perhaps unique in the degree of abuse inflicted upon its inmates, but it happens to varying degrees all over.

And then there’s public attitudes toward disability. Say, the attitude that needing accommodations and accessibility is a matter of entitlement rather than a real necessity that should be fulfilled.

Anyway, as far as my own experiences? Personally? I’ve experienced sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, been disbelieved as a survivor of both child abuse and partner abuse, and ableism. I cannot possibly state that ableism is the worst of those, but I will say it is extremely difficult for me to rank them. I don’t think they exist in a hierarchy where any of them are clearly more valid or potent or real than any of the others, and I am actually rather disturbed when people start comparing oppressions and ranking them in terms of severity. There is no hierarchy of oppressions. It’s not hard to criticize how people mobilize and describe oppression instead of criticizing the existence of particular oppressions.

As far as getting better goes, everyone is expected to “get better,” whether it’s possible or not. Not getting better is characterized as lazy, oppositional, and worse. It is possible for people to adopt coping mechanisms and adaptations that make them more functional, but it should also be acknowledged that mental illness frequently has a direct impact on the ability to adopt coping mechanisms and make adaptations. This is often very difficult to achieve without assistance.

I also think there’s a general lack of understanding as to just how severe and limiting mental illness can be. Just saying people should be able to improve their circumstances reflects a lack of understanding of this. Depression is a severe, life-threatening mental illness that impacts every part of your life. It can leave you completely unable to even take care of yourself (although this is rare), or more likely, leave you with little energy to do much beyond the bare minimum necessary to survive day to day. Depression can kill, although it does not cause the highest suicide rate (I believe that goes to Borderline Personality Disorder, and I think schizophrenia also has a higher successful suicide rate). Mental illness frequently - metaphorically - punches you right in your willpower, and your ability to use that willpower.

I am not arguing that no one should want to get better, or that no one should try. I am diagnosed with major depressive disorder, and I have managed - with a lot of help - to get it into remission. Unfortunately, what keeps it in remission is actually fairly fragile and can easily fall apart under the wrong circumstances. A combination of improved circumstances (my aforementioned access to services and medical care), a better understanding and awareness of my difficulties, and medication makes this possible.

But what is working for me right now doesn’t work for everyone. Some people spend years cycling through medications without getting anywhere. Some people spend years being diagnosed with the wrong things which leads to ineffective treatment that can make things worse.

And often, people who live with mental illnesses are burning more energy on a daily basis to function at a typical level at school or work. When they hit a point where they flame out, crash and burn, or just drop out, that’s usually because of decompensation - that is, they don’t have the energy or ability to maintain their coping mechanisms, and are probably in significantly worse shape than they were before hitting that point. And I am speaking from experience, as I have decompensated several times in both work and college before I ever understood what was happening to me.

Also, I’ve found that many people who get subjected to the “You need to try harder to get better” type of speech are often people who are trying their damnedest - perhaps trying harder than most people ever have to conceive of trying, let alone ever needed to try - to get better, and finding it extremely difficult. One size does not fit all, and we’re all not the same. Sometimes it’s necessary to find an equilibrium point where we can function, even if it is at a level that many people might judge as “not trying hard enough.”

nonbinary-conversations:

*has been good about non-binary stuff in the past, but it links to horrifically anti-non-binary blogs and has still failed to get back to me about it. It’s usually binary-centric. 

Say what now? No one’s contacted me about anything like this. How could I get back to anyone? If you did e-mail me, could you resend it?

