#cripple punk

[genderqueerdykes]

for people who are often in need of food and/or find themselves in a food emergency, it's more than okay to utilize your food bank. there are no requirements, it doesn't matter if you're totally homeless, on disability, disabled with little/no income, working under the table, a parent in need of help, working but poor, working and barely making ends meet, mentally ill, neurodivergent, or other situations where food is difficult to keep on the table, you are more than welcome to show up and get some food

some food banks require you to have proof of address (i know, it sucks) but in some cities some homeless shelters have the option for homeless folk to get their mail sent to the shelter's P.O. boxes, which will give you the "proof of address" they need, which is usually just some form of mail received at an address. always check with your local food bank to see what documents they require, if any, when possible

some food banks don't require any of that. some do require that you have a car so you can drive through and get boxes, but many do on-foot distribution. some even have delivery options. one of my food banks here does deliveries. it's worth looking into whatever you have going on in your local area if you struggle to keep food in your home. especially fresh fruits and vegetables. i can finally keep a steady supply of vegetables because i'm able to walk to a distribution a block away that happens every friday. it's been a blessing now that i have to cook all of my meals COMPLETELY from scratch to ensure i dont encounter trigger foods

engagement helps these types of programs stay afloat. the more people who show up, the more resources they will get. the government or whatever body runs these organizations need to know the community wants/needs these services in order to continue operating. don't feel bad if you stop by and grab some things if you're genuinely struggling to buy food and keep it around. it's okay to utilize these programs, that's what they're there for.

[nightmaretour]

What a lot of abled people don't understand is that when you get more sick as someone who was already physically disabled/chronically ill, you don't get the sympathy, you don't get people sending you cards and coming to visit and help you with things. Everyone just kind of assumes that you can handle it, that it's not *really* anything new. Maybe people might acknowledge it for a week or two, but then to them it's just normal. You were already sick, so why would being a little more sick be disruptive to you, right?

[crazycatsiren]

Some of y'all have got to learn the difference between "exclusion" and "this is not about you".

[wheelie-sick]

going to just... dissect the whole "glasses make me disabled" thing as someone who is moderately disabled and mildly visually impaired because it annoys me to death. I know this is going to be controversial but if you have vision that is fully corrected by glasses then you are not disabled by your vision nor are you visually impaired.

Visual impairment

let's begin with the definition of visual impairment according to several universities

"Vision impairment means that a person’s eyesight cannot be corrected to a “normal” level." - University of Pittsburgh Department of Opthamology

"‘Visual impairment’ (VI) is a term used to describe a loss of sight that cannot be corrected using lenses." - University of Oxford

the US EEOC also answers the question of whether all people who wear glasses are disabled:

"No, not everyone who wears glasses is an individual with a disability under the ADA. When deciding if an individual with a vision impairment who uses (or used, in the case of a past impairment) “ordinary eyeglasses or contact lenses” is an individual with an “actual” or “record of” a disability, the ADA directs that their impairment should be assessed as it is corrected by the lenses." - US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

visual impairment exists as a category for people with uncorrectable vision loss or other vision related conditions. most definitions of visual impairment also include eye movement disorders (e.g nystagmus) and other eye conditions that are not correctable but do not necessarily cause traditional vision loss. these are exceptions, but again, are not correctable with glasses.

if your vision is correctable with glasses it is not visual impairment. period. full stop.

Disability

there are two different ways you can look at disability and fully corrected vision fits neither:

the social model

the social model of disability looks at disability as it is caused by society's lack of access. let's start with a fact: 81% of adults wear some sort of corrective eyewear! that is the vast majority of people. people who wear glasses are just simply not facing structural barriers in the world because the world is built for people who wear glasses by people who wear glasses.

and, no, being bullied in the playground is not a form of structural disadvantage. children bully each other for any and every reason.

"but I can't drive without my glasses!"

