#intellectual disability representation

[cripplecharacters]

Writing Intellectually Disabled Characters

[large text: writing intellectually disabled characters]

Something that very rarely comes up in disability media representation are intellectually disabled characters. There is very little positive representation in media in general (and basically none in media meant specifically for adults or in YA). I hope this post can maybe help someone interested in writing disabled characters understand the topic better and create something nice. This is just a collection of thoughts of only one person with mild ID (me) and I don't claim to speak for the whole community as its just my view. This post is meant to explain how some parts of ID work and make people aware of what ID is.

This post is absolutely not meant for self diagnosis (I promise you would realize before seeing a Tumblr post about it. it's a major disorder that gets most people thrown into special education).

Before: What is (and isn't) intellectual disability?

ID is a single, life-long neurodevelopment condition that affects IQ and causes problems with reasoning, problem‑solving, remembering and planning things, abstract thinking and learning. There is often delay or absence of development milestones like walking (and other kinds of movement), language and self care skills (eating, going to the bathroom, washing, getting dressed etc). Different people will struggle with different things to different degrees. I am, for example, still fully unable to do certain movements and had a lot of delay in self-care, but I had significantly less language-related delay than most of people with ID I know. Usually the more severe a person's ID is the more delay they will have.

Intellectual disability is one single condition and it doesn't make sense to call it "intellectual disabilities" (plural) or "an intellectual disability". It would be like saying "they have a Down Syndrome" or "he has autisms". The correct way would be "she has intellectual disability" or "ze is intellectually disabled".

Around 1-3% of people in the world have intellectual disability and most have mild ID (as opposed to moderate, severe, or profound). It can exist on its own without any identifiable condition or it can be a part of syndrome. There is over a thousand (ranging from very common to extremely rare) conditions that can cause ID but some of the most common are;

Down Syndrome,

Fragile X Syndrome,

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome,

Autism,

Edwards Syndrome,

DiGeorge Syndrome,

Microcephaly.

Not every condition always causes ID and you can have one of the above conditions without having ID as long as it's not necessary diagnostic criteria to be met. For example around 30% of autistic people have ID, meaning that the rest 70% doesn't. It just means that it's comorbid often enough to be counted as a major cause but still, autistic ≠ intellectually disabled most of the time.

A lot of things that cause intellectual disability also come with facial differences, epilepsy, mobility-related disabilities, sensory disabilities, and limb differences. A lot, but not all, intellectually disabled people go to special education schools.

Intellectual disability isn't the same as brain damage. Brain damage can occur at any point of a person's life while ID always starts in or before childhood.

"Can My Character Be [Blank]?"

[large text: "Can my character be [blank]?"]

The difficulty with writing characters with intellectual disability is that unlike some other things you can give your character, ID will very directly impacts how your character thinks and behaves - you can't make the whole character and then just slap the ID label on them.

Intellectually disabled people are extremely diverse in terms of personality, ability, verbality, mobility... And you need to consider those things early because deciding that your character is nonverbal and unable to use AAC might be an issue if you're already in the middle of writing a dialogue scene.

For broader context, a person with ID might be fully verbal - though they would still probably struggle with grammar, what some words mean, or with general understanding of spoken/written language to some degree. Or they could also be non-verbal. While some non-verbal ID people use AAC, it's not something that works for everyone and some people rely on completely language-less communication only. There is also the middle ground of people who are able to speak, but only in short sentences, or in a way that's not fully understandable to people who don't know them. Some might speak in second or third person.

Depending on the severity of your character's disability they will need help with different tasks. For example, I'm mildly affected and only need help with "complex" tasks like shopping or taxes or appointments, but someone who is profoundly affected will probably need 24/7 care. It's not infantilization to have your character receive the help that they need. Disabled people who get help with bathing or eating aren't "being treated like children", they just have higher support needs than me or you. In the same vein, your character isn't "mentally two years old" or "essentially a toddler", they are a twenty-, or sixteen-, or fourty five-year old who has intellectual disability. Mental age isn't real. Intellectually disabled people can drink, have sex, smoke, swear, and a bunch of other things. A thirty year old disabled person is an adult, not a child!

