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2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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[ Image description: a light purple image that reads “That disabled feel when you get invited out by those who don’t know about your (invisible) disability and when you get there - stairs, stairs everywhere” ]
Submitted by anonymous
disabled people are not vegetables, disabled people are not angels, disabled people are not feral animals, disabled people are not demons, disabled people are not changelings, disabled people are not monsters, disabled people are not lessons to be learnt
disabled people are human beings, disabled people are people and it would be nice if people started to acknowledge that
A few weeks ago my friend asked me if I'd be interested in being on a SXSW panel to talk about Accessibility at Live Music Venues + Festivals. I think I replied, "Yes!" before I even finished reading his pitch. Please help me realize this incredible opportunity to speak about something near and dear to my heart; to speak my truth. Please vote for the 'Accessibility at Live Music Venues + Festivals' panel to be a part of SXSW 2016 and share!
Step 1: Click on 'Sign in' in the top right corner Step 2: Select 'Sign in with Facebook' or 'Create Account' Step 3: Register and sign in Step 4: Vote for our panel by clicking the thumbs up icon in the top left of the page - http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/48506
April 17, 2015 is #NoShameDay. I was asked by one of my childhood friends on Tumblr if I would be participating and I truthfully wasn't sure. I'm a pretty private person: I've only recently started identifying as a person with a disability and I prefer to raise awareness for disability rights via leading by example. This week, in one of the support groups I belong to, an individual with a similar disability to my own was having a really difficult time with the possibility of needing to get a feeding tube. This triggered my own memories of getting my g-tube placed, of the shame I felt and still carry to this day, and convinced me that I have to share my story and let go of my secret, not only to free myself but perhaps to help someone else out there that's struggling with similar self confidence issues. I got my feeding tube 8 years ago and it was probably one of the best things I've ever done of my body. Due to my medical condition, over my lifetime my swallowing muscles have gotten progressively weaker. Before I got my g-tube, I was underweight, I had severe reflux issues, and I experienced frequent anxiety attacks from reflux and food particles irritating my airway. Since I've gotten my feeding tube, I can still eat small amounts of certain foods and take most drinks by mouth but have chosen to receive most of my nutrition by g-tube. I've gained 20 pounds and maintain a healthy weight, my reflux has been managed, and I'm living my life comparatively anxiety-free. But I still feel shame every time someone asks me out to eat. I still feel the need to come up with some excuse to not eat at potlucks. And I still feel bad for refusing food every time someone says, "Just try a bite!" I can't keep saying, doing, and feeling these things. I am a person with a disability & I receive most of my nutrition via g-tube. I do not want to be ashamed of this anymore and I don't want other feeding tube users out there to be ashamed either. So while you may not find me in a bikini showing off my tummy anytime soon, I will gladly meet you at a bar & dare to drink you under the table like any good Russian. If you're lucky, you might even get to pour a shot down my g-tube. ;)
are you going to post? :3
For #noShameDay? Maybe! Any info on where it started and what posts are “supposed to” include?
There’s a reason why I usually only post selfies that are from the chest up.
I have cerebral palsy, which makes me spastic. The spasticity affects the ways I hold and move my arms, wrists, and fingers. Growing up, my mom would always tell me to clasp my hands together in school photos so that my arms would look more natural. I became very embarrassed and self-conscious of my arms. To this day, I still prefer pictures that minimize my disability as much as possible, which are usually the ones that exclude most of my arms and all of my wheelchair.
But you know what? Fuck your ableist beauty standards. I’m hot as fuck and my arms are gorgeous, not to mention the fact that my spasticity has given me biceps that would make Popeye weep in awe.
You wish you had tickets to this gun show.
#NoShameDay
Can someone please provide some context to this statement?
It's my belief that due to the societies humans are brought up in, we all have internalized biases based on age, gender, orientation, race, ability, and socioeconomic status whether we act on that bias or not. To truly bring about dynamic social justice change requires people of different backgrounds and different biases to work together, look at the problems from an intersectional point of view, and uproot and set aside the biases even the strongest advocates for positive social change have internalized.
In my opinion, this is why problems of homophobia, sexism, racism, ableism, agism, and classism are so hard to solve. In my opinion, this is why it's important to not completely close yourself off to the idea that other people that are more sexist, homophobic, racist, ableist, agist, and/or classist than you are may share in some of your beliefs. In my opinion, we should be using our common, flawed human experience to build intersectionality and make these teaching/learning moments. We can't just wait for bigotry to die out; That's never gonna happen. We have to systematically work towards equity for all, and in my opinion that's better done through communication than isolation.
