I was going to quote my favorite parts of this but that ended up being the whole beginning and the whole ending, so just read the whole thing. This was particularly resonant because I am starting to rip my own invisibility bandaid off and speak up. Iâm starting to take the risk of publicly identifying as disabled/having disabilities, and identifying with those with ADHD or ASD especially, more than with my fellow researchers who study them.
In an earlier post I said that white âmoderatesâ who supported the goals of the Civil Rights Movement had a moral obligation to stand with Martin Luther King and other civil rights protesters. In particular, since they were in much less danger of getting beaten, tear gassed, or imprisoned, they should have stood in the path of violent people, saying, âif you want to hurt them, you have to go through me first.âÂ
In the disability world, the differences between the stigma experienced by people who look disabled and those who donât might be more gradual than the vast gulf separating white people who have never feared being lynched and black people who have lived with that fear their entire lives. But, you can draw parallels. No one has ever assumed I couldnât understand them and spoken to my parents instead of addressing me. No one has denied me an education. Even during the year during my childhood when horrible life events happened and I had multiple meltdowns a day every day, no one considered putting me in the Judge Rotenberg Center and electroshocking me into submission. I have never been put in an institution or even threatened with being put in one. Thatâs because I have been deemed âweirdâ instead of disabled, and have been, as Withasmoothroundstone puts it, âpassed off.â By contrast, people who look too unmistakably disabled even to be âpassed offâ are more likely to either fear or live with these exact situations.  In some ways I have a lot to lose from being seen as disabled, yet the things I could loseârespect, job opportunities, friendshipsâare much less severe than the things a more obviously disabled person might loseâwhich could range from basic self-determination to their very lives. Furthermore, I am âshinyâ enough that people might still sympathize with me or take me seriously to some extent, even if they dislike what I have to say. A more obviously disabled person saying and doing the exact same things would not have that luxury.Â
So if part of fighting for rights for people with disabilities involves outing ourselves, then I think people like me, who can sacrifice the spoons, win sympathy, and take the blows, should do it.Â
Itâs wrong that people who can pass are often taken as more human and credible, and can command more sympathy and support. Thatâs one of the things Iâd like to fight against. But if anything, being given credibility I donât deserve gives me more moral responsibility to speak up and align myself with people who havenât been given that credibility, and deserve it just as much. To make people see that that very same credibility should be in their hands, as well.
There are many good reasons to avoid outing oneself, itâs a personal choice, and I wouldnât think less of a person who chooses not to do so. But this is why I, personally, feel obligated to speak up not just for myself but for all my peers with disabilities, both those who can pass and those who canât. (Speak up for, not speak for. Thereâs a crucial difference). Ableism (like other âismâs?) gets perpetuated when we let people divide us into âhigh functioningâ versus âlow functioningâ or âdifferentâ versus âdisabledâ groups. By standing together and refusing attempts to divide us, maybe we can blur these often-harmful boundaries and spread the credibility and respect around more widely.Â