An important thing is that a person with ID has generally bad understanding of cause-and-effect and might not make connections between things that people without ID just instinctively understand. For example, someone could see that their coat is in a different place than they left it, but wouldn't be able to deduce that then it means that someone else moved it or it wouldn’t even occur to them as a thing that was caused by something. I think every (or at least most) ID person struggles with this to some extent. The more severe someone's disability is the less they will be able to connect usually (for example someone with profound ID might not be able to understand the connection between the light switch and the light turning off and on).

People with mild intellectual disability have the least severe problems in functioning and some are able to live independently, have a job, have kids, stuff like that.

What Tropes Should You Avoid?

[large text: what tropes should you avoid?]

The comic relief/punching bag;

The predator/stalker;

The "you could change this character into a sick dog and there wouldn't be much difference";

...and a lot more but these are the most prevalent in my experience.

Most ID characters are either grossly villainized (more often if they have also physical disabilities or facial differences) or extremely dehumanized or ridiculed, or all of the above. It's rarely actually *mentioned* for a character to be intellectually disabled, but negative "representation" usually is very clear that this who they're attempting to portray. The portrayal of a whole group of people as primarily either violent predators, pitiful tragedies or nothing more than a joke is damaging and you probably shouldn't do that. It's been done too many times already.

When those tropes aren't used the ID character is still usually at the very most a side character to the main (usually abled) character. They don't have hobbies, favorite foods, movies or music they like, love interests, friends or pets of their own and are very lucky if the author bothered to give them a last name. Of course it's not a requirement to have all of these but when there is *no* characterization in majority of disabled characters, it shows. They also usually die in some tragic way, often sacrificing themselves for the main character or just disappear in some off-the-screen circumstances. Either way, they aren't really characters, they're more like cardboard cutouts of what a character should be - the audience has no way to care for them because the author has put no care into making the character interesting or likable at all. Usually their whole and only personality and character trait is that they have intellectual disability and it's often based on what the author thinks ID is without actually doing any research.

What Terms to Use and Not Use

[large text: What Terms to Use and Not Use]

Words like: "intellectually disabled" or "with/have intellectual disability" are terms used by people with ID and generally OK to use from how much I know. I believe more people use the latter (person first language) for themselves but i know people who use both. I use the first more often but I don't mind the second. Some people have strong preference with one over the other and that needs to be respected.

Terms like:

"cursed with intellectual disability"

"mentally [R-slur]"

"moron"

"idiot"

"feeble-minded"

"imbecile"

is considered at least derogatory by most people and I don't recommend using it in your writing. The last 5 terms directly come from outdated medical terminology specifically regarding ID and aren't just "rude", they're ableist and historically connected to eugenics in the most direct way they could be. To me personally they're highly offensive and I wouldn't want to read something that referred to its character with ID with those terms.

(Note: there are, in real life, people with ID that refer to themselves with the above... but this is still just a writing guide. Unless you belong to the group i just mentioned I would advise against writing that, especially if this post is your entire research so far.)

Things I Want to See More of in Characters with Intellectual Disability

[large text: Things I Want to See More of in Characters with Intellectual Disability]

[format borrowed from WWC]

I want to see more characters with intellectual disability that...

aren’t only white boys.

are LGBT+.

are adults.

are allowed to be angry without being demonized, and sad without being infantilized.

are not described as "mentally X years old".

are respected by others.

aren't "secretly smart" or “emotionally smart”.

are able to live independently with some help.

aren't able to live independently at all and aren't mocked for that.

are in romantic relationships or have crushes (interabled... or not!).

are non-verbal or semi-verbal.

use mobility aids and/or AAC.

have hobbies they enjoy.

have caregivers.

have disabilities related to their ID.

have disabilities completely unrelated to their ID.

have friends and family who like and support them.

go on cool adventures.

are in different genres: fantasy, romComs, action, slice of life... all of them.

have their own storylines.

aren't treated as disposable.

don't die or disappear at the first possible opportunity.

...and I want to see stories that have multiple intellectually disabled characters.

I hope that this list will give someone inspiration to go and make their first OC with intellectual disability ! This is just a basic overview to motivate writers to do their own research rather than a “all-knowing post explaining everything regarding ID”. I definitely don't know everything especially about the parts of ID that I just don't experience (or not as much as others). This is only meant to be an introduction for people who don't really know what ID is or where to even start.