• Being autistic is being judged.
• Being autistic is being yelled at for existing.
• Being autistic is being subjected to verbal, physical and emotional abuse for existing.
• Being autistic is being at high risk of being killed for existing.
• Being autistic is knowing damn well that anyone who hurts or kills you will get away with it.
• Being autistic is knowing that the person who hurts or kills you will be a folk hero.
• Being autistic is being looked on as a tragedy.
• Being autistic is teachers doing everything they can think of, legal and illegal, to make you not their problem.
• Being autistic is people being scared of you.
• Being autistic is people being scared of you when they haven’t even met you.
• Being autistic is being looked on as an emergency.
• Being autistic is being told that your way of seeing the world is objectively wrong.
• Being autistic is being told you have no empathy.
• Being autistic is being told that by people who make no effort to see things your way.
• Being autistic is being told that your very existence is a danger to you and to others.
• Being autistic is being called a burden.
• Being autistic is knowing you aren’t going to get acceptable medical care.
• Being autistic is being assumed incapable of having friends.
• Being autistic is people talking to your friends instead of you.
• Being autistic is people assuming you are incapable of understanding things.
• Being autistic is people hoping you are incapable of understanding things so they can justify excluding you.
• Being autistic is people excluding you anyway, because ‘autism’ is reason enough.
• Being autistic is fearing for your job when people find out.
• Being autistic is being erased-no one is like you in the media.
• Being autistic is people disbelieving you are what you are because there are no autistic adults in the media.
• Being autistic is having both your strengths and your weaknesses weaponized against you.
• Being autistic is having to qualify everything you say as only applying to you.
• Being autistic is doing exactly that, and still having people attack you for “assuming you speak for [my] child.”
• Being autistic is doing exactly that and people still demanding you play universal translator.
• Being autistic is those same people yelling at you when you tell them something they don’t want to hear.
• Being autistic is having very personal details of your life demanded of you.
• Being autistic is being called ‘tantrumming’ when you don’t answer said invasive questions.
• Being autistic is giving 95-97% in every social interaction.
• Being autistic is knowing that others resent giving even 3%.
• Being autistic is every socialization problem being your fault, for you are the broken one.
• Being autistic is knowing that the bullying you are subject to is socially sanctioned and celebrated.
• Being autistic is knowing that your successes are resented.
• Being autistic is charities that are supposed to help you trying to eliminate you.
• Being autistic is being physically attacked at those charities’ events for daring to show up.
• Being autistic is being assumed to be the aggressor in those and any other situation.
• Being autistic is having quack cures constantly shoved down your throat.
• Being autistic is knowing that no one wants a child or friend like you.
• Being autistic is knowing that if you point out how society treats you, people are going to challenge your anti cure status as disingenuous.
• Being autistic is knowing that if you demand equal treatment, people will challenge your support needs.
• Being autistic is knowing there is no way to win anything, ever.
• Being autistic is fighting to be seen as an actual person.
• Being autistic is knowing that fight will not be won in your lifetime.
• Being autistic is fighting that fight anyway.

(via sanaa-tamir)

velcrobanter:

WORST DIVORCE LETTER BECAUSE IT IS FUCKING TRANSPHOBIC

blackenedbutterfly:

lipglossblackleather:

Dear wife:
I’m writing you this letter to tell you that I’m leaving you forever. I’ve been a good man to you for 7 years & I have nothing to show for it.
…

Outing a trans person is always transphobic. What kind of asshole thinks it’s okay?

thecurvature:

(Trigger Warning)

Right now? The time, right now, when everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off talking about how women LIE about rape, and anyway it WASN’T rape, because once she says yes you can do anything you like to her ammirite, bro?, and what’s this about maybe…

I was just talking about this and every single word Cara writes: Yes, so very very much.

rabbitarmy:

So, reading ye olde internets recently, I noted that Kinsey Hope at Genderbitch had had the misfortune of running into Carolyn Ann, troll extraordinaire. I have a few words for you, Kinsey.

Carolyn Ann, for those of you not lucky enough to know, is a crossdressing man whose chief hobby online…

I have little to add to this, but I still remember the day Carolyn Ann got so mad at me for saying “No Bothans needed to die to bring us this information” because he didn’t know what a Bothan was and my answer using “just fucking google it” was apparently too mean.

(via rabbitarmy-deactivated20101207)

rabbitarmy:

if you have cable television, it’s noticeable how much transphobia is on all the time. Like, at least several ads at any one time (How I Met Your Mother, that Who The Bleep Did I Marry? etc) pretty much use trans people as punchlines. But the real ground is in jokes, which are basically…

One thing that pisses me off about this is when someone says “well, that word was never used against me” as if anecdotal experience should cancel out everyone else’s anecdotal experiences.

This is what I know - a popular and extremely active livejournal community had a blowup this TDOR where some members anonymously posted hate speech suggesting that trans people deserve to be tortured and murdered, and they used the slur. When death threats were left on QT last Summer, they used the slur and another slur derived from that slur.

It does not take rocket science to see how cis people use the word and what they think it means, it is everywhere and not really deniable.

(via rabbitarmy-deactivated20101207)

guerrillamamamedicine:

i am getting really sick of bullies in my life and am finding that i am investing less and less time into their existence. 

the problem is that i excuse a lot of bullying behaviour because that person ‘has a hard life’ or this person ‘is drunk’ or that person ‘is really just frustrated with oppressive forces’ and so one and so forth. 

but fuck it.

bullying is abusive.*** 

love isnt everything.  i had to learn that the hard way.  there are people i love who are bullies.  and while it may hurt for me to refuse to allow people who are bullies into my life in my world.  it is the best thing for me and my lil family. 

so there will be no more…

-demands/orders that i do or say something without acknowledging that i may have a very legitimate reason for not doing or saying such thing.