I can't walk in hot concrete without shoes. that doesn't make shoes a disability aid nor does it make needing shoes a disability. plenty of things require something else to allow you to do something, that doesn't make needing those things a disability. not all forms of support for an action are disability aids.

the medical model

the medical model looks at disability through the lens of impairment. wearing glasses with fully corrected vision is not an impairment.

people often point to hearing aids and say "well deaf/hard of hearing people are disabled despite hearing aids!" and it makes it clear you have never worn hearing aids. disability aids do not correct they accommodate. glasses mean you get to see at 20/20 vision. hearing aids are imperfect accommodations. wheelchairs are imperfect accommodations. feeding tubes are imperfect accommodations. the list goes on.

glasses mean you get to live your life exactly how someone who doesn't wear glasses would. someone wearing hearing aids does not get that. a wheelchair user does not get that. etc. because those disability aids are something you have to live your life around. they define your day to day routine. the day to day routine with glasses is 1. wake up in the morning 2. put them on 3. take them off at night 4. possibly clean them somewhere in there. you get to forget about glasses. I do not get to forget about my hearing aids or FM system or crutches or wheelchair because they are ever present in my life.

* just a note: this post is not referring to people who wear glasses and don't have fully correctable vision

** OP wears glasses with a high prescription, his vision is just not fully correctable

[crippl-hacker]

[ID: An orange Ki Catalyst 5Vx folding wheelchair /ID]

I just got my wheelchair!! It’s a Catalyst 5Vx - they claim it’s the lightest folding on the market. I love it minus some minor gripes like the push rims. It’s so slick and I’ve been waiting forever for a custom wheelchair that actually fits me.

I’m so freaking excited now that it’s here! I definitely hope to get the lap stacker eventually as well as a cup holder but those are not needed right now. I’m just so happy today even though I’m in pain.

[cedarspiced]

someone really struggling with something is NOT the same as someone being fully unable to do something, and saying as much is not oppression olympics, it's just a statement of fact.

if that statement feels invalidating to you, please ask yourself why.

just because someone needs more accomodations than you doesn't mean you are any LESS disabled, it just means that different people are going to have different needs, and that's ok!

[majaurukalo]

Inaccessibility is discrimination and human rights violation.

[seldarinesorcerer]

By the way: these are not "handicap spots." They're "accessible parking spaces."

[Alt Text: two accessible parking spaces next to each other. The image is taken from the back, so the ADA symbol is oriented correctly. The curb is behind the parking spaces. There is a lamp post on the left-hand side of the image, aligned with the accessible parking space on the left of the image.]

[autumnalal]

im becoming more unapologetic and feisty and im so here for it

[a-totally-reasonable-username]

When i tell people that my body is really fucking bad at temperature regulation they tend to think i get cold easy or that i react strongly to cold and hot temperatures. While this is true, it's actually so much worse than that and no one that hasn't seen and felt it firsthand believes me.

I can be lying in bed, under multiple blankets and my feet will be so cold, i can't feel or move them anymore. My body's lack of temperature regulation literally paralyses me at times and everyone i tell this believes i'm exaggerating.

[nondivisable]

I need to say something and I need y'all to be calm

if it isn't actively bad or harmful, no representation should be called "too simple" or "too surface level"

I have a whole argument for this about the barbie movie but today I wanna talk about a show called "the babysitters club" on Netflix

(obligatory disclaimer that I watched only two episodes of this show so if it's super problematic I'm sorry) (yes. I know it's based on a book, this is about the show)

this is a silly 8+ show that my 9 year old sister is watching and it manages to tackle so many complex topics in such an easy way. basic premise is these 13 year old girls have a babysitting agency.

in one episode, a girl babysits this transfem kid. the approach is super simple, with the kid saying stuff like "oh no, those are my old boy clothes, these are my girl clothes". they have to go to the doctor and everyone is calling the kid by her dead name and using he/him and this 13 year old snaps at like a group of doctors and they all listen to her. it's pure fantasy and any person versed in trans theory would point out a bunch of mistakes.

but after watching this episode, my little sister started switching to my name instead of my dead name and intercalating he/him pronouns when talking about me.