Talk to people with intellectual disability (you can send ask here but there are also a lot of other people on Tumblr who have ID and I know at least some have previously answered asks as well if you want someone else's opinion!), watch/read interviews with people who have ID (to start - link1, link2, both have captions) and try to rethink what you think about intellectual disability. Because it's really not that rare like a lot of people seem to think. Please listen to us when we speak.

Good luck writing and thank you for reading :-) (smile emoji)

mod Sasza

[zebulontheplanet]

I’ve seen people get really upset with people over the fact that they have their diagnoses and issues in their pinned posts here on tumblr.

Their reasoning is usually that “no one has to know all that” or “you’re just setting yourself up for being trolled on” which to me, is just bullshit.

Yes, no one is inclined to know your medical history. If you’d like to keep it a secret and keep your medical history to yourself then go ahead! Go you for doing that. That is your preference for doing that and you’re amazing.

However, I start to have a problem when you blame the person for them being trolled on, or them having people harass them on the internet. No one deserves to have people call them names on the internet just for simply being open about their diagnoses and conditions. You are worth being talked about. You are worth sharing your experiences with your diagnoses.

Me, as a person with conditions that aren’t really talked about, like intellectual disability and higher support needs autism, it is VERY important to me that more people are aware about what people like me go through, and that more of OUR voices get out there. I love seeing people’s conditions and issues in their pinned posts because then I can relate to them! I can say “hey this person experiences similar things that I do. That’s awesome!” Representation is so so important and it isn’t bad.

If you don’t want to share about yourself then fine, but don’t be mean to someone who’s open about it. They aren’t asking for anything just for being open.

[gwydion-aacblog]

is there anything you'd love to see in intellectually disabled characters in books TV etc?

romance and sexuality ! romance and sexuality that end good for characters and not one die or something . like forrest gump did that , good place … sort of did that , weird situation will understand what mean if know show . tired see die and either need mourn not be happy because partner die or not exist anymore because self die .

sidenote : not think use direct names , but jason is describe as legitimately , medically have smooth brain during MRI tests , which is something that often lead to intellectual disability . so another point : directly name disability if setting allow … and also , not use mental age or compare with kids , oh hate that so much .

[oldtvandcomics]

Happy Queer Media Monday!

Today: Dread Nation series by Justina Ireland

(The two books that contain the actual Dread Nation story photographed from my Kindle)

Dread Nation is an alternate history horror series set in a world where the American Civil War has been cut short by a zombie apocalypse. Some decades later, children of color are being sent to special schools where they get some training, mostly bad than good, then sent out to the fields to fight the zombies. Two of these girls are Jane McKeene and her school rival, Katherine Deveraux. When they get unexpectedly transported to a segregated town on the Western frontier, they have only each other left to rely on.

The strength of these books is that the only fantastic element in them are the zombies. The racist atrocities committed by various white characters, as well as the system at large, can all be recognized as things that actually happened to Black people in the history of the US. 

Both main characters are disabled. Jane suffers a serious wound while fighting zombies in the second book, and Katherine has severe anxiety. They are also both queer, Jane is bisexual and Katherine is ace.

The Dread Nation book series consists out of three books: Books one and two (Dread Nation and Deathless Divide) are the actual story, while the third, Three for the Road, contains three short stories set in that world.

Queer Media Monday is an action I started to talk about some important and/or interesting parts of our queer heritage, that people, especially young people who are only just beginning to discover the wealth of stories out there, should be aware of. Please feel free to join in on the fun and make your own posts about things you personally find important!

[marinsawakening]

You know how queer ppl keep saying that the online queer community isn't representative of the offline community and that you should go to irl meet-ups? That also goes for the autism community.

Example: I've seen multiple people who are under the impression that media-type special interests are overrepresented or more accepted in the autism community. That's not true. The people who participate in the online community (esp. the fan community) on Tiktok, Tumblr, and Twitter are mostly nerdy young millenials/gen z/gen x, and not representative of the wider autistic population. Go to any autism meet-up and you'll quickly learn that a) 'what is your special interest?' is not a question ppl ask, so whether you do or don't know what someone's special interest is depends on how preoccupied they are with it, and b) most people don't have media-focused (special) interests, and if they do, it's certainly not limited to kids cartoons.

