#Visual Impairment

[fixforthesoul]

OPEN LETTER TO FANFICTION WRITERS ON ACCESSIBILITY; PLEASE READ.

first of all, thank you for spending your time, seldom acknowledged and definitely deserving of a compensation you are not receiving, to entertain us. i’m speaking on behalf of more than just blind readers, but everyone. you’re sick as hell.

i’ve summoned you to provide some information you may not already know. i know a lot of you like fonts. especially those who cross post their work on wattpad. i admire any and all acts of aestheticism to a degree, and can understand the desire to use them. (blind folk, sorry y’all. momma’s making a point.) 𝔰𝔱𝔲𝔣𝔣 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰, it’s cute. 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 is a little cuter to me, if i had to choose. or maybe 𝓈𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈?

now, sighted folk: if you’re on mobile, i implore you to participate in a little exercise for me. select this text and scroll through all the copy/paste/define/‘search the web’ options until you get to the speak portion. if you need to change a setting for your phone to do so, would you mind? i’d really appreciate it.

please make your phone read aloud part of my post, and be sure to include any bits with those super cute fonts. 𝕚’𝕝𝕝 𝕥𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕖𝕟𝕕 𝕠𝕗 𝕞𝕪 𝕡𝕝𝕖𝕒, 𝕣𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖. 𝕚 𝕙𝕠𝕡𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕔𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕝𝕪, 𝕚 𝕕𝕠𝕟’𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕠 𝕓𝕖 𝕤𝕢𝕦𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕 𝕓𝕪 𝕥𝕪𝕡𝕠𝕤 𝕚 𝕔𝕒𝕟’𝕥 𝕤𝕖𝕖.

whether you participated and discovered it for yourself or you thought this was a crock of shit you’d rather not sniff, i’ll tell you! screen readers cannot dictate words using those fonts. at least, on a majority of devices. not mine, or any of my mutuals elsewhere.

you do not have to change your behavior on my behalf, but please be aware that fonts limit access to your work.

blind readers do exist, i exist, and i am bound by the same feelings of dogged longing that make other sad horny bitches read angsty, smutty, father-wounded nonsense.

thanks for making it this far. i really hope my sincerity is being conveyed, reading makes me so happy and i’m not the only person on this app who relies on accessibility settings more often than not. do with this information what you will, and have the day you deserve!

[teddybearworld]

Question for people who use screen readers or text to speech/audio

When a post on here has lots of emojis, special fonts/text or lots of keysmashes, what is a way to tag those posts so that you guys don't have to sit there listening to nonsense for a minute straight?

Thanks!

[kalethemonster]

what neurotypical abled people cant seem to get into their heads is aids and medication dont stop people from being neurodivergent and/or disabled. hearing aids dont stop deaf or hard of hearing people from being deaf or hard of hearing, it just makes hearing easier mobility aids such as canes or crutches dont stop people with arthritis, chronic pain, or just general mobility issues from having arthritis, chronic pain, or just general mobility issues, it just makes getting around easier

pain medication doesnt stop people with chronic pain stop being in pain (specifically in the long term), it just makes pain management easier

fidget & stim toys and fidget & stim jewelry dont stop people with anxiety from having anxiety, adhd-ers from having fucked up exectutive function, and autistics not being able to automatically regulate emotions and sensory responses, it just makes dealing with them all easier

various adhd medications doesnt make people not have adhd anymore, it just makes it easier to regulate their executive function.

anxiety medication doesnt get rid of anxiety, it just makes it easier to deal with.

white canes and sight specific service animals dont stop blind people and people with sight impairments from being blind or having sight impairments, it just makes living with them easier.

trauma and emotional support specific service animals dont stop people from having trauma and emotional issues, it just makes dealing with them easier

anti-depressants dont stop people with clinical depression from being depressed, they just make it easier to deal with by stabilizing mood.

immune suppressants dont stop people with any autoimmune condition(s) (such as crohn's, psoriasis or psoratic arthritis, rhumitiod arthritis, myasthenia gravis, fibromyalgia, ect.) being affected in any way affected by their autoimmune condition(s), they just make living with the condition(s) easier.

medication and aids arent magic. they dont make the disabled and/or neurodiverse person not disabled and/or not neurodiverse, they dont entirely cancel out the thing they are used/pescribed for, they just make it easier to exist in a world where whats considered "normal" or "independant" or "a regular human being" doesnt automatically include them.

