gendisem

[gendisem]

1. You fucking live here

2. You fucking live here

3. You fucking live here

4. You fucking live here

5. You fucking live here

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During the god awful mandatory swim season in high school

Male gym teacher: for any girls that can't swim this week, we will have make up days next month

Me: *raises hand*

Male gym teacher: yes?

Me: are the make up dates exactly a month from now?

Male gym teacher: about there, yeah

Me:

Me:

Me: will you have make up dates for the make up dates that aren't exactly a month apart

Male gym teacher: why would i-

Male gym teacher: oh

Male gym teacher:

Male gym teacher: I might need to rethink those dates

[gendisem]

Invisible Disability

The representation of disability in the media is slim to none as it is, and when the disabled community is represented, it is for inspiration porn. In media (specifically on television) most of the actors that represent the disabled community are not disabled themselves which causes an injustice; some examples of this are in Glee, X-Men, and American Horror Story. Film itself is art and I think that the actors representing these people may be subscribing to their own version of “outsider art” filling another character role for their own benefit. After all don’t you think that someone that actually is a part of that community and lives that life daily would make for a better candidate? For those actors that are a part of the disabled community that do act in media, the directors make that their only focus in their representation for the character. Or they make the entire film (ie soulsurfer) about the fact that this person is disabled and use it for financial gain. 

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 “The best analysis in the world is useless if we don’t treat each other well. If we don’t invest our time and energy in learning how to love each other better, if we can’t build relationships that can last more than 2-5 years. If we can’t commit to practicing working out hard dynamics in our relationships or if we are recreating the very conditions we are fighting against inside of our collectives, organizations, and movements.

It doesn’t matter how much you know, if you’re not willing to work on your heart and your relationship with yourself. If you don’t know how to say, “I’m sorry,” “that really hurt my feelings,” or “I messed up.” None of this matters if you are interested in staying “right” all the time or always wanting to only talk about the places you’re oppressed and never talk about the places you are privileged.”

First of all, I LOVE Mingus’ blog post especially as a transracial adoptee and fellow Asian who has been marginalized for who I am (though not in the same way obvs as queer Asians). Second, this excerpt really spoke to me. It does not matter how much you know--if you are not intersectional, if you do not extend the same empathy for other marginalized groups as you do for once, then how can you call yourself an agent for social change? If you are trans exclusionary, a white feminist, only here for nonblack poc, not here for Black women, then what’s the point? What is the point of even advocating if youre not going to be there for everyone? It’s extremely privileged that we, as cis straight nondisabled people can pick and choose who we are here for. 

I have recently and finally found an ally in my white boyfriend. He has even told me that I have heped him come a long way from where he was before he met me. He is well versed in why things are problematic, stands up for/with me when i need it or want it, calls people out, and we can have good discussions about his privilege. For awhile we had on and off again problems where he woud=ld say something racist and I called him on it but nothing changed. I finally put my foot down and told him that unless he started educating himself, unless he started trying to make himself better instead of relying on me to do all the heavy lifting, then we could not be together. because Ive already gotten enough racist crap from my own family and i did not need it from him too. He has shaped up now and we work on bettering ourselves together.The only way to progress is to have those difficult conversations, be senstive, always strive to learn and to make every place a safe space. 

[gendisem]

Mingus//On Collaboration

“ Because you can know about something and it doesn’t mean that your behavior is going to change. “

  Okay, so this quote plus Mingus’ heavy emphasis on not just critiquing but internally transforming like super hit me hard and like FUCK YEAH all the way through because this differentiation is becoming more and more important in my life.

Like Mingus talks about, it doesn’t matter how much knowledge on something you have, collaboration and change isn’t going to happen until you yourself recognize your privilege, others’ oppression, structures, institutions, and so much more; and then not only recognize and critique but understand it all in a personal context. I recently have been fought with about the relevancy of identity politics and I don’t know, I do agree that we need to stop being so self centered in our politics, but I think coming to terms with what we are studying internally is a vital process to change.