I know that not everyone can go to autism meet-ups irl, and I don't want to pretend that irl autism meet-ups are some sort of safe haven full of people with Advanced Autism Knowledge and Progressive Politics. But like. That's the point? Interact with some 80-year-old who's been diagnosed for 20 years and doesn't know the modern terms for anything and who thinks vaccines cause autism despite being autistic themself and maybe you'll calm down.

[neurodivergent-media]

“It was brilliant to see so many talented actors with learning disabilities taking centre stage...

“It was important to see people with a learning disability living full lives because it showed what we can achieve. It was also good to see that they were not shy to talk about adult themes like relationships and independent living.”

[beljar]

All men are intellectuals, but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals.

Antonio Gramsci, from Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1971

[delphiniumjoy]

Headcanons as Representation?

Happy Disability Pride Month everybody! Now I have a discussion question for the class. Where is the line between non-canon representation and accepted representation? I’m talking specifically in the context of autism because that’s my disability, and because hidden/speculated representation is less possible for visible disabilities. How do we define the canonicity of an autistic character? Do we consider ACD’s Sherlock Holmes to be autistic because he shows numerous traits and was created in a time before the word existed? Do we refuse BBC’s Sherlock because despite showing many of the same traits, he’s a negative stereotype to fulfill the creator’s intellectual power fantasy (the same creator who has specifically rejected people’s headcanons because his ableism means the label would ruin the fantasy)? Does representation need to be explicitly stated onscreen, or is a creator’s Twitter confirmation satisfactory? 

I want to look at a very specific (and at this point irrelevant) piece of media for this. The fandom has mostly died out, but I was an active member in the heyday from 2017-2019, and as much as it pains me to admit it, I still have a lot of opinions about Be More Chill. I’m referring specifically to the musical, because I simply never read the book by Ned Vizzini, and because many elements were changed between the two. The question is, can we officially consider protagonist Jeremy Heere to be autistic? In original drafts of the show, the word was mentioned but eventually written out, presumably for “sensitivity” purposes. There’s audio from a workshop performance that has floated around TikTok, and while autistic creators are using it in a reclaimed sense, it’s understandable why it might’ve been uncomfortable for some.  I’ll just type out the lyrics:

Every lame characteristic makes you come off as autistic. We’ll fix your vibe then fix some more… I am autistic… We’ll fix that.

This brings up another aspect to this conversation, though, and that’s how everything about the plot and Jeremy’s character arc aligns with ideas of unhealthy masking and even ABA therapy. Jeremy doesn’t fit in. He hates himself, and hates the idea that he’ll always be an outcast. He feels pathetic, which has been repeatedly reinforced by the society around him. So when he’s given a magical macguffin to make him more popular, he goes for it, despite knowing he’s doing so selfishly, and he faces the consequences. Those consequences, of course, are that the Squip is verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive (it regularly shocks him) to get him to alter his personality and behavior. One could argue that it is also responsible for the sexual assault in the second half of the show, because while another character is making unwelcome advances, the Squip makes it impossible for Jeremy to escape. It isolates him from what little support system he has, shames him for every unsightly aspect of his personality (even those he was personally okay with), and promises him that it is all in the interest of improving his life. This aligns pretty clearly with the methods and goals of ABA: forced compliance until the child can consistently appear “normal.”

Unsurprisingly, many autistic teenagers (myself included) really saw themselves in this show. Fortunately, Jeremy learns his lesson, the Squip goes away, and he’s able to build a community with old and new friends because everyone is now more able to drop the facade of social expectations. It gave us hope that maybe we would stop feeling so out-of-place eventually. Also, many of the characters were somewhat flat caricatures, in the way that most teenage characters written by middle-aged men tend to be, so the doors were WIDE open for extrapolation through fan-made content. And even though the explicit mention of autism had been written out of the version we all knew, many fans were headcanoning Jeremy as autistic anyway. Even those of us who didn’t explicitly have the headcanon were writing him as if he was, because we related to him (even if we didn’t know we were autistic at the time either). By the time the show was revived off-Broadway and transferring to Broadway, there was an incredibly dedicated fanbase of neurodivergent teenagers, and the show knew that was their audience. I have not seen the original source, but Will Roland, the actor who came on to play Jeremy in this later production, has apparently said that he also views the character as autistic, and portrayed him as such. 

