#fuck all this neurodiversity pride shit

[knoxiating]

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[intervex]

Can I get a flag for crip? Like crip theory crip. In a pan-disability sense. I don't have any particular iconography in mind, only that it shouldn't give a vibe that this is exclusive to physical disabilities. If you can link it in some way to the Mad & Deaf pride flags that'd be nice.

Thank you!

Crip Pride Flag

This is a flag for crips and those who feel represented by/part of crip theory, crip pride, and/or general cripness. [SVG version on WC]

Crip is a term that is open to people with ALL disabilities (physical or otherwise) and also to groups who share the crip mindset. (Note different spelling from cripple.)

For folks who like details: I'm gonna explain what crip is for those who may be new to the term! Then I'll talk about the flag design how the different stripes represent different models of disability. 💜

What is even is crip?

Like how "queer" is to LGBT+, "crip" is to disabled. It's an umbrella term, a way of seeing the world. Activist reclamation of "crip" goes back to the 1970s, with disabled performance artists popularizing the term in the 1990s.

Crip theory began in the early 2000s by building on queer theory. Expanding on your [QCI's] recent post, its characteristics are:

Understanding disability as socially constructed.

Fuck capitalism: the social construction of disability as we understand it was a result of the development of capitalism.

Fuck eugenics: Ableism and racism have been entwined for hundreds of years and cannot be understood in isolation.

Fuck colonialism: which is itself debilitating. Violence disables people, and Global South activists have been clear it's important to talk about how war, landmines, etc are disabling.

Disabled people are creative. Where queer-ing refers to a way of being critical of categories, cripping tends to focus on subverting ideas of ability. Disabled people ARE the original makers/hackers.

Disabled people are experts: we know shit. It is *us* who should be the epistemic authorities on disability, *not* physicians.

Crip as a term is open to anybody experiencing the violence of eugenic thought, regardless of identification as "disabled".

Fat studies scholars have been locating themselves as within crip theory since day one. Similarly, reading Cripping Intersex by Orr has made clear to me that intersex has always been crip.

Again, drawing a parallel to queer & LGBT: kink and polyamory may not be LGBT but they are Queer. 🌈

Flag details

The design is based on @capricorn-0mnikorn's Disability Pride Flag. In line with newer meanings for the Disability Pride flag, the stripes represent different models of disability associated with crip theory:

Purple represents the social construction of disability and the influence of queer theory. #82609b is from the Mad Pride flag.

Red represents postcolonial understandings of disability such as debility. Understanding that which chronic illnesses receive care and research is *political*. The choice of #CF7280 is a nod to the AIDS flag. I took the red from the disability pride flag and shifted the hue (but not chroma & lightness) to that of the AIDS flag.

Yellow represents the affirmative and identity models of disability. The opposite of the tragedy model. Many disabilities can actually be beneficial! The choice of #f4db75 is a nod to the intersex flag.

White represents how crip pride and crip theory are pan-disability. It stands for models of disabilities not otherwise represented here. The #E8E8E8 white is also a nod to the neurodiversity flag.

Blue represents the social model of disability, the intellectual progenitor of the social construction model (and crip theory in turn). The choice of #83bfe5 is a nod to the Deaf flag.

Green represents eco-crip theory, the eco-social model of disability, and other crip engagements with environmentalism. The choice of #48af75 is a nod to the nonhuman flag. Because being a cyborg (alterhuman) is a proud tradition of crip theory.

The repetition of purple serves to show crip pride & theory exist within a social construction framework. Also it widens the amount of the flag which is stripes, reflecting how crip includes groups not consistently understood as disabled (e.g. fat, intersex).

As with the disability pride flag, the dark grey (#595959) represents the lives lost to ableism and our collective grief.