There's a long-standing debate in feminism about sexual empowerment: How do we know when someone is being sexually liberated versus being sexually objectified, since they sometimes can look similar from the outside?
I like the message presented here, but I like the fact that this infographic used the image of a person with a disability and focused on that person (not their disability) as a representation of the sexy/prude dichotomy even more. How radically subversive!
fuckboys
Under the Couch as a Queer Space, 6/14
The folks at Under the Couch recently put out a zine about the student run community performance venue as a queer space and interviewed me about the accessibility of the space for persons with disabilities. Here's a page from the zine. You can see the rest at: http://underthecouch-atl.tumblr.com Shout out to wearepioneerspress the photo!
"The shuttles are refurbished city buses. They have no straps or bars to hold onto — the space is designed for seated passengers. Each bus fits about 30 people in either armchairs, banquettes or plush stools along a wooden counter. Up front there is a mini-fridge with a selection of snacks and beverages for sale. The bus seems to cater to the kind of tech-savvy professionals in its promotional video, but [Leap CEO] Kirchhoff says it is for everyone... [Yet] there is no discount for young riders, no designated seating for the elderly or pregnant, and the bus is not wheelchair accessible."
So let me get this straight: They're taking (likely) wheelchair accessible city buses and making them not wheelchair accessible? I realize that this is a private enterprise, but: Fuck this type of backwards exclusion.
what's extreme is people like you not realizing that sometimes diversity can go too far. When characters are made black or disabled or gay for no reason it hurts the story and it hurts the cause of the people who are supposedly being represented.
I like how you sent me an ask claiming that no one says a thing except people rhetorically making fun of the position that no one actually holds, and then you send me an ask clarifying that you hold exactly the same position.
I’m kind tempted to just not address anything else you said and just marvel in the perfection of that.
What’s the reason for making a character white? What’s the reason for making a character straight? What’s the reason for making a character abled or neurotypical or cis?
When you assume that making a character Other relative to yourself weakens the narrative, you’re revealing a terrible thing about yourself: that you can’t imagine that those people have backstories and inner lives the way that you do.
Every single person in a fictional narrative is ultimately there because a writer decided they needed to be there, but when the person looks like you and matches your expectations, you accept that this person who was made up for the plot had a life full of events that led them to the point where they’re appearing on the screen or page.
But when your expectations aren’t met, you start saying it’s forced. You can’t accept that events led them here because you don’t grant them the kind of life that you know you have. Your empathy does not extend to them.
Look at how many white people think they can relate to a little girl in an industrial orphanage who falls in with a capitalist robber baron during the Great Depression more than they can relate to a little girl in the foster system in modern New York who falls in with a career politician, all because of a difference of race. The original Annie’s situation and world were only slightly less alien to us than the Victorian period, but making her white somehow makes her relatable in a way that a little girl who clearly exists in our world isn’t.
The fact is, empathy is linked to imagination and we can (and do!) relate to people who are literally alien beings in literally alien worlds. The choice not to relate to Quvenzhané Wallis as Annie—or a Black or gay or female or trans video game character—is a choice to shut off both imagination and empathy.
The failing is not with the narrative, it’s with you.
Truth!!
“I want to make life easier for people in China who have disabilities. I know what it’s like, because I lived in a Chinese orphanage until the age of ten, and I wasn’t able to go to school because I couldn’t walk. But that’s just a small part of who I am. I want to be a diplomat, and travel, and do all sorts of things that have nothing to do with being disabled. I don’t want people to pity me. I don’t want to be another ‘poor her.’ I don’t want to inspire people. ‘Inspiration’ is a word that disabled people hear a lot. And it’s a positive word to you. But to us, it’s patronizing. I’m not living a wonderful life for a disabled person. I’m living a wonderful life, period. This morning I got accepted into the London School of Economics. Now hold on, let me put on some lip gloss before you take the photo.”
In this Op Ed, writer and musician Sean Gray discusses the experience of going to shows at venues without access for the disabled.