So returning to the question at hand: can we consider this canonical representation? Even if it’s not textually explicit, and even if the writers haven’t made any public statements, there were traces of intent in every era of the show. Despite all that, do we avoid doing so because the show actively frames autistic traits as shameful? Even though the intent is clearly to use the ordeal to come to a “just be yourself” conclusion, the resolution is quite rushed and sloppy, and could easily be misconstrued. 

Obviously intentional, healthy representation will always be preferred, but is there a place for these characters to be considered?

[notabled-noodle]

more examples of the intersection of ableism and queerphobia

JK Rowling’s essay about trans men specifically talked about how autistic girls are being lead astray by the trans movement

in some jurisdictions, people with cognitive and/or intellectual disabilities are not allowed to medically transition at all

again, psychotic people constantly being questioned about whether their identity is a delusion/hallucination or not

queer spaces not being accessible for those who use mobility aids (particularly wheelchairs)

disabled people not having access to sex education that specifically educates them on having sex whilst disabled — and abled people not bothering to learn the same

the concept that having someone who is both disabled and queer is “bad representation” somehow. constant messaging that you’re either one or the other and can’t be both

ideas in the queer community about what the queer lifestyle looks like often does not consider that the lifestyle is impossible for people who use mobility aids and/or have a carer

I could go on and on. disabled people are constantly excluded from queer movements and queer people are often excluded from disability movements. we’re ignored. we’re pushed aside. our needs are put in the “too hard” basket, and we’re not given necessary supports to live a happy life as a queer disabled person

do not tag this “q slur” or similar

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

Hey, love the post you make about obscure disabilities. Could you make/ have you made about dysgraphia?

Sure. This will be my post for disability pride month tomorrow. Which I'm posting now because I don't have the spoons to schedule it for tomorrow.

I hope you don't mind I turn this into a combo one because I have a hard time mentally processing one of these conditions without understanding all three.

(Obligatory I do not have any of these conditions. This is not meant to be a diagnostic tool. Please do your own research. I'm only answering a question that was asked of me and it's really hard for me to explain one of these without explaining all of the similar conditions to differentiate them.)

And I hope that you don't mind my poorer language skills right now I'm recovering from a server sinus headache I've had all day.

Dyslexia vs Dyscalculia vs Dysgraphia (bonus round Dyspraxia)

These issues have like, a 30% comorbidity rate. So if you have one there's a 30% chance you'll have either of the others. People with conditions may be perceived as "slow" but they are not intellectual disabilities (Not that there's nothing wrong with intellectual disabilities. I'm just pointing it out because people will say "you can't have dyslexia. You're so smart.")

But the fact that they're comorbid and often comorbid with autism and adhd causes some misunderstandings around the conditions because people think they have one condition and attribute all of their issues to the one condition with no knowledge that its not just one condition they're expressing.

Dyslexia

Dyslexia is characterized by the limited processing and comprehension of graphic symbols, particularly those regarding language. People with it have poor reading skills, flipping letter sequences and words, and poor handwriting. Although it is a learning disability, it's important to note that dyslexia does not impact a person's intelligence, although they may seem slower due to poor language processing skills. (There's nothing wrong with disabilities that impact intelligence, I just don't want people saying "he can't be dyslexic because he's so smart".)

Many representations of dyslexia often exhibit letters tap dancing across the page, shape shifting, and doing backflips. It's important to note that these are incorrect representations, because it's really hard to give a visual representation of what people with dyslexia experience. However, it's really harmful to express dyslexia in this fashion as it leads to people thinking that they don't have dyslexia when they actually do.

As I understand it, dyslexia is the eyes/ brain being able to flow seamlessly when reading large blocks of text. Ways to combat this is cut out a strip to block off lines when you read them. Use a highlighted strip of paper to highlight lines as you read them.