-stealing from me.  you steal from me, you steal from my kid.  fuck you.

-lying about me or to me.  especially lying like i give you a gift and you front like it didnt come from me. 

-disrespecting my close relationships, my sexuality, my body, my family.

-threatening me that if i dont do something you will hurt me or my family.  and ‘threatening’ me includes: ‘i will have no respect for you’, ‘i will tell everybody’, ‘i will publicly shame you’ etc. 

***i do think that there is a legitimate role for bullying in the case of responding to a perpetual abuser.  this is because abusers will continue to abuse until you force them to stop.  compassion, love, logic, ethical arguments are useless.  i do not believe the fairy tale that doing so ‘will make you like the abuser’.  because one of you is perpetuating abuse and one of you is stopping it.

although if the very first time you disagree with someone, your automatic response is to bully them, then frankly you are a bully.  cause why is that the first tool you reach for?  

Nothing to add here, but yes to all of it.

Ok, so we hate to do this, but it’s necessary.  It’s hard to ask for help, even when you’re desperate.

Lisa and I are both struggling to survive.  Both of us are unemployed.  I don’t have money for food this next fortnight–let alone internet or hormone treatments.  Lisa has a staph infection she can’t afford to see a doctor for, and no money for hormones either.

We know that so many of you are struggling hard too, especially at the moment.  We don’t do this for money (there is none), but we’d appreciate it so much if those of you who can afford it would think about helping us out. The paypal button to donate is here:

Thanks for your support.

Emily and Lisa.

And oh man, my jeans are falling apart again. :(

Also, the donation button is at the link, tumblr won’t post it.

(via rabbitarmy-deactivated20101207)

itmustbelupe:

lisaquestions:

rabbitarmy:

dappercat:

itmustbelupe:

The original story has been updated by the BBC, but whilst improved it still could do with being somewhat more respectful. The update also includes their name.

This link goes to the pinknews article. Much more respectfully written, and it’s not actually until the police statement, that they didn’t write, that it goes anything but.

I think it’s important to point out that we don’t know if Sonia was transsexual, transgender, gender queer. It isn’t for us to choose a label. It is for us to be respectful, and there are so many news outlets which simply aren’t, instead opting for “OMGTRANSWTFBBQOMG!” in their reporting.

Reblogging now we know a little more, and because the last point is dead fucking on.

Very true.  It isn’t for us to choose a label, because we can’t know.  Sadly, part of me is just plain suspicious of any information coming from the media and family. 

Cis people are not reliable witnesses to the identities of the trans people in their lives, so it is entirely possible that in keeping her identity open we are misrepresenting her in another way entirely.  It is necessary to do justice to the testimony about Sonia being bi-gender or genderqueer, but it carries its own dangers.

I know quite a few people who have lived bi gender lives at some point not out of choice and identification but because losing family and jobs etc is too much.  So even with the testimony of family, friends workmates, there’s a potential gap between life and ID which transphobia obscures in a different way.

I’ve already heard from one person who was at least in the same social circles that she was a trans woman. The “She lived by both Sonia and (assigned name)” narrative is a dead classic family narrative to deny transition.

I am going to hold onto all my skepticism here because the first thing cis people do to our dead is steal their lives from them.

That was my first reaction too.

Saying that Sonia lived by both identities immediately made me think that we’re looking at a transwoman who has been held back from transition by family, and working in an environment that would be at best difficult and worst actively hostile. The way of coping to be Sonia everywhere possible, and adopt a male identity where it’s required. I decided to step back from that after a moment’s thought though. I don’t have any contacts to ask, so didn’t want to project my thoughts and fears onto someone who has already had the most horrible things happen.

Of course, that comes onto the other thing I wanted to put out about this. It isn’t just when we die that our identities are taken from us. One of my biggest fears is if I end up in a situation where I am alive, but unable to enforce my wishes. I have always made it clear that I do not trust my parents to make decisions for me. There are two people I do trust to make decisions for my future, and they know who they are. My fear is that those who hold my future in their hands may not know who they are, and I don’t know how to tell them.

I have only an informal relationship with one of them, one which I can never formalise since my NHS shrink won’t help me gain a Gender Recognition Certificate. I have only friendship to tie me to the second. I trust these people with my life, but can think of no way to tell others this.

Yes, I know of one case in which a woman was detransitioned by family and doctors once she was in a coma. Basically, any situation in which a trans person can no longer speak for hirself, hir family will step in and make all kinds of claims about what sie really wants.