[selfundiagnosed]

SZA receiving an autism diagnosis is going to be healing to so many undiagnosed girls, but especially for a group of girls who are even MORE unlikely to be diagnosed—black girls! I am so beyond proud of SZA for getting evaluated and sharing this update with us because its going to change so many lives. I barely know any celebrities who have been open about having an autism diagnosis. I havent seen anyone on tumblr post about SZA’s post which could be a problem with my curation of who i follow but i wanted to share this awesome news with my followers!

[zmpl]

before we start posting that july is gay wrath month let’s consider that july is disability pride month first and foremost. the “be gay do crimes” memes can wait

[zmpl]

before this post breaches containment and people start going “why not both hehehe” i want you to seriously consider the very long history of disabled people’s existence being pushed aside and/or seen as secondary. i promise you it’s not going to hurt to hold onto the memes and give disabled people space for visibility and celebration.

i say this as a disabled trans person whose trans identity is made front-and-center to the (mainly cis) people who know i’m trans but my identity as a disabled person is brushed off by the very same people.

[my-heads-gonna-explode]

This disability pride month, I want people to focus more on disabled women and the ways ableism and misogyny feed into each other. Disabled women struggling and in pain because their doctors don't take them seriously or don't know what's going on, disabled women who are hyperfeminized and viewed as fragile porcelain dolls with no autonomy because of their disability, disabled women who are degendered and viewed as "unfeminine" or threatening because of their disability, disabled women for whom the difference in how they're treated versus how men with the exact same disability are treated is night and day, disabled women who both disabled men and abled/NT women see as someone they get to punch down on, disabled women whose conditions are underresearched because of misogyny in the medical field, and especially disabled women trapped in dangerous living situations or with abusive caregivers. Wishing for a good disability pride month for disabled women, one where people actually give a shit and maybe even go so far as to listen to disabled women re: the overlap between ableism and misogyny.

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

I really do think the current rise of global fascism is going to be especially bad for the massive and rapidly growing population of disabled people.

Already-inadequate social safety nets are already being dismantled and I think the cultural environment is going to become more and more brutal to disabled people.

We've seen some of this already obviously. The socially-acceptable, earnest explanations that the r slur is okay now because everyone's saying it, the refusal to do literally anything to protect disabled people from covid, the austerity so many governments are enforcing on the most vulnerable members of their populations.

Politics and culture are in lockstep on the insistence that disabled people are expendable. I think this has already changed the social landscape dramatically and it's only accelerating.

As the number of people too disabled to work surges from the longer-term effects of an unusually disabling virus, as work becomes increasingly brutal and underpaid (your actual income number MAY be the same, but you can't buy as much food or housing with it, and new hires are being paid even less), as social services continue to be gutted, people who care for disabled people are going to increasingly see us as burdens and see our survival as incompatible with their own.

If you aren't yet disabled, PLEASE stand up for us and find ways to organize additional support instead of just dumping your disabled loved ones on the street to die.

"I'd never do that!" Good!! Hold on to that!! Bc the Overton window will shift your opinions and politics if you let it.

So many people who were righteously angry five years ago about governments suggesting killing disabled people was an acceptable price to keep the economy running, are now repeating those same conservative party lines almost word for word and thinking it's different because they're used to it now.

It's going to become increasingly common to abandon disabled people. It's going to be described as setting boundaries and protecting your peace and prioritizing reciprocity.

But if those are your real priorities, organizing additional support is a dramatically better option than removing every source of support a disabled person has all at once and comforting yourself with the thought that finding new help all at once is the responsibility of the newly homeless person who is seriously disabled.

[my-heads-gonna-explode]

As pride month winds down, I just want to tell any disabled folks following me who are closeted about being LGBTQ+ because of their caregivers that I see you and you are a cherished part of the LGBTQ+ community even if you can't currently be open about it. 🩷

[closet-keys]

the worse climate disaster gets, the more you’ll see closet eugenicists start to advocate for letting people die. you need to be prepared to combat the ideology wherever you see it, because it’s only going to get worse and worse Read everything having to do with climate disaster critically. If the central argument underlying what’s being said is that the death of disabled and/or racialized people is inevitable, natural, or desirable– that’s a fascist.

they might be appear to be a garden variety republican or liberal or even a leftist at first, but know that if that argument is being made, their underlying ideology is one of supremacism, and given additional climate stress, they will become more blatant about it.