Fun fact, there's a few fonts that space the letters well enough and differentiate similar letters enough that make it easier to read. Comic Sans font is the most widely accessible accessibility tool for dyslexic people as it's one of the easy to read fonts that on every machine. (These accessibility tools have proven to make everyone read faster, dyslexia or no. But people with dyslexia have found them instrumentalin functioning. )

Another fun fact. Rick Riordan wrote Lightning Thief so that his dyslexic son could have representation in a character that had the same disability as him.

Dyscalculia

Dyscalculia is often called "math dyslexia". People with Dyscalculia have issues with numbers. They have poor math skills, issues interpreting graphs, issues doing basic arithmetic, issues understanding things like place value, issues understanding time especially when it comes to reading an analog clock, and issues seeing patterns. This often causes a high level of anxiety around math. Some reports say these people have issues with directions, remembering locations, and reading maps (though research is inconsistent on that one).

Dysgraphia

Dysgraphia is easy to mix up with dyslexia, which is why I needed to write all these out. Where dyslexia is difficulty reading. Dysgraphia is difficulty writing. Symptoms include difficulty writing words, expressing thoughts in written form, and organizing and processing your thoughts. This can cause issues with social communication for obvious reasons.

These people also may have fine motor perception issues, writing in a straight line, spacing their letters correctly, etc. Especially fine motor skills around writing. They may also have issues with grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.

Bonus Round:

Dyspraxia

This one gets mixed with dyslexia two. Dyspraxia is issues with spacial awareness. They often say they can't tell where their limbs are in space. They may have issues with coordination, walking in a straight line, and balance. It's very hard for me to conceptualize, but people that have it may say that they bang their limbs against things due to poor spacial awareness. Which honestly, relatable. I've slammed me calf into a door before. And my shoulder blade. How? Good question.

These people have issues in social situations because their entire focus will be on their coordination, not making a mess, and not making a fool of themselves, etc. Their issues actually get better when they drink because the stress of sucked situations makes it worse and alcohol loosens them up. (I'm not advocating for drinking, but saying that the issues resolving when your drink validates your dyspraxia, not invalidates it.)

I think a lot of people that know of the condition may think people with low depth perception have dyspraxia. A lot of people have told me they think I have dyspraxia because my lack of depth perception negatively impacts my spacial awareness.

-fae

[aroaceleovaldez]

I'm actually 99,9% certain Disney will not care about finding an actor with any disability for Tyson just like they didn't care for any disabled character so far. Or, tbh, just like they didn't care for any non-typical character so far. They couldn't have a fat actress play Clarisse, that's like minimal level representation of someone who is "different". To have Disney care for intellectual disabilities when they can't even have a fat girl in their cast? That's so unrealistic :(

They did appropriately cast Hephaestus with Timothy Omundson (stroke survivor, uses mobility aids - Hephaestus is very notably disabled with mobility issues/uses mobility aids in mythos), so there's some hope, but I agree I was also disappointed we didn't get a plus-sized actress for Clarisse. That's kind of a notable part of her character and physical description. I do like Dior Goodjohn's acting as Clarisse a ton - i think she absolutely nails it. But particularly since there's such a noticeable lack of plus sized actors - or even just like, slightly larger actors - in the show even for characters where that's a notable aspect of their description, it's really sad to see them shying away from that so much. It doesn't leave me feeling optimistic for how they're gonna handle Tyson (particularly since he's also a very bulky character, alongside his down syndrome coding).

[cripplecharacters]

I'm writing a story set in the 1800s that has an intellectually disabled character. how would you recommend I get across that they are intellectually disabled given that the respectful terms wouldn't really have existed then?

Hi!

I think that the best idea would be to just show the symptoms of their disability. Show them struggle with tasks (which ones would depend on the severity of their disability), if they are able to do so they could speak differently when compared to other characters - I often forget words when speaking, repeat myself because I didn't understand the answer to a question (or realized that it was the answer), or have to ask someone for a TLDR because I got lost in what they were saying (even if I'm actively paying attention). Sometimes I also have to circle multiple times to a single idea to "get it out" properly because it's hard to conceptualize it all at once. Your character could also get overwhelmed or stressed more easily.

