#lets stop being ableist

[snzluv3r]

i actually feel so incredibly uncomfortable and isolated in this space right now and i know that’s silly because of how many people there are just like me who share the same feelings but idk…the fact that people even think this is defensible behavior is making me feel sick

[allamericansbitch]

.

[danielnelsen]

i think if you can’t criticise people you hate without being ableist, maybe you should just keep your mouth shut.

[fridayiminlovemp3]

i neeed to stop obsessively hating on people but like if it’s bad why does it feel so gooddddddddd 🤨🤨

[giantkillerjack]

The cool thing about a horror movie that takes place in a mental hospital and, shockingly, actually turns out to be on the side of mentally ill people is that it avoids all the common disgusting pitfalls of mocking, demonizing, and infantilizing mentally ill people.

The downside is

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

[It's much scarier.]

[typomachine]

Hello vegans,

I have an ask...

When disabled people talk about their diets or dietary restrictions, you need to hush.

Our diet and health is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. No, it is not caring or helpful when you offer advice on diet or health. It is harassment.

I'd ask reasonable vegans to please watch out for this eco-fascist eugenicist non-sense in your community.

There are some very dedicated vegan trolls out there that harass and suicide bait disabled, indigenous/ native, and poor people.

When we (disabled folks) talk about eco-fasc vegans, we're not talking about you if you aren't one of the trolls engaging in bigotry and harassment. You've got a reall ableism problem in your community. Take the ableism up with the ableists, not with the disabled folks pointing it out.

Thanks,

[nerevarbignaturals]

"don't rock the boat" i'll rock the boat as much as i fucking desire when the boat is full of ableism and transphobia

[unseelie-ghuleh]

Ok, this? This pisses me the f off. Who are YOU to tell people how to treat their condition? Paracetamol/Tylenol doesn't work for you? OK, fine. But you DO NOT get to judge others if it works for them. I'm severely limited on the medication I'm allowed to take by order of my migraine specialist, my migraine nurse and my migraine pharmacist. I can take Paracetamol and my triptans and THAT'S IT! By lumping others into the standard you expect others to adhere to you're effectively telling people that their personal, subjective experience isn't relevant and fake. Ableist trash at it's finest.

[ishipmyotp]

Fandoms when they see an autistic coded adult character

[pa-pa-plasma]

fursuits are so gender is this what euphoria feels like

[wispered-dream]

:T

'I was raised/abused by people who used their illness as an excuse to be horrific towards others and said I wasnt ALLOWED to question it (because then I'd be Obstinate, and go to hell)'

and 'then I was abused by someone who used their illness as an excuse to be horrific towards others and said I wasn't ALLOWED to question it (because then I'd be a Bigot, and everyone will hate me when I tell them)'

Sure does explain so much about me.

Turns out:

- Didn't go to Hell for being Obstinate

- Extended family laughed and high fived me for joining the 'canceled by XYZ' club

So while I am perhaps oversensitized to "abusing the good will/sympathy of others"

I see that those who do this are in the real hell.

And I've seen how it comes crashing down so so SO slowly.

Abusing the sympathy of others results in people who are wary of extending that sympathy ever again. It's a net crueler world, no matter how much you say "NO NO ONE WOULD EVER DO THAT!"

They do, people take advantage of good will/sympathy. Especially when you can exploit that sympathy for control.

People do it without realizing it too, and enabling that only makes it worse. Protecting the 'abuser'/abuser in the name of "we gotta say it never happens to immanetize the eschaton!" is its own Cruelty.

You're gonna damn each other if you put yourself in a place where people are too fearful to tell you you're being unfair. Claiming '-ism' like a YuGiOh trap card [especially to people who are victimized by that -ism, RIP] is a fantastic way to do that.

People learn to ignore the ableism accusations or treat it like a joke. And it's not JUST bigotry, as neat of a solution as it sounds. Someone comes out with a Caard of all their mental illnesses and I'm asking myself 'why' not because GRRR HATE MENTALLY ILL, but because there is still a motivation there.

'If you ask why someone would do that you're a bigot!' okay so are they trying to establish that they want special treatment or needs. I am excessively empathetic to that.

But it's not 'I forget about messages sometimes [And if you werent mentally ill it'd OBVIOUSLY be because you just dont care?*] or might infodump [on nerd websites? How dare you!*]', it's "Here's the disorder I say I have according to the description I give of it, if it's contrary to any knowledge, experience, or literature on the subject it's because you're a bigot."

Personally I just try to treat everyone assuming they COULD be ill, I find everyone could use kindness. I think that's a better model, but the neurodivergent are uniquely suffering or whatever.

"It's not that I want special treatment, I just want to be the same as everyone else gets to be" You are imagining an ideal that does not exist. Even the fabled Neurotypicals are deserving of things like Patience.