As students of a curriculum like this I don’t think we can stop at this is bad, it needs to be changed. We need to bring it into our own lives and contextualize it; however, we must be weary of the line of making the issues about ourselves and not about fixing them. Anyway, if intersectionality and understanding others doesn’t make it past the point of critique then it will never make it to the point of coalition. No it shouldn’t be all about the individual, but groups of people may not be heard correctly if information isn’t interpreted personally. And interpreting information in a personal way will change behaviour.

Think about, ableist behaviour isn’t changed until the person who is being ableist not only understands the issue to a point of critique, but also feels the issue on a personal level. I think it’s a flaw in our nature, but one that should be utilized. Many people do think that they are the center of their story and their behaviour will not change until their story includes the change.

I just think Mingus is saying some great things that everyone needs to hear. Also, there is totally a time and place for identity politics and no one can convince me otherwise.

[gendisem]

The Giver and Disability

For those who have not read The Giver, here’s a summary. It’s basically set in a future (Utopia but actually dystopia to the main character) where literally everything is controlled, no suffering, no memories of the world before, no music, assigned children and spouses, etc. Everyone is the same. The rest of the book plot doesn’t really matter...Just society in the book. 

So it’s pretty obvious that everyone is nondisabled--they have genetic engineers who work to make sure everyone is the same. If some one gets sick, they can be “released” from the community (aka killed). This is supposed to be a world free of pain, however, so there is no disability. This brings the question, does disability have a place in Utopia? In Kafer’s article, Piercy’s idea of utopia similar to The Giver--disabled bodies are made nondisabled and get “fixed”. There are definitely eugenic themes throughout the book where the weak or different are fished out. There are many discussions about who belongs in the community and who is seen as productive or lazy. Yet another neoliberal idea--people who don’t seem productive are not seen as valuable. This book is neoliberalistic ideals to the extreme of actually “releasing”/executing those not deemed productive or able. 

Even the way they determine which baby will live or die within a set of twins is ableist and neoliberal. Considering that they actually have the scientific ability to control the climate in the book, the standards for executing babies is rather primitive since they simply kill the lesser weighing baby. Babies are also given tests of “maturity” where they have to be able to sit alone and grab small objects in order to pass. Otherwise, if they do not demonstrate the ability to be independent, they are seen as less likely to be a productive and contributing member of society as they get older. 

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art is a thing

Honestly the most difficult thing for me to understand in Gender and Disability is the concept of outsider art. I enjoy drawing people and animals but I don't really stray from that. I don't really understand people's passion for art or how people can attribute such meaning to something I see as simply an object/painting. I look at the picture featured in The Guardian's article we read for class on the top and see no special meaning... While the very first paragraph describes the piece in more detail than I could ever get out of it. So outsider art is this concept of art by disabled people basically or by marginalized people who don't have the resources to go to art school or the materials to create something huge/expensive. I am glad that APA's regulars have the same rights and opportunities as nondisabled artists. I have mostly heard of disabled people doing art as "amazing" or some feature to autism or whatever disability they have. Disabled people, yet again, are sensationalized. Well there are so many amazing disabled artists out there... Why aren't you one? I understand the need for outsider art as it seems to provide a safe space for disabled people and marginalized people to express themselves and not be shamed for not being "real" artists, but I also hate that they were othered in the first place. It's very classist for the art community to look down on self-taught artists. I self taught myself to draw. I never had the money, resources, or inclination really to go to art school. But I still feel like I can call myself an artist. I think, as long as you're creating something, anything, then you can be an artist. If you're writing a poem, drawing a picture, sculpting, painting, whatever. I just hope, for marginalized people's sake, that neoliberal ideas don't completely infiltrate outsider art and take advantage of the marginalized people. The article says there are already cults among collectors, but I hope this will plateau soon.