Also, often ID comes with physical symptoms so they could have dyspraxia like me! In case their ID is caused by a syndrome, it could work to describe the facial features that come with it, e.g. I think most readers would be familiar with how a person with Down Syndrome looks like. But the most important part is to show the actual symptoms of the disability!

If you want to name the disability without using slurs, "delayed" or "mentally disabled" or "having a slower thought process" could also work. They wouldn't be my primary choices in most contexts, but for historical fiction it's a bit different. "Handicapped" also started being used in the late 19th century, it's not necessarily a slur but it's still offensive. You could go for something like "fallen behind their peers" if you want.

I think that it would be a good idea to mention in some kind of author's note that your work is a piece of historical fiction and that those terms aren't preferred now (and show those that are, i.e. intellectual disability in most places and general learning disability in the UK). A lot of people don't know this, so it could be genuinely educational!

Thanks for your ask, I hope this helps!

mod Sasza

[drdemonprince]

If we are true abolitionists, and do not believe that the declarations of the state are somehow innately moral and right, then we have to confront the fact that 18 is not in fact a magic age at which a person suddenly becomes both deserving of freedom and no longer worthy of social protection. 

No age absolves us of our shared responsibility to look after a person’s life and honor their autonomy -- whether they’re 13, or 8, or 54, or 25. Control over one’s body, authority over one’s destiny, the ability to have a say in how one’s community is run and to actually be listened to some of the time, the ability to access  food and shelter and the freedom to choose and follow one’s own religious practices -- these are all things that ought to belong to all people of all ages. And these are things that unjust systems of power (including the state, the education system, or a controlling and isolating family) currently have the ability to take away from people of all ages. 

when we acknowledge this, conversations about how power can be leveraged against the young, and the old, and the disabled, and the otherwise vulnerable all get a lot more complex. conversations about consent, religious freedom, political representation, access to education, body autonomy, and the like all get way more complicated and dynamic too. There are just so many ways that we as a society trample all over others because they are too old or too young or too disabled or too poor and all kinds of ways that we coerce people into behaving the way society wants them to behave, often causing them great psychological suffering, and not only when they are a minor. 

But it’s non considered socially appropriate to even have these conversations, or to even openly acknowledge that 18 is not in fact some objective standard of when conscious competent personhood begins -- even if you bring this up in the context of needing to extend more and greater protections to people of all ages, folks will call you a groomer. It’s annoying to me how many left-leaning people I see, people who oppose the authority of the state in nearly every other conceivable respect, talking about age and freedom using the frameworks the state laid out as if they represent some objective moral and psychological reality. 

getting into the weeds on this topic is really really uncomfortable because people want to believe that children are both sacred and incompetent. they’re made into objects who both have no right to weigh in on how their bodies are treated, and are so precious that they need to be hidden away from the wider world and controlled by their families completely. and neither of those approaches actually make children safe -- that point of view endangers and dehumanizes them -- and it also does when we apply that kind of thinking to anybody else! (say, institutionalized people with intellectual disabilities, or persons with mental illness forced under a conservatorship). 

IDK man I used to find conversations about the abolition of the family and the need to rethink the use of children as political tools to be very unsettling and creepy. it’s a conversation that upends everything we were raised to believe will keep us safe. and i think nearly all of us have been preyed upon as kids, were exposed to violence and adult sexuality and inappropriate adult emotional needs far too young. 

and if you have that kind of traumatic upbringing in your history, a person questioning society’s entire framework and theory for keeping children ‘safe’ can feel absolutely terrifying. it destabilizes everything. 

but i’ve been thinking about it and knocking my skull against these ideas for years and at some point i could not help but face how much merit these ideas have. the oppression of children is of a piece with the oppression of disabled people, women, Black people, undocumented people, everybody that the state has previously held (or currently still holds) to not be a full person and to only deserve a coercive, controlling kind of protection. that point of view has never helped any marginalized group and it doesn’t help minors either and instead of questioning it we see people arguing for the age of majority to keep getting pushed back later, claiming that no one should be able to determine the course of their future life (or start hormones, or make big financial decisions) until they’re 25 years old or later. 

