#ableist vegans

[socialistguineapigs]

Me, age 4: I'm so grossed out by food, I can't eat anything.

Me, age 13 onward: I have started being able to eat a few more things, so maybe I won't completely starve!

People: Don't eat that, it isn't healthy!

People: God you're so picky!

People: That's so wasteful! Finish your food!

Vegans: Don't eat that, you're a horrible person who tortures animals!

[quanta-of-selves]

My problem is not when an individual disabled person says they can’t go vegan. Disabled people are experts on their own bodies. While it is possible for disabled people to be wrong about their body’s needs (like when I thought I couldn’t even go vegetarian, although that was because I listened to Tumblr anti-vegans instead of my body’s signals telling me my GI system did not react well to meat), this is for the disabled person to figure out). My problem is when a person says disabled people other than themselves can’t go vegan. For instance, there have been times when I’ve seen bullshit claims that autistic people can’t process animal protein or that people with physical disabilities can’t benefit from physical therapy without eating meat (I am making fast progress in physical therapy, so joke’s on them!)

However, when another disabled person says they can’t have a 100% plant-based diet, and a vegan says they’re wrong, I don’t support that either. Just believe disabled people about their own bodies. I don’t see why those kinds of vegans can’t keep in mind that veganism is about doing what is possible and practicable and help disabled people find other ways to vegan and advocate for increased accessibility to vegan products that meet disabled people’s needs.

[avatar-dacia]

1/2 I found an organization called the Earthling Liberation Kollective (guess what it's for) and despite being a non profit vegan intersectinal organization, there are parts of it that make me more than a little uncomfortable. One woman made

2/2 a speech comparing her own limb disability to those of farm animals, while in the same speech she lamented how vegans are “freakified” for being vegan. There was also another speech made by a disabled vegan that I can’t even begin to discribe.

Was it Sunaura Taylor?  Because, to be honest: I can kinda smell that poster model for internalized ableism all over that rhetoric.

Case in point: Ms. Taylor once presented an anecdote about attending a dinner event, and…essentially compared having to request a specially-made vegan entrée ahead of time to the building not being wheelchair-accessible.  (It should be noted, in the interest of fairness, that I’ve mostly seen disabled vegans decry such attitudes as ableist and reductive.)  No, really.

@ableist-vegans @fucknovegans

[orangememesicle]

So I did the presentation about the portrayal of the murders of disabled people and this guy managed to turn it into a vegan issue. He said that killing a developmentally disabled person and killing a cow are morally equivalent. @ableist-vegans

[avatar-dacia]

Oh dear Higher Power, there’s so much self-congratulation in the notes for this that it’s nearly beyond belief.  (But note the “nearly.”)

[avatar-dacia]

And here, we have...

...the common pisspot radveeg radwad, apparently going out of her way to be as deliberately fucking ableist as possible.

[avatar-dacia]

Vegan propaganda lol Keep diluting yourself and doing those mental gymnastics ☕️🐸

Oh, no.  Some rando on Tumblr just accused me of watering myself down.  I should wave the white flag already.

But really: going to actually attempt to argue, or are you just going to tell me I’m wrong in my inbox and run away?  Regardless of what: it remains that claiming that humans are physiological herbivores is propaganda, as is trying to spin your little boycott as universally feasible.

ETA:  Oh, it gets even better.  Considering the circumstances under which I’ve used the word “propaganda,” this smirking perlino steppelord is most likely defending either that vile comic with the robot, or Morrissey.

@fucknovegans @ableist-vegans

[orangememesicle]

I’ll go vegan when you can point to a source of plant based protein that I can eat without my sensory issues acting up.