#ablesplaining

[dysautonomia]

Is there a term for non-disabled people who try to explain disability-related topics to actually disabled people?

Ablesplaining? I feel like that should be a thing.

[crap-copper]

Just learned the term "ablespaining" and it's definitely entering my vocabulary

[jai-makes-music]

new disabled terminology: ablesplaining

i have coined a term: ablesplaining (v.) standard IPA pronunciation: /ˈeɪ.bl̩'spleɪnɪŋ/ Latin iblis and explano rhymes with: chaining, draining

ablesplaining: a type of event or situation involving relationship between two or more parties (of unbalanced power due to disability status) involving conversations where someone is condescended to, infantilized, or otherwise implied to not know as much about something inherent to their lived experience than the other person does.

"ablesplaining" is an umbrella term for a type of harmful action or power dynamic enacted in situations where one party is in power over another due to immediately or generally relevant lived disability status. in this action or dynamic, the person in power implies by giving unwanted explanations or advice that they are a better authority than the other on something that they have less or no lived experience with compared to the person they are addressing.

broadly, this occurs when something about disability is explained to a a disabled person/party who knows more on the topic than the speaker does.

this can occurs in situations such as the following: -disability, medical conditions, chronic illness, recurrent illness, disabled bodies, etc. -disabled rights, disabled culture and subcultures, intersections between disabled status and other marginalization factor -conditions that are not widely considered disabilities by some but are medically considered such or are considered such by the person affected -the party being ablesplained to has a relevant disability when the speaker do not -a particular symptom is explained to someone else by someone who does not experience the symptom as it is described by the person experiencing it -other observed or imagined scenarios where disabled status or specific disability is in any way relevant to how one can intentionally or unintentionally be bigoted another individual/group.

this does not occur in the following situations: -where an abled medical professional or other expert is offering asked-for advice to a disabled patient/client, with appropriate trust involved and boundaries/consent being respected -in situations when no one involved knows what they're talking about in regards to the disability or disability-related topic, and if in this case it does not directly and immediately affect a disabled person

Q: is ablesplaining is to ableds are to disabled