Tagging @radiomogai @mad-pride @liom-archive for archival. And I wanna acknowledge @scifimagpie for giving me feedback on dozens of prototypes. 💛

Finally: I release this flag design as public domain! 💜

[alexissara]

Being A "Diversity Ball"

I am a Latinx, Trans, Woman, Disabled, Polyamarous, Neurodiverse, Asexual, Lesbian and that sounds like a lot right? It really isn't that much though we just simply allow people the grace of not having to say all these things. A White, Cis, Man, Able bodied, Neruotypical, allosexual, monogamous, heterosexual doesn't have to say anything about themselves, that is just all assumed. It isn't strange to have all these labels what is strange is having to say them, having the things that are considered deviant to the social power. The core difference is that I could elaborate further on any of these labels because to me their more complicated so even my "long list" is a little reductive.

The "normal" person doesn't have to think critically about all these things [because they probably would find out they aren't all of those things] so even if it is more complicated they are unable to elaborate on what it means for them to be straight, cis, able-bodied, neurotypical, they don't need to think about any of that.

I think we're supposed to feel a bit of shame for being ourselves, for sharing it, for it being in our bio or something, like that is making it all our personality but really we are communicating to others in whatever way we think is effective, I am one of your people. We are always choosing what we include, what we don't include. We don't write our personal definitions of what these words mean to us but the opposition gets to kinda blissfully exist as the absence of identity, the option of it. The reality is if things aren't in our bio we're still living it but when your in a place of privilege you don't need to engage those parts of yourself.

Here on tumblr I've intentionally left out a lot of detail in my proper bio since their so small and because I want to see how people treat me if I let them assume things about me or have to do the research. Ironically I had someone do the research on me once here on tumblr, they dug through my stuff to find out I was trans to then insult me. Like I was talking about Lesbian stuff, as I do, and they had to be like "Ha, I win, you are a trans" like seeing a photo of me you clearly weren't confident given you looked it up and screen shotted me saying it rather then posting a picture of me.

Even when we try to like "not be loud" about parts of ourselves those who hate us are happy to try and negate us, to pit parts of our identity against us. One of the worst parts of being a BIPOC queer is when cis/het BIPOC people try and say our queerness is a white person thing. These people have never read history in their fucking lives, like our ancestors more then likely were super fucking gay, gayer then history would say because a lot of history was destroyed. These intercommunity discourses can really suck cuz we're asked to engage against ourselves as if we can neatly join these teams.

Of course the reality is that being all these things mixed together are interchangeable, they create a unique ID for us. Like we can't see the world through the lens of just one of our accesses of marginalization but we see them through all of them. We can't so easily detach and remove parts of ourselves. We can be in the closet, not talk about something, hide stuff, but we understand our own realities.

I believe we should embrace ourselves, radically accept who we are and not worry about if it's like extra or whatever to have a million labels. The fact is the labels are just short cuts for us, like it's useful the more we have the more we can explain at a glace.

This pride, be yourself, be annoyingly yourself, who gives a shit, the reality is everyone else is as many things as you are, we're made of the same junk we just end up built different.

If you were going to throw money at someone randomly, a little ball of labels, you could do worse then me, maybe check out my Patreon or Ko-fi.

[drdemonprince]

fredy dboer is always like "I dont understand why so many of my subscribers are pro israel!! i dont understand why so many of my subscribers think i'd be anti abortion! i dont understand why so many of my subscribers think i'd be anti trans people!!" and its like. my brother. at a certain point the projections people place onto you are a reflection of what you have trained them to expect. youre the guy who talks shit about leftists and identity politics. turns out most of the people who want to hear that and feed off of it are not marxists or whatever, they are conservatives. and with your critiques no matter how sincere they might be you might not actually be improving the left you might be comforting and entertaining a ton of conservatives!!

the same principle can be applied to me and the projections people make of me that i find frustrating, too. like. why do so many bland white hand wringing liberals come to me expecting them to sign off on their inaction and privileged comfort. well. because im a white academic who does fuck all and sometimes writes comforting bromides. thats my fault! i have had to notice that and let it actually sink in for me, and then take steps to alienate that portion of my audience as much as fucking possible. freddie does the alienating the people who deserve to be alienated bit, but i dont see as much of the self reflection or philosophical course correction on his part. i dont think he really contemplates that he might have been doing things all wrong. hes too outraged at the existence of mad pride disability justice twitter to question his impulse to lash out at the left, for one. he really feels like offended and harmed by the existence of people who are anti psychiatry.