[gendisem]

I already made a separate post with a tweet I made regarding the subject, but I wanted to speak about it in further detail.

This morning I was enjoying a cup of hot chocolate at the beach by myself when a man I have never seen before grabbed my head from behind to adjust it so he could observe the tattoos behind my ear and on the back of my neck. I was so terrified I couldn’t even move. When he had the audacity to ask me, “What do the diamonds behind your ear mean?” I flipped. 

“How dare you invade my personal space and touch me without my consent! I should knock your teeth down your throat for that!”

“— but I just wanted to see your tattoos!“ 

Unfortunately, things like this are very common in the body modification community. People grab my arms to look at my sleeves or my hands to look at my hand/finger tattoos, some will adjust the top of my shirt to look at my chest piece, a few have lifted up my skirts and dresses to look at the tattoos on my shins and thighs, and one person grabbed the bottom of my lip and pulled it out when they saw I had a tattoo inside my lip.

I hear countless stories like mine on a daily basis. Some include how people will stick their fingers in the lobes of someones ear, how people will touch the piercings on someones face and ask “did it hurt?”, and how people will touch the bodies of others to observe their tattoos. It’s a trend that seriously needs to end.

You shouldn’t touch anyone without their permission, but people seem to think it’s justifiable to touch someone with body modifications because “I just want to see!” Nothing justifies or excuses it. Body modifications doesn’t mean people can touch us without our consent.��Please respect the individual spaces of others and knock it off.

[gendisem]

Art????

So I super dug Brandon’s facilitation on art and what really struck me was insider/outsider art. It struck me as just some more elitist art bullshit, but then I realised how much more it is than just the art world being snooty. Outsider art, from what I’ve gathered, is art from virtually all oppressed groups and not just disabled people. Like graffiti would be an example of outsider art; and it is not until outsider art resembles or is important to insider art is it acknowledged or considered art. This is art were talking about. Something that is supposed to be a medium of expression, political activism, self therapy, and so much more is also a form of oppression. Not just the way it feels to go to an art museum and not know what’s going on and different art forms and feel uneducated and crap, nah man. This is straight up you’re lesser so your art isn’t art oppression Also, who in the heck has the authority to say what art is??? Like even some “artists” don’t consider themselves as such. So who is this insider group to say that there is such thing as outsider art. And I know it’s not because their style is unconventional, every art style started out that way and there are so many similarities between Picaso and graffiti. Basically, art has also been pretty oppressive but this idea that someone’s art is outside due to their bio is ridiculous and now that I can critically analyse this I have a whole new opinion on outsider art.

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Whenever I tell people I want to adopt a child with Autism, I get half-crazy, half-pity looks. Most people tell me I’m being innocent and naive, and I’ll change my mind as I get older and see more ...

In keeping with the themes of adoption and objectification of disabled children, I am going to talk about Affect. What is happiness? How do we define it? And, through a disabled lens, how do people objectify disabled people and use them for their own happiness? Besides the obvious answer in the disabled beauty pageant where all nondisabled judges were cooing at all the disabled girls on stage, disabled kids can also be objectified through adoption. 

This article talks about how this woman wants to adopt an autistic child. One of her biggest passions is working with autistic children. Apparently working with them has changed her world. The way I see it is that she is using disabled children to her advantage -- to make herself happier. It’s okay to volunteer to make yourself happy while wanting to make others happy in the process, but it’s not okay to volunteer to make yourself happy. That’s selfish in my opinion. I get self care, but wanting to be happy is just another part of Affect. We all want to be happy, right? It makes us feel good. It makes us feel like the world is worth living, like we have potential, a future, etc. The problem is that most happiness is centered in the future -- it is something we need to strive for. That is, essentially, what I think the author of this article is doing. She already has happiness from helping autistic children, but she wants more. She wants to have an autistic child to wake up to every morning, to love, to show them that the world is not all bad, she wants her world to light up... But she wants one for all the wrong reasons. It seems sweet, right? She wants to see their eyes get big when they see a new toy or to wonder what happy thoughts are going through that happy autistic kid’s mind. I guarantee that when that autistic kid gets older, however, all this magic will go away. Like we discussed in class, people don’t care about autistic people once they’re grown and it’s impossible to infantilize them. You don’t adopt a kid just for your own edification or happiness. 