[gwydion-aacblog]

Do you have any good book/movie/tv (or other media) recommendations that accurately portrays nonverbal people and/or AAC users? Or intellectual disability? Obviously “good” is subjective, anything in particular that you like best is what I mean, not necessarily most “popular” media that has such characters

there is forrest gump . but that is … forrest gump .

jason mendoza in the good place ? but then mostly treat like comedy relief . or sometimes problem .

hear about kdrama that have character with intellectual disability , but also hear that character is victim of crime . ( attorney woo ? )

for nonverbal was ghoulia but then recent take away . at least live action , not know animation .

if want watch but not finish movie , guess could watch movie we can be heroes . that " nonverbal " character is not really nonverbal , but use ipad drawing for AAC until twist reveal .

🤷‍♂️

fucking crumbs of crumbs .

[lesbian-honey-lemon]

shoutout to the autistics who do fit the stereotypes, whichever ones you fall into. There are several sets of stereotypes I’ve seen, one that I see complained about for LSN autistics, and another I’ve seen in media and whatnot about MSN/HSN autistics. So I’ve included what I know from both sets in this post, apologies if anything is wrong as I’m LSN

shoutout to:

-Nonverbal HSN autistics who need 24/7 care

-Autistic full-time AAC users

-People with autism who prefer to use person-first language for themselves

-Autistics people with intellectual disabilities

-Autistics who are/were in special ed

-Autistics who will never work or be independent

-Autistics whose special interest is trains or math or science or engineering

-Autistics who are good at math and science

-Autistics who have low/no empathy

-Autistics who are very intelligent/‘gifted’ (whether you’ve burned out or not)

-Autistics whose special interest is the reason they do so well at their job/ do well in other areas in life

-Autistics with Savant Syndrome

-Autistics with monotone voices

-Autistics that can’t make eye contact

-Autistics who can’t mask or mask poorly

-And many, many more autistics that have been abandoned in the attempt to ‘disprove stereotypes’

You’re not an advocate if you only talk about and advocate for the cutesy nice autistics who have lots of empathy and just really like a well-known fandom or two. Sometimes real life autistic people will be almost exactly like the autistic characters you hate for being ‘stereotypical’ and you’re just going to have to come to terms with that and fight for varied representation without throwing those real life autistic people under the bus. Otherwise you’re not an advocate, you’re just an asshole.

[kemetic-dreams]

Ledell Lee (July 31, 1965 – April 20, 2017) was an American man convicted and executed for the 1993 murder of his neighbor, Debra Reese. He was convicted in 1995 and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 1997, but numerous questions have been raised about the justice of his trial and post-conviction representation. Issues have included conflict of interest for the judge, inebriation of counsel, and ineffective defense counsel. A request to postpone the execution in order to test DNA on the murder weapon was denied by a circuit judge. After Lee's execution, it was proven that the DNA on the murder weapon belonged to another person, an unknown male.

Controversy over judge's conflict of interest

According to the ACLU:

Additionally, Lee was tried by a judge who concealed his own conflict of interest: an affair with the assistant prosecutor, to whom the judge was later married. Mr. Lee's first state post-conviction counsel introduced the evidence of the affair by calling the judge's ex-wife, who testified about the affair after opposing the subpoena. That lawyer, however, was so intoxicated at the hearing that the state moved for him to be drug tested after he slurred, stumbled, and made incoherent arguments. The inebriated lawyer also represented Lee briefly in federal court, where he raised the important claim that Lee was ineligible for execution because of intellectual disability. Lee won new proceedings because of the lawyer's drunkenness, though his representation did not improve afterward. His next lawyers failed to introduce evidence of the affair, giving up one of many of Lee's important arguments, and never pursued his innocence or intellectual disability claims.

"This is a story of the judicial process gone totally wrong," Lee's lawyer said. "The kinds of attorney failures here: an affair with the presiding judge by the prosecutor, gross intoxication by defense counsel, and wild incompetence undermine our profession as a whole. Mr. Lee has never had the opportunity to have his case truly investigated, despite serious questions about guilt, and his intellectual disability."[11][5]

Throughout the legal challenges, the family of Debra Reese hoped that the execution would go through as scheduled.

                                 HE WAS INNOCENT