See to me it looks like you're only willing to offer those kind of things to people who will tell you their psychiatric histories. My experience with people who have done the caard thing has so regularly been such! Whereas my experience with people who have severe illness [a majority of my friends] are much more *example* or *event* focused.

[mosspapi]

"Yeah the general rule is anything more than 30% above ur normal heartrate, but I recommend my patients with long covid avoid anything that puts their heartrate above 110 to avoid exacerbating their symptoms or creating exertional fatigue"

...ok so what ur saying is I can't walk, can't stand, can maybe sit up sometimes if I'm lucky, but ultimately even being awake will likely make me worse because my heartrate just randomly goes up to like 130 when I'm doing literally nothing as long as I'm awake. Great. Cool.

[cosmiccripple]

idk who popularised the narrative "i don't let my disability stop me" but it needs to be stomped on, pulverised by a meat grinder and then thrown into the depths of the sea never to be seen again.

it is by far the most popular ableist narrative and i see it so much and immediately just think i'm a bad person for not being able to 'get over' my disability despite the fact it's an incurable, permanent and severely disabling disability.

stop stop stop stop pushing the mindset that people have to persevere despite their disabilities in order to be a worthy person

leave me alone and let me be disabled in peace

[communistkenobi]

prefacing this post by saying that I am a big enjoyer of “this site has poor reading comprehension” jokes on here, but I think there needs to be better and more precise language about this sort of thing that isn’t bound up in like, the ability to parse text, which is always going to be tied to class and ability. I’m not saying every joke about this site not being able to read is classist/ableist, and I don’t think anyone is making any grand ideological proclamations when dunking on a stupid reply to their post, but the backing behind that kind of joke is, ultimately, “haha you’re an adult that can’t read.”

And aside from some potentially troubling baggage, I don’t even think that’s what’s going on in the first place! I think the more precise (but admittedly less catchy) term for “poor reading comprehension” is something along the lines of chronic incuriosity, or a rigid adherence to normative thinking. if you see a post saying, for example, women shouldn’t have to wear makeup to be viewed as human beings, and the comments are filled with “actually you can just wear some winged eyeliner and foundation it’s not that hard to wear makeup and also women love makeup stop gatekeeping,” what is happening is not a failure to comprehend the text in front of them. these responses are not made in ignorance, as in, they are not the result of a failure to understand the sentence they just read. these responses stem from a refusal to challenge base assumptions, and reacting emotionally to the mental dissonance this causes (probably something along the lines of “I think of myself as progressive but this person is challenging something I like doing and this threatens my weak political instincts”). These people are rejecting the opportunity to analyse the habits and behaviours they previously assumed to be non-political (eg, wearing makeup), and then externalising that rejection as a defence mechanism. That is not a failure to read a sentence, that is a demand to be intellectually coddled, which is very different.

Again, I’m sure people are already aware of this. I enjoy being a hater, and having people constantly swarm your posts with ridiculous and hysterical replies is incredibly frustrating (speaking from a lot of personal experience here lol). This is also not me saying you have to do the coddling and explain to them that they’re being ideologically incurious about the world, you don’t have an obligation to do any of that. but I think framing a person’s failure to be curious about their own biases as “they don’t know how to read” situates the problem as an issue of ignorance or lack of technical skill, instead of the much more prevalent problem of people refusing to be challenged or reconsider things in their life they didn’t think about before. Calling these kinds of people ignorant is just letting them off easy

[rjalker]

Dear people who aren't physically disabled who plan to write fantasy settings:

[ID: Several images taken from the Geordi La Forge yes and no meme format, with Geordi holding out a hand disapprovingly for the no section, then pointing in approval for the yes section.

The first image is the meme:

No: "Saying the existance of magic in your setting means there are no disabled people (this literally just means disabled people are killed. AKA eugenics)"

Yes: "Having disabled people who use magical mobility aids and other assistive devices. Realizing that someone is still disabled even if their prosthetic arm is made of magic instead of plastic."

This is followed by four more panels of yes section:

"Geordi la Forge is still literally disabled. His visor helping him does not erase his disability and make him magically abled."

"Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender is still literally disabled even though her Earthbending helps her. It does not make her disability ~magically~ go away."

"Having your disability be accomodated does not mean the disability goes away. Having a prosthetic hand, even one that's made of magic, does not mean you're not disabled."

"Magical mobility aids do not mean disabled people don't exist. It just means they use magical mobility aids instead of plastic or metal ones. A limb made of magic is still a prosthetic even if it's made of the soul of the universe instead of plastic and metal."

Then another no panel: "'There's no disabled people beacuse magic'".

Then one last yes panel: "'Magic helps disabled people in a variety of ways'".

End ID.]