some day he'll probably write a scathing take down of my perspective on neurodiversity and it will be like 35% correct, i just know it, and 65% poorly researched generalizations about what the disability justice movement even is based on a few low-note twitter posts. he can be so shrewd and he can also be so impulsive. i guess thats why i keep returning to the well, because i recognize myself in much of it. and because reading him helps me to mentally simulate what some of the critiques of my own work would be... and, i think maybe a little unlike him, i am all too comfortable contemplating that i'm completely fucking wrong and a dumbass

[the-delta-quadrant]

yet another "neurodivergent-affirming" big account embracing saneism by calling bigotry phobia and when asked about it, plays willfully obtuse, "how am i comparing phobic people to bigots? i'm just using the same language for both!"

it's always the people who advocate for people to find other words than narcissistic for abuse because they know that comparing a mental illness to abuse it's bad.

in this case it was someone who was aware that using blindness as a metaphor is bad because it usually paints blind people as willfully ignorant and careless.

but somehow they refuse to see that it's literally the same with phobias, how using this term for bigotry reaffirms the idea of phobic and all other mad people as abusive and horrible.

the absolute irony and hypocrisy of being like "i'm against ableism, sandism and transphobia". might as well say "i'm against ableism and saneism oh shit never mind you all are awful".

the absolute irony and hypocrisy of priding yourself on being "neurodiversity-affirming" but every single person always draws the line at people with phobias. it's totally fine to throw us under the bus, innit?

mad people have been talking about this shit for literal decades and if even "neurodiversity-affirming" people don't give a fuck, we know how fucking stigmatised phobias are - very much also *because* of terms like "homophobia". this term was explicitly cited by bullies to justify painting me as hateful and horrible.

newsflash: you're not neurodivergent or neurodiversity affirming if you draw the line as people with phobiasand stigmatise us knowingly.

[chimerabytes]

its july aka disability pride month ❤️

Remember, when you advocate for the rights of others, such as reproductive rights and the ability to access areas, places such as bathrooms and parades, you need to keep in mind physically disabled folks.

Physically disabled people deserve just as much to be allowed access to bars, to parades and rallies, to literally anywhere, including our own homes and other shelters.

We should not have to be ""useful"" to you for you to determine if we have the right to access spaces. Able bodied people should be advocating for us, instead of putting us down. Our needs are not taking away your own- we absolutely have the resources to accommodate everyone.

Wheelchair users, cane users, and those who require other mobility and other aids, we all deserve to have a spot in a rally, a pride parade, and basic access to other places that able bodied people get to access. We deserve to be able to marry without having our pitiful, meager benefits taken away from us, hell we deserve access to social security and disability benefits without absurdly small limits. A limit of 2k or 3k usd in our accounts at any time can cut us off and that is fucking ABSURD. Depending on where we live it could be an even smaller amount.

Considering how expensive and near extortion-like it is to keep ourselves alive and get the things we need to survive - can be anything from surgeries, mobility aids, hearing aids, food, shelter, any sort of medical item like medicine or appointments - its fucking paltry how abled people treat us and get to determine whether we live or die.

Please, when you're advocating and rallying and fighting... Include disabled people in your activism. We are denied benefits at the fickle twitch of a finger and have to fight tooth and nail for basic recognition.

Also- Stop fucking saying covid is over. Covid is STILL here, we are still suffering from it and many people have become permanently disabled due to acquiring Long Covid. Wear a mask, respect those around you. You dont know which of us are immunocompromised. if we catch Covid it can certainly be a death sentence for us, depending on what conditions we already have. In fact, many of us have died and it feels like nobody gives a shit.

And also- if you're an able-bodied person, regardless of whether you're neurotypical or neurodiverse, listen to the physically disabled folks who are asking for physical accessibility in places like rallies and indoor areas. Don't talk over us, don't complain, don't fight with us. Learn from us, and help us. Fight for us, for those who can't, for those of us who have passed away, for those of us who have been murdered by able-bodied assholes who would gleefully rather see us die than treat us properly.