This also brings us into the next part of Affect regarding disabled people. They are constantly pressured to be/viewed as happy. It’s part of the overcoming narrative -- wow, you are actually happy! That’s sooo impressive with your condition. Disabled people are used yet again as inspiration porn for nondisabled people because hey, if a disabled person can get out of bed with a smile on their face then so can I! Many times in the disabled beauty pageant documentary, the parents discuss how their disabled children bring them so much happiness/are always happy and inspire them/work so hard at being “normal” (trying to walk/making it their goal to walk). The beauty pageant was all about giving these disabled kids a couple days for them to finally be happy, as if a disability is tragic, It once again plays into the medical model of disability... As if it’s something to be cured, as if these little girls are going to die soon and need some happiness, as if they don’t have anything in their lives worth living for. The author of this article only brings up positivity and happiness in her examples regarding why she wants to adopt an autistic kid. Every single example is happy and relates back to her. Grabbing HER hands, learned MY name, laughing at something silly SHE didn’t understand, SHE wants them to grab her face and squeeze it slightly because apparently that’s how they show love. Everything about her wanting to adopt an autistic kid is about her, and only her. The only thing that matters is her happiness, and she is objectifying disabled children to reach it. 

[gendisem]

TRIGGER WARNING: Horrible horrible person, horrible comments about autistic children, gross and disgusting, abuse, horror, abandonment, adoption

Serious question. Basically, I have 4 kids, and the second one (he's 6 now) is autistic. Because of this, my wife has to live at home and not work, which is a big hit to us financially. She made significantly more money than I did before Terry was born (our autistic son) as a bank branch manager, and now we're hurting on our mortgage. And the special tutor with have for Terry is not helping. The state helps financially, but barely enough to cover his tutor, and certainly not enough to balance out the loss of income from my wife having to stay home. Is it possible to give up just one child? I know of situations where the state will take your children from you, but it's usually an all or nothing deal, right? I mean, I love my other children very much... just not Terry. Well, I love him, really, but in a different way. Certainly not in a way that makes me want to let him ruin the rest of the family's life. Any suggestions?

Sooooo I want to talk about the fucking horrible bullshit disgustingness that is this Yahoo answers question! Now I dont know if the original poster was trolling and just being disgusting or if they were actually serious. However, the commenters seemed actually serious. There’s a serious problem with marginalized voices being drowned out everywhere, but it’s even more problematic here with disabled children. As we saw in the disabled beauty pageant “docu-tainment” in class, the parents were either given the more detailed/real roles and the disabled children were fawned upon/asked silly questions/talked over. 

Now one of the answers on the site was obviously the voice of a parent. Their entire comment was horrible and awful and I feel awful for the poor disabled kid who has to live with them. They basically talked about how horrible it was to live with an autistic kid, all the terrible things that happen, how much it sucks, how terrible autistic kids are, etc. It’s absolutely horrifying. They even say they envy the original poster having “normal” kids. I am sick and tired of privileged voices being heard and especially of a person thinking it’s okay to just give up one kid. Especially from the scene in the docu of the mom who said they only adopted disabled kid as a playmate for their daughter, this post hits me pretty hard. It’s disgusting. 