This also applies to science fiction; just because Luke Skywalker's prosthetic hand is super advanced doesn't mean it's no longer a prosthetic, or that he's not disabled. Same with Darth Vader - just because he has a suit that lets him breathe and walk around doesn't mean he's not disabled. (And Star Wars' propensity for making the villains visibly disabled while the heroes disabilities get covered up by super advanced prosthetics is a topic that deserves its own post, especially with how ableist some of the authors of the books are. Troy Denning is especially ableist)

Edit:

Because people keep being fucking obnoxious and ableist in the tags, yes,,, motherfuckers, if you refuse to have disabled people in your setting, that does make you fucking ableist. If you say that the magic is used to cure all disabled people and that's why they don't exist, that's fucking eugenics.

You cannot ""cure"", more like remove all disabilities without fucking eugenics. Magically automatically destroying disabled fetuses (a very fucking popular trope!) is eugenics.

The only way to fucking "cure" autism is to fucking kill all autistic people, also known as eugenics!

What about people with PTSD? Do you just fucking brainwash them so they aren't traumatized anymore?

Do you force all Deaf people to be able to hear? Do you force all blind people to be able to see? Do you force all anosmics to be able to smell?

Do you magically force everyone with a speech impediment to speak to your standards?

Do you force everyone born with bodily or facial differences to live up to your fucking standard of beauty?

You cannot fucking say "disablities don't exist in this universe because magic cures everything" without inherently saying that eugenics exists in your fucking universe.

Not all fucking disabilities need a cure. If you ""cured"" my autism I'd just be fucking dead. You'd literally just be changing me into what you think is fucking acceptable.

Stop fucking arguing in defence of ableists on my fucking post so you can pretend that eugenics has never been written about in magical settings when it is extremely fucking prevalent.

And while we're fucking at it, let your gods damned characters become disabled over the course of their story, and call them disabled within the fucking story. I don't care if they're a robot. I don't care if they have magic. Not all fucking damage can be fixed. Curses exist. Hardware can go out of fucking date and no longer be manufactured anywhere.

Let your characters become disabled and do not magically fucking cure them back to brand new every single time they get hurt. The only thing you accomplish by doing that is destroying any chance of ever having stakes.

No, "magical healing leaves scars on the mind from the memory of the injuries though!!!!" is not fucking good enough. Let your characters have scars. Let them become disabled. Stop being fucking ableist cowards.

Edit number fucking 2:

No, motherfuckers, you do not get to comment "if the disability was caused by magic it's not ableist to cure it with magic". You are the ableist this post is about. Shut the absolute fuck up, stop treating being disabled as the worst possible outcome, and just admit you're a fucking ableist. If you don't want your characters to become disabled, then don't fucking make them disabled.

[ID: The Garfield "you are not immune to propaganda" meme, now edited to read:

"If your first thought upon reading this post is, 'Oh, but it's okay to magically cure disabilities caused by magic!' Congrats…you are the exact sort of ableist jackass this post is about."

End ID.]

Edit number fucking 3:

Autistic people exist! People who are born with disabilities exist! You cannot create a setting where disabled people do not exist because we're all "cured" or "fixed" and not inherently say that you are killing disabled people as soon as they're born, or fucking aborting us as soon as you figure out we'd be born disabled! That's fucking eugenics!

There is no way to "cure" autism without eugenics! There is no way to "cure" people with body differences without eugenics! There is no way to make disabled people nonexistant in your setting without eugenics! Thinking you can and should "cure" and "fix" all disabilities IS EUGENICS!

Also:

[ID: A character shouting at the camera, now edited to read: "Shut up about Dungeons and Dragons! Shut up about Dungeons and Dragons! If the rules of Dungeons and Dragons are ableist, then fucking change them! It is your fucking personal responsability to be a better person than your bigoted society wants you to be!". End ID.]

[ID: White text on a dark brown background with white and black borders around the edges, that reads:

"I don't fucking know or care about Dungeons and Dragons.

This post is not about Dungeons and Dragons.

Do not fucking throw the rulebook of Dungeons and Dragons at me like it's some sort of 'Gotcha!'.

You will literally just be blocked like the rest of the ableist assholes who've already tried it.

If you play dungeons and dragons, it's your responsability to make your games not be ableist, even if it means breaking the rules.".

End ID.]

I do not fucking care what the ableist rules are in Dungeons of Dragons. Do not fucking throw ableist rules for a game I have never and will never play at me on a post I made so that people could learn how to make their settings less ableist. If the rules in Dungeons and Dragons are ableist, then fucking change them. If you don't want to change them, then stop fucking playing an ableist game.

Disabled people deserve to see ourselves represented in fiction just like everyone else, without any fucking requirements that we be "cured" or "fixed" before the story ends.

How the fuck would you feel if a trans and gay character's whole story revolved around going on a quest to become straight and cis, did so, and only then was allowed to live happily ever after?