I'm still processing this piece. My initial thoughts:
I think it's important for people to be made aware of the various accessibility issues spaces have and the consequences they yield. I also firmly believe media and journalism can influence public opinion and induce policy change over time. While I feel like Sean did a good job of proclaiming "we're crips and we're here to stay" to the music scenes, I can't help but worry that this piece will be misunderstood by individuals not familiar with disability rights and the social model of disability. I think the way Sean described his thought processes while navigating the venue was well intentioned, but I fear that by describing the lengths to which he went to experience live music, he opened the piece up to be interpreted as inspiration porn, where "the only disability in life is a bad attitude." This type of mindset nullifies the need for much needed disability rights policies and societal reforms. In my opinion, the piece would've been more effective had the author not been able to access the venue at all.
on this women’s day, let me do a shout out to women who aren’t seen as “strong”, who aren’t financially successful, who aren’t easy for the world to handle. disabled women, trans women, women of color, bi and pan and lesbian women, women who are unemployed, women who have to fight to get through the day. your existence is radical. i love you.
For all my chronically ill/disabled people
This is a reminder that you are worthy of love and fulfilling relationships simply by virtue of existing. Even when you can’t take care of yourself, let alone other people, you deserve to be surrounded by people who support and care for you.
You are not a burden. You are enough.
filed under things that are hard to remember / things that we don’t remind each other of enough
In the past five years, over seventy people with disabilities have been reported as murdered by parents, family members, and trusted caregivers; while an unknown score more people with disabilities unconscionably perished in the shadows by the heinous acts of those they entrusted their lives to. News reports might even lead one to believe that what would otherwise be called murder— if a non-disabled person was the one killed—was an act of compassion.
Often the news media portrays the killing of disabled people by family members as justifiable, if not almost inevitable, due to the added burden that caring for a disabled person is presumed to bring. If not money, then stress, if not stress, then exhaustion, if not exhaustion... well, fill-in-the-blank. Excuses pile up. And solutions seldom get adequate, if any, attention. This is not to suggest problems such as these do not exist for the families of disabled people, they do, but they should never be offered or considered as justification for killing someone.
Some have argued that the rash of killings of people with disabilities at the hands of family members is the result of service cuts and supports being reduced or eliminated but the rhetoric doesn’t match the reality.
As Elizabeth Picciuto wrote in THE DAILY BEAST in October 2014, “According to a 2005 paper published by Richard Lucardie and Don Sobsey of the University of Alberta, both of whom study violence against people with disabilities, more than a third of children with developmental disabilities who are killed by their families are younger than 5 years old—presumably before unmanageable behavior problems begin or more intensive services are needed. So deprivation of services does not seem to be the determining factor of when parents turn to murder.”
People who kill family members with disabilities – whatever the reasons – currently receive more sympathy than sentencing that fits the crime and often get comparatively lighter sentences than parents who kill non-disabled children. This inequity begs the question: Whose lives are valued and whose are not? The skewed accounts favoring the murderers in police reports and court records suggest it isn’t people with disabilities. And so, the cycle of devaluing the lives of people with disabilities continues.
The National Council on Disability (NCD) rejects arguments, particularly from the news media, that have attempted to make sense of these crimes by either excusing murder or even sympathizing with the killers by citing the difficulties of raising a child with a disability and the need to improve the quality and availability of services. These issues should not be confused.
For the last four years, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, ADAPT, Not Dead Yet, the National Council on Independent Living, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, and other disability rights organizations have co-sponsored or held vigils across the nation to mourn those whom we’ve lost, to raise awareness about these tragedies, and to demand justice and equal protection under the law for people with disabilities.
On Sunday, March 1st, the disability community will gather again to remember disabled victims of filicide–people with disabilities who have been killed by family members or caregivers. NCD supports this effort and hopes that its success will prevent future tragedies.
As NCD has done several times beginning in 2000, we take this opportunity to renew our call for the FBI and DOJ to prioritize and investigate crimes demonstrating clear hostility toward individuals on the basis of disability and urge local and federal prosecutors to pursue robust prosecutions of hate crimes against persons with disabilities. The vehemence with which law enforcement and the courts investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of crimes against people with disabilities cannot be diminished.
To do otherwise sends the message that the lives of people with disabilities are worth less than the lives of other children and reinforces the notion that killing one’s child if they are disabled, while regrettable, is understandable.
NCD stands with others on March 1st to ensure that this way of thinking does not go unchallenged.