I am willing to bet that zero percent of those answering about what a horrible person you are have a low functioning autistic kid or even worked with them. They don't have a child that drains all your families accesets and threatens the entire family with homelessness. They don't have a child that screams constantly over everything and sleeps very little. They don't have to put up with a child that in incabable of communication in any sort of meaningful way other than bitting, hitting or kicking. They don't have a child that will break objects by throwing them across the room. If you have zero experience with severly autisitic kids you need to STFU. These are the same idiots who refuse to recognize that there is an epidimic of these brain damaged children. They don't know why you keep a bucket of bleach water on hand just in case. They haven't had to rip out new carpets because their child totatly destroyed them. Surely, children who behaved this way even 75 years ago would have been written up and counted. I will say good luck to you and contact your local social services branch to find out about voluntary foster placement. Most places will charge child support but if your child is damaging every aspect of your life it is a small price to pay for peace of mind. At least you won't be building up the resentment you are probably feeling toward your child now. You don't want it to get to the point you begin to hate the child. Another option is locating a residential facility for autistic children in your state. Here too you will have to pay for the child to stay there and depending on your medical insurance you might qualify for respite care as a temporary placement. I too am kind of in your shoes but I am affraid I have wasted too much of my time trying to fix my son to be employable again. There just comes a point when you have to accept they aren't going to get better and you have to do what is best for your family and your own sanity. I envy you having some normal kids with which to take solist. But you also have to think of their futures as well. If this child takes you down in financial flames your other children will blame him and grow to hate him.

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A missing Mar Vista 15-year-old diagnosed with autism has been found, her mother said Monday night.

In class we watched Stand Clear of the Closing Doors which was about an autistic kid who “got lost”. His parents infantilized him and didn’t really let him do anything on his own. In a way, I think this movie was a sort of overcoming narrative in that he overcame his parents’ expectations for him. He showed them through his own way that he could do things by himself. This film showed Ricky really finding himself and his family finding out what he could do. This was a refreshing change from all the news about tracking devices for autistic children -- as if they are animals who need tracking.

In this article, we find a very similar situation. A 15 year old autistic girl was missing for 3 weeks. In the article, the girl’s mother and friends had differing opinions on her.

Both her mother and friends said that it's very unlike her to disappear for more than a few hours. But they did disagree about her abilities to take care of herself. Her mother described her as autistic in need of medication. "She's a spectacular child. She 's my child. She's not just a child with a disability she's not just a child with autism," Greenberg said. But her friends say she behaves like a typical 15 year old. "She makes good decisions. She makes decisions like her age," said friend Madisen Clarke. "She's a 15 year old. She functions like a 15 year old."

The girl’s mother considered her to be a child. A child separate from her disability... Yet her mother infantilizes her daughter by referring to her as a child. Any “normal” 15 year old would be referred to as a teenager. The girl’s friends recognize her abilities and even say that she behaves like any other 15 year old. While the motivations behind the girl’s disappearance and where she went have not been released, I can speculate that maybe she wanted to get away from her overbearing mother. Since  her mom apparently thinks of her as a child, maybe the girl wanted to get away and prove that she could live by herself. Ricky was being overprotected by his family and that was one of the main reasons why he broke free. Maybe this is the case with the 15 year old. If she behaves like any other 15 year old, maybe she was just sick of her mother’s babying shit. 

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OI babies are the cutest

http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/Stories/RahcelsStoryOI.aspx

I was a freshman in high school when I came across this confessional on a support network site geared towards parents who had received abortions. What I read shocked me, and I might venture to say that this article acted as a major catalyst, spurring my passion for disability justice. I cried for a long time after reading this mother’s post, because the daughter she aborted was me.

Some background information. Both the mother and father were against abortion for religious reasons. They had a one-year-old son already. The most shocking details is that the father was physically disabled from an accident years before. 

The parents found out their daughter would be Disabled, and she would have Osteogenesis Imperfecta. This is the bone condition I have. OI runs through my bone marrow; it is a critical part of my identity. I have lived as someone with OI all my life, as the condition is congenital, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Their little girl would be type II or type III. Unfortunately, type II OI babies often pass away in the womb or shortly after delivery. Type III OIers, on the other hand, are a diverse group of people. Sometimes type III can be severe, and sometimes it can manifest moderately, like it has for myself; the OI progressively becomes less dominant and fractures are not as common later in life. Either way, tens of thousands of people live with OI all over the country and world. We have family, friends, careers, children, spouses. We travel, we breathe. We exist. The fact these parents let go of their daughter merely because she had OI is true tragedy to me. 