one of the 13 years old is a diabetic and sometimes her whole personality is taken over by that. but she has this episode where she pushes herself to her limit and passes out and talks about being in a coma for a while because of not recognizing the limits of her disability.

and this allowed my 9 year old sister to understand me better when I say "I really want to play with you but right now my body physically can't do that" (I'm disabled). she has even asked me why I'm pushing myself, why I'm not using my crutches when I complain about pain.

my mom is 50 years old and watching this show with my sister. she said the episode about the diabetic girl helped her understand me and my disability better. she grew up disabled as well, but she was taught to shut up and power through.

yes, silly simple representation can annoy you if you've read thousands of pages about queer liberation or disability radical thought, but sometimes things are not for you.

[thenervebible]

CONNIE PANZARINO at a pride march in Boston circa 1990

[ID: Connie is marching along in her sip 'n' puff (SNP) wheelchair. She is wearing a patterned poncho and sporting a green felt party crown on her head. She styles a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with her slicked back hair. She is smiling. Attached to the back of her wheelchair is a large green cardboard poster that reads "Trached Dykes Eat Pussy Without Comin' Up For Air!" followed by a pink upside-down triangle with a stick figure person in a wheelchair at the centre (a symbol for disabled women)].

the cyborg & the crip by Alison Kafer

[ID: “Trached dykes eat pussy without coming up for air.” Connie Panzarino, a longtime disability activist and out lesbian, would attach this sign to her wheelchair during Pride marches in Boston in the early 1990s. Shockingly explicit, her sign refuses to cast technology as cold, distancing, or disembodied/disembodying, presenting it instead as a source and site of embodied pleasure. “Trach” is an abbreviation of tracheotomy, a medical procedure in which a breathing tube is inserted directly into the trachea, bypassing the mouth and nose. Someone with a trach, then, can, in effect, breathe through her throat, freeing her mouth for other activities (another version of this sign is “Trached dykes french kiss without coming up for air”). From a cyborgian perspective, this sign is brilliantly provocative and productive. It draws on the pervasive idea that adaptive technologies grant superior abilities,not merely replacing a lost capacity but enhancing it, yet it does so in a highly subversive way. The message here isn’t about blending in, about passing as normal or hypernormal, but about publicly announcing the viability of a queer disabled location. It’s disnormalizing, adamantly refusing compulsory heterosexuality, compulsory able bodiedness, and homonormativity. As Corbett O’Toole argues, it challenges the perceived passivity of disabled women, presenting them as actively pleasuring their partners, thereby graphically refuting stereotypes linking physical disability with nonsexuality.]

[crazycatsiren]

Even on the bad days, the sick days, the flare days, all the critters, house ones and wild ones, are well taken care of with all of their needs met. I think I ought to be proud of myself for this.

[cripplerage]

As a wheelchair user I'm trying to reframe my language for "being in the way."

"I'm in the way," "I can't fit," and "I can't go there," is becoming "there's not enough space," "the walkway is too narrow," and "that place isn't accessible."

It's a small change, but to me it feels as if I'm redirecting blame from myself to the people that made these places inaccessible in the first place. I don't want people to just think that they're helping me, I want them to think that they're making up for someone else's wrongdoing. I want them to remember every time I've needed help as something someone else caused.

[lupusbaby]

Some people don’t want to hear this but sometimes accessibility is not sustainable or eco-friendly. Disabled people sometimes need straws, or pre-made meals in plastic containers, or single-use items. Just because you can work with your foods in their least processed and packaged form doesn’t mean everyone else can.

[bebsi-cola]

disabled people are worth whatever cost or resources is needed to keep them alive. disabled people are worth it even if they don't live long. they're worth it even if they will need extra support and resources for every day of their life. they're worth it even if they spend all they life indoors. none of it is wasted. none of it is in vain. time, effort, money, resources spent on a life are not wasted. these things have served their purpose. the joy of someone's existence is not undermined by not lasting forever. there's no meaningful point, some threshold where you can say "okay this is enough. after that it's not worth it." it's always worth it.