[starcountr]

Once again bringing up the fact that albinism is always tied to varying degrees of visual impairment. Disability is inherent in our condition and glossing over this (due to ignorance or not) is an act of ableism and fetishisation. Before you create an original character or any sort of fiction you ought to not stick to lazy research. Albinism affects real people, not just animals and social stigma because of our looks is only half of the story. Please do not contribute to a superficial understanding of an already rare and not researched enough condition, happy 10 years of international albinism awareness day.

[differentlylimbed]

i am once again asking sighted people to stop posting in disability tags without image descriptions. yes, even if you have no spoons. yes, even if you 'don't know how to write IDs'. ask someone to help you, read one of the many tutorials floating around, or wait until you have energy to post. this applies doubly to content about blindness and visual impairment, and triply to posting in the blind and VI tags sighted people encouraged to reblog

[smoov-criminal]

i came across a website today that has a huge log of movies and tv shows on streaming services and other media that have audio descriptions! it's called the Audio Description Project and is ran by the American Council of the Blind. it's a huge resource that, besides info on what has audio descriptions, also has info on what they are, why they're important, and how to write them! i think it's pretty neat check it out

[yeahyeahbeebiss1]

happy disability pride month to people with vision impairments. nystagmus, strabismus, lazy eyes, low vision, etc! eye problems are so normalized to the point where able bodied people refuse to see people with vision impairments.

i cannot read even the largest letters without glasses. i can’t legally drive! i needed progressives at 17! i can’t open my bad eye outside at all anymore! i’m mad! i’m done with being ignored!

[vizreef]

Telex Corporation C1 // Audio Book Player with variable pitch and speed options (US, 1980s)

[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

[dianadeadwing]

I just learned not everybody sees the static.

[stardust-sunset]

it’s kinda funny how almost every character with albinism in media is always portrayed as a villain. as if that isn’t feeding into every stereotype out there.

the only protagonist i’ve found with albinism in media was in a book where the girl turns out to be a witch. which is arguably on the level of bad as the evil albino stereotype.

idk why this bothers me so much. nobody knows about albinism and it’s not like it’s actively discriminated against. but i wish there was more media where more normal people had albinism instead of the PWA turning out to be an evil villain or a witch, they turn out to be a normal person with normal struggles. like give me a story about a character with albinism trying to navigate the world on their own terms, trying to fit in and such WITHOUT using stereotypes.

like yes. i know people being ignorant towards a certain condition isn’t the worst thing in the world. maybe i have no right to complain about it given the other tings that are happening in the world that kinda trump issues like this. but it’s still an issue. the fact that people believe these things is just sad to me tbh.

another thing that bugs me is when people refer to us as ‘albinos’. like not everyone hates that word. some PWAs are okay with it. i just say it because it’s shorter and easier to type out than ‘person with albinism’ but even in media seeing the character being referred to as ‘the albino’ makes my stomach turn. people use the word ‘albino’ to refer to animals; most of the time. the word itself can feel dehumanizing sometimes, in certain contexts. for me it’s better to say person with albinism. it’s putting the person before the disability and it doesn’t feel as degrading.

anyway. my inbox is always open if you have questions for me about how to write a character with albinism. i know nobody is gonna see this or care but i just thought i’d say smth.

[thecorvidforest]

it’s really disheartening that the only tumblr blogs i follow that consistently add alt text/image descriptions to photos on posts and reblogs are ones run by visually impaired folks. even most of the leftist blogs & non-VI disability-centered blogs i follow aren’t consistently adding adequate IDs to photos, or even tagging them as undescribed so they can be filtered out.

like, how am i meant to believe your leftism/advocacy includes all disabled people when you run a leftism or disability-focused blog that isn’t even accessible? do you really care about all disabled folks, or just the convenient ones?

obligatory disclaimer that this doesn’t apply to people who literally aren’t capable of doing it. but let’s be honest, that’s not most of you.

[rjalker]

There is no sign that says "you must suffer this much to be disabled".

If you cannot function in society to the same level as every single other person around you without an external device or accommodations, you are disabled.

Yes, if you require glasses, you are disabled. It doesn't matter that you think it's not "bad enough" to be considered a disability. There is no required badness level for a disability. You literally require an external manufactured device to be able to function in society. You are disabled.

Yes, even if it's "only" because you're getting older, and you need reading glasses now.

[the-delta-quadrant]

i need the time blindness people and the gender blindness people to finally understand that you're not fucking exempt from

"stop using vision impairment as a metaphor"

[differentlylimbed]

i don't know who needs to hear this, but wearing glasses doesn't make you visually impaired. yes, even if your vision is really bad without them.