Life as a disabled person is fucking expensive. It shouldn't have to be. It shouldn't have to be an isolating experience, like I'm stuck on an island alone while everybody else is able to get on a helicopter to safety and back to the nearest town or city. I shouldn't have to justify my rights to accessing what I need to survive, and yet, it feels like I'm walking in circles regardless of whether I'm pleading or demanding I be given access to treatment that will reduce the pain I experience in my daily life.

[autisticthatthouknowestthine]

tumblr is being awful so im splitting this rant into parts (3 of 3)

contuined (again)

l. replicators: there are a fairly even distribution of replicators on the station, and the ferengi founding members, in order to increase their political power in spite of largely not having any interest in long-term ventures in the area, collected a wide range of programming for klingon, romulan, vulcan, ferengi, and other foods on top of the federation standard programming. some people bring programs with them, and all programs are accessible throughout the station, however the default menu when pulling it up via padd does change based on where in the station you are ( the programming for demarking different areas was an original joint vulcan-ferengi programming project- many romulans work in programming and communications because of the skills they acquired through their experiences on romulus, and there have been many improvements since the original system was implemented)

m. i have just realized i only included one bullet point about my oc, but essentially, they were born to a family who were klingon military officers, and when they Left (bc things were Bad and not good) they were adopted into the house of a family friend (who’d cut of contact with my oc’s family but not my oc) and they lived on the station. my oc was barely adolescent sothere was an Adjustment period (especially since it was federation space and that was bizarre and scary-weird) and the family friend’s SO was in couseling and essentially my oc worked with klingon and romulan couselors (and even one vulcan mind healer, which was weird and kind of squicky but they were nice???) and like essentially their family friend hated how honor was used by the klingon gov’t to corner houses into doing their will, and their SO was even more anti-gov’t and my oc grew up surrounded by political refugees who were technically illegally in federation space, also the vulcan scientists by this time considered themselves mostly independent from federation and vsa authority? like they still sent the vsa politely worded fuck you letters whenever they tried to access the particulars of their research, and they sent their data to the federation where it wasn’t really used and nobody really cared about the papers they published (and at this point they published it more for the pride of running the gamut of the in-station paper scrutiny bc like it was seen as, to use a klingon term, honorable, -or a point of pride- to pass the scrutiny of a stationwide unofficial sceintific committee) because it was from a sort of blank area of space aside from this one tiny dilithium-poor patch of systems so what could be so special (yes, the papers were largely about refining conceptions of space, background radiation, and alternative power sources -- but there were also brilliant engineering papers about optimization of stations published by vulcans, romulans, klingons, and a few ferengis, all published under vulcan names/pseudonyms that few people ever saw and fewer ever implemented)

n. shit i tried but it turned back into worldbuilding. yea! they lived in one of the shallower (ie closer to center) klingon levels near the medbay (bc counseling offices) and had a bunch of cousins and friends stuff but essentially they are super neurodivergent and yea they cope with trauma but they sort of tapped into this network of frienships between neurodivergent people on the station, a vulcan kid who was nonverbal and chose to wore gloves because of the sensory overload, several romulan kids who were neurodivergent, some of whom had trauma-related symptoms that made life complicated, ferengis and klingons and vulcans and romulans of all ages who had experiences similar to their own in distinct ways. and yea it was good (so so so good) to have people who understood the not-understanding instinctively and yea! neurodiverse network and yea neurodivergent meant different things for different groups and everybody had different hurdles but im just SAYINF they’re autistic and hav e adhd and down syndrome and they are disabled and not disabled and some of them have been there for a long time and some of them are new but they are there and they exist and yea.

i think that’s all i have energy for today. lmk what you think!!!

[aberwerzogausummichzufinden]

Some thoughts on disability / A rant, maybe?