[closet-keys]

it’s been 6 years since I wrote this post, and as predicted, the eugenics movement has had enormous success since then.

since writing this, millions of people have died preventable deaths from a pandemic that much of the global north pretends doesn’t exist anymore.

access to healthcare is being revoked from increasing percentages of the population– removal of testing, accelerating vaccine prices, artificial shortages of medications (blamed on PWUD or disabled people’s “over-reliance”), insurance companies automating denials, increasing criminalization of health care concerning “sexed” traits and reproductive capacity (e.g. abortion, HRT, puberty blockers).

many places are beginning to criminalize wearing masks. doctors have even stopped wearing them. activists have even stopped wearing them.

anti-fatness is at its most blatant in years and most people have framed this acceleration of oppression as nothing more than a fashion cycle (“thin is back in!”), ableist slurs that had temporarily been deemed inappropriate by abled people are returning to common vernacular.

every climate disaster is quickly framed as people “deserving” it. every new pop science article that goes viral claims to have found the “cause” of the supposed phenomenon of the anonymous masses “degrading” their intelligence/IQ/cognitive abilities, and the solution presented is always Hard Work.

I need you all to pay attention to how this works.

[3liza]

hot autistic adult women are always saying they're doing fine really and everyone is nice to them and they just need to figure out a few little things and then everything will be perfect

[3liza]

excuse me for dipping lower and lower into Neurodivergent Exceptionalism here, which I do not like, but the autistic assumption that everyone else is just as well-meaning and altruistic and empathic and informed as you are is one of the most dangerous parts of being Like This and I wish I knew the magic words to disillusion especially girls about this in about 5th grade. because the only other way to get there is through being personally brutalized and frankly not even that always works

[3liza]

hot adult autistic women are always looking up at you from a quarry full of trash and car batteries where they live and like shielding their eyes from the sun and smiling guardedly and saying oh yes I'm actually very lucky. i have everything I need. my life is actually very privileged. and a plastic bag blows in on the wind and clings to their face like a jellyfish and theyre like haha yeah that happens

[3liza]

your homework assignment is to actually get angry at the next person who either intentionally or through callous disregard for your needs makes your life worse. then, if possible through circumstance and safety, either make that anger their problem, or eject them from your life. enough already

[creatingblackcharacters]

I'm so sorry if this is off topic but remember that LNX post you made earlier this month? well, great news: he's back and doing well :] https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZsWO0SyxHb/?igsh=aHltang0MW95N2ho

I just thought you'd like to know :D

View this post on Instagram

STOPPPPPPPPPP I'M SO HAPPY YOU SENT THIS!!!!! LOOK AT HIM!!! Oh my goodness I almost burst into tears at work. He just shared that he has bipolar disorder in front of the whole world, like.... To go through all of that, to finally admit to yourself that you needed help and then he's actually getting it and it's helping him....and then TELLING US when it wasn't our business... I'm so happy that he's doing better. You just made me get on IG for the first time in days like 😭😭😭😭😭 thank you so much for this. This is so hopeful. I'm so hopeful for him. I love it when Black men can seek help for mental illness and stress and their needs.

[cutecipher]

abled people put a high price on any disability aids or accommodation and then wag their fingers about how disabled people are bourgeoisie. those are the only disabled people you see because the rest of us are confined to our houses or dead.

[tpwrtrmnky]

researchers: this condition is underdiagnosed advocacy groups: we'll spread knowledge that it's underdiagnosed healthcare workers: some of us will use expanded diagnostic criteria now patients: wow we finally know what's up

tabloids: the condition is mysteriously spreading. this is DANGEROUS.

[tpwrtrmnky]

healthcare workers who don't want to get with the times: as an authority on this subject, i say this is super duper scary. i have been half-assing care for some patients who have this condition for 70 years and so i am the highest authority you should listen to. researchers? more like reprobates.

[tpwrtrmnky]

The tags specifying autism are correct but like there's a reason why I chose to not name-drop a specific condition. Which is that this describes EVERY manufactured moral panic around greater visibility for some medicalized group of people.