They found someone to perform a late-term abortion; the mother was at 7 months.  Why did they do it? Because the “findings were devastating,” because they “were devastated.” Because, as the doctor explained, 

First, they thought about their son and how he would be affected by having a Disabled sister. They thought about finances, a legitimate concern, but one I’d argue in this case to be insubstantial reason to terminate a pregnancy. The mother considered, “I would never go back to work,” which is a goddamn dramatic evaluation. Only then did she write, 

Pain is an inevitable part of this life as it has been imagined and constructed. So is social exclusion; so is ableism. It doesn’t have to be this way, but it is right now, in the time and world we occupy.

I have broken over 80 bones. Some people with OI break over 700. Do these numbers determine quality of life? I couldn’t play sports. I can’t run. And I don’t give a shit. Life is more than neoliberal ideologies that construct and create standards of ability and happiness. It hurts my heart that Disabled lives are misrepresented by medical professionals and discarded for the sake of preserving assumptions surrounding the quality of life.

[gendisem]

like I feel like a big part of eugenics is coercing people into not having disabled kids, and how that happens now is by making the resources that disabled kids need totally inaccessible to all but a VERY select few, if that

like if someone has access to all the support and resources they’d need to provide a disabled kid with a healthy, supportive home and they chose not to have a disabled kid because they think disability is yucky, that’s obviously ableism. But what if someone wants to have and raise a disabled kid and they look around and the support and resources just aren’t there for them? That’s a form of reproductive coercion imo that’s like, specifically designed to curb the disabled population, that’s eugenics.

[gendisem]

Me: "Mom can I take the American flag sticker off the car? (my dad's car that I drive)" I think the sticker makes me look like a Republican (gag :P)

Super Republican Mom: "No... It covers up a hole."

Me: "What if I get another sticker to cover it?" 

SRM, suddenly very challenging: "Do you have a problem with the American flag or something?" 

Me: *meep* 

Let's talk about Nationalism briefly and why it sucks. Why do people have to die or get inured for our country? Why do we continue to perpetuate ethnocentric beliefs and impose our will on other countries? Why is it that when I criticize the military that I am suddenly not a real American? Why do we send good people to unnecessary and hate-driven wars so they can become disabled and then we celebrate their "bravery". And then we don't provide for our veterans? Why is this normal? Why is it brave for our disabled veterans to go back into combat? These questions don't even begin to tackle how I feel about "Amurrica hell yeah!" and such.

 Wartime produces disability according to Erevelles. Many soldiers return home with physical or emotional disabilities, and many civilians are left in places like Afghanistan or Iraq without proper medical care or enough resources. For the soldiers though, they are considered brave enough to take the hit for America. They became disabled for America, to uphold American values, and believe 100% in America. Disabled soldiers are worshipped as disabled civilians are left out of the picture. Even then, there are not even enough resources for disabled soldiers in America. The country they fought so bravely (and unnecessarily) for let's veterans down all the time. If those soldiers return to battle, then they are worshipped even more. If those soldiers continue to live their lives (see the photo above), then they are worshipped even more. 

The soldiers that are forced into unnecessary battle just to reestablish that America is the best become inspiration porn. They become objects for people to worship. They are celebrated for continuing to live their lives though they are disabled. They are considered warriors for being put through extreme trauma and violence and coming out the other end. Anyone who criticizes wars or soldiers is therefore unpatriotic and didn't go to war because they are cowards. Because somehow going to war for obtuse and racist reasons isn't cowardly... Because becoming disabled for your country that won't take of you isn't ridiculous. It's brave. Yet being born disabled or becoming disabled without going to war isn't good enough.