So. This post could be a bit long, very personal and kind of angry, so feel free to ignore. I just want to gather my thoughts.  I am a person with cerebral palsy and dyspraxia currently trying to figure out my brain and how I can get the accomodations to be less exhausted and more independent, and I have come to the conclusion that it is very likely that I am autistic. It has taken me years of research, weird feelings and shame to come to that conclusion and I am at the very beginning of finding out what to do with that now. As there seems to be a trend of glorifying neurodiversity, self-diagnosing as autistic is rightly seen as a difficult thing, which makes it even more difficult to deal with that. As a visibly disabled person, with CP, dyspraxia and a wheelchair user, I know what ableism feels like and have experienced it throughout my life. Still, I think it’s very funny (in fact, no it’s not) that the MINUTE I talk about suspecting I am autistic to a professional, they dismiss me directly, connecting all my symptoms to my mental health issues and CP, which made me wonder if there are any other autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people with CP who made similar experiences? Another thing I noticed off the bat, is people (except those who know me really well, are autistic themselves or are my parents) seem to bery skeptical about it. I wonder where that skepticism comes from, especially when it is about me, a person who already has lots of experience with disability. I know what the consequences of living a disabled life are. I also noticed that talking about it with non-disabled friends seems to be pointless. I wonder if ableism is an inherited thing like institutionalized racism, a thing everyone has to unlearn. Things I was told in the last few days: “everyone is a little weird / everyone has autistic traits / you’re just very intelligent”, You would not tell a black person telling you about racism that “everyone’s a little black” (if you would do that, what the fuck?). Non-disabled people do not seem to understand that disability is part of an identity. That disability is also a thing created by ableism. Diagnostic criteria are mostly defined by non-disabled indiivduals. The need to identify with a diagnosis to get accomodations and a community, is created by an ableist society, and if we do seek a diagnosis or express a need for community, the same ableist people that created that need in the first place through institutional discrimination suddenly question our decisions and our experiences or say shit like “everyone is a little disabled”, which is simply not the case oh my god. This directly relates to a pattern of behaviour that affects all disabled people and I have often experienced: disabled people are supposed to either imitate able-bodied people and be like “we are all the same! My disability is not a big deal! Watch me overcome obstacles with a constant smile on my face!” or display powerlessness, hopelessness and selfpity whenever possible “My life is worthless, I hate my body everyone has it better than me, please, able-bodied person, allow me to experience one day like you do  and I will be forever grateful!”, so that able-bodied people can pity us and secretly get off on their supposed superiority and their saviour complex. Ableism, for them, is not supposed to cause anger, which then generates (political) power, which generates pride, community, and therefore a sense of purpose and happiness. If we DO express happiness for having found people who make the same experiences, we are “faking”, or forgetting that disability XYZ is a “real illness that requires treatment”, and therefore we are supposedly making fun of our own suffering and / or of others, who are “really disabled”. We are told that “why do you feel the need to identify with that? Labels can be dangerous, don’t compare your situation to someone who needs therapy”. I wonder how especially queer friends can say such a thing, because, does that remind you of anything?? The argument that labels are useless is used to deny specific queer and disabled experiences, and question self-identification à la “why do you say you’re queer and not just bi”. Also, newsflash: Having resources permanently out of reach or  no knowdlege can make life without therapy or assistance possible because it’s the only life you know. Who says I do not need “treatment” of any sort just because I managed without it for so long? (Which I did not, by the way. I am in therapy since I was eight years old). How am I supposed to know that my way of living my life is not everyone’s experience? How am I supposed to know the level of exhaustion I experience is not everyone’s level of exhaustion? How am I supposed to know not everyone has those social difficulties? How am I supposed to know that me banging my head on the wall is not me “overreacting” but one of the signs of a meltdown? If specific disabilities are only validated if they are visible to the non-disabled person, and if only certain stereotyped versions of a disability are available in media, how is a person supposed to know they are disabled and to seek medical attention? You do not need to remind me of the levels of suffering I am supposed to experience. If you are not disabled, you don’t know how important a disabled community is. You don’t know my life.