Why do you fucking think suggesting people write stories about disabled people going on a quest to be cured because it's the only way they'll ever be happy is any less fucking offensive?

Also:

This post is NOT a place for you to talk about how disabled people in fiction should have the option of curing their disabilities. It's just not. That's the fucking default for this society. That is not a revolutionary concept. It's not novel. We fucking know this society wants us gone. A post about how disabled people deserve representation is not the place to talk about how "Well, actually, in fiction disabled people should be cured!" Like that's not the fucking universal default???????????

Edit #4:

Everyone needs to stop tagging this singing praise for Fullmetal Alchemist. A story that uses disability as a punishment and the characters are on a quest to cure their disabilities is not the amazing representation you're all claiming it is just because the character who is only disabled because of DIVINE PUNISHMENT uses prosthetics.

Read this post, and this one. Fullmetal Alchemist is a hell of a lot more ableist than you people are letting on.

guess what you can now find a PDF version of this post on the web archive.

Edit #5! August 23rd, 2023!

A) Everyone. Disabilities that can only exist in the magical setting are still disabilities.

Trying to cure the younger brother's magical disability of being a soul floating around in a magical suit of armour is, in fact, going on a quest to heal a disability!

It doesn't matter if the older brother doesn't want to get his limbs back when they're going on a quest to heal the younger brother's disability! Especially when they BOTH get magically healed at the end!

Magical disabilities that can only exist in that setting, but not real life, are still disabilities, and it's not okay to magically heal them either! What part of the Garfield meme on this post did you all choose to ignore?!

B) When you leave tags on a post you are reblogging, the original poster can see them! When you leave tags on this post, I can see them!

If you think this post is ""too aggressive"" then simply do not reblog it! Don't fucking tone police me on a post I've had to edit five times now due to the constant ableism people have been commenting since I made it!

I have been called the R slur by multiple people in response to this post! People have literally reblogged this post to defend eugenics abortions! You can't see these comments or replies anymore because I blocked the poster!

If you think minorities are being too aggressive by responding appropriately to bigotry, you're a bigot! And you should either not reblog the post at all, or at the very least, shut the fuck up and not tone police us!

Do not fucking put tags on this post complaining I'm being too aggressive! That's called tone policing and you're a bigot if you do it! Don't fucking do it on anyone else's posts either! They can see your tags too!

C) When I fucking say Harry Potter fans are banned from this post, yes, this means YOU!

Either stop supporting a billionaire who's literally using the profits from her bigoted shittily written books to fund REAL FUCKING GENOCIDE, or fuck off!

By continuing to support the Harry Potter series, you are literally giving JK Rowling free fucking advertising! You are encouraging more people to read the series and watch the movies, spending more money and giving her more fucking money with which to LITERALLY SHAPE A COUNTRY'S LAWS TO COMMIT GENOCIDE. She is literally fucking fighting to make being trans illegal! She is literally fucking fighting to have even more of autistic people's rights taken away!

You cannot fucking be a fan of the Harry Potter series in 2023 and call yourself an ally to all the minorities harmed by JK Rowling and the bigotry baked into her shitty series!

Read another book! The Web Archive has tons you can read for free! Literally every single book on gutenberg.org/ is free! Including audiobooks for some of them!

If you write Harry Potter fanfiction, simply fucking get rid of the names and identifiable features and start writing original fiction instead! It's literally free!

Not supporting a literal fucking genocidal billionaire costs LITERALLY NOTHING! And if you refuse to fucking stop supporting JK Rowling, which is what you are doing when you support the Harry Potter series and squeal over her OCs, you are not an ally to any fucking minority! No! Not even if you're trans yourself!

= = =

Edit again Nobember 28th 2023 because this comment is just. such a perfect example for all of you that think this doesn't happen.

butter-whore2 said, two hours before this edit:

kind of a fan of tumblr's slightly more algorithmically elements for reminding me of the hell's other people construct for themselves but this one hits like five of the boxes. How do people do this to themselves? it's such a bizarre way to act over media I genuinely do not believe is capable of stirring an emotional response the metaphysics of disability here are unintentionally really funny but disability is not a coherent ontological framework, it's a vague descriptor for literally thousands of different things none of which lend themselves to categorizing Moralizing over fiction is incredibly lame.

Liking harry potter is also incredibly lame, it's not morally wrong nor transphobic and you do not get to decide that lol. people literally do get "cured" of their disabilities all the time, many of them have a positive experience in doing so. this is not what eugenics is.

the anti abortion stuff lol

Literally how do you live like this? you guys don't even read real books I don't get it.

Archived version of the comment for posterity.

So yeah, lofl, block this fucker.

[cryptideye]

if i never get a RANDOM STRANGER sharing their opinion on my mental health again it will be too soon like please refrain besties i dont wanna hear it!!!