[my-heads-gonna-explode]

Something that kind of bothers me about the shaving discourse is that people only seem to bring up sensory issues in the context of "women who shave because of sensory issues" even though I'd wager the opposite is just as common, especially among autistic women (who arguments about sensory issues and women always kind of implicitly bring up if not by name). It's either "some women have to shave because of sensory issues" or "ugh these women keep saying they have sensory issues to justify shaving," the women whose sensory issues prevent them from shaving are rarely brought up. Whether people are arguing for or against gendered shaving expectations, the assumption is always that sensory issues must guide women to the most gender conforming option, as if "having unnaturally smooth legs" (especially when they rub against pants) or "feeling it start to grow back in after a couple of days" aren't also sensory issues. The less "palatable" women, especially hairy autistic women, are barely in the picture, even among people claiming to be feminists.

Well whatever, you can keep the smooth hairless autistic woman in your head, but sooner or later you'll see one of us hairy autistic girlies in real life. Which in my case as an autistic lesbian who loves hair is a "you promise?" but I know for some of you people it's more of a threat. Boo!

[decompose1]

ohhhh shit. target is recalling their up & up baby wipes (fragrance free & fresh cucumber scented) because they're contaminated with Burkholderia cepacia complex and Burkholderia gladioli, multiple people are reporting discoloration & infections. i just got a call about it cuz i had purchased those but i've already gone through them 😅 so no refund for me. but im fine. if you have these they're saying you need to immediately stop using them and bring them back to target for a full refund. this bacteria can cause life threatening infections in children/infants and people with compromises immune systems (ESPECIALLY cystic fibrosis!!) and i know lots of other chronically ill people follow me!!!!

[closet-keys]

I really hate when self described “leftists” will refer to the oppression of entire demographics of people as “culture war issues” especially when they contrast them to “real” “material” issues.

like do you think Muslims, trans people, and autistic people are not living “real” lives? why do you think islamophobia & transphobia & ableism do not materially impact people? are we just abstract ideas to debate about in your mind? like hello

[my-heads-gonna-explode]

"Straight people at pride?" this "bi women with boyfriends at pride?" that but why are there no disabled people at your pride event. Maybe focus on making your event accessible to all the disabled LGBTQ+ people who want to attend but currently can't before you start the annual discourse on whether Hetero Jessica is allowed to bring an ally flag.

[rars]

being disabled and lgbt is such a horrible curse because you will see the most ableist take on earth online and you're like "oh surely this is some right-wing fascist loser" and then you look at the person who said it and there's pronouns in their bio. and it's like, how did we get here? but the reality is that a lot of abled people (and often disabled people who are intolerant of different disabilities) are just not even willing to confront the idea that they are capable of punching down on other marginalized groups

like i don't know who needs to hear this but you are Not as progressive as you think you are if you're saying stuff like the R slur, "jobless behavior", making fun of nonverbal people, mocking physical differences, using psychotic as an insult, or calling people "lazy" for using disability aids. even if you're gay!

[my-heads-gonna-explode]

Not a fan of how, whenever autism is brought up in the context of intersectionality on this site, it's usually only in the form of “men can be oppressed because they can be other things too (like autistic, or gay, or BIPOC, or physically disabled, or poor, or or or…)” and hardly ever “autistic women are uniquely oppressed for being both of those things rather than just one or the other, facing a unique overlap between ableism and misogyny.”

I know there are some influencers who (at least, on camera) have this magical carefree life where being an autistic woman is just wearing colorful clothes and raking in money, but I cannot stress enough that the average autistic woman does not live like that, the same way the average woman is not as rich and comfortable as Taylor Swift. The average autistic woman faces the same ableism autistic men face… plus the same misogyny allistic women face… and sometimes the two combined into new problems. I know I shouldn't expect much from this site re: caring about either disabled people or women, let alone those of us who are both, but still.

[librarycards]

many ppl smarter than me have said this already but attacks on trans people’s personhood + attacks on immigrants’ & refugees’ personhood + attacks on disabled people’s personhood is directly connected bc both are imagined as threats to a white supremacist eugenic national body, there is a concrete reason that we are all being targeted simultaneously and dramatically and it is because fascism needs to constantly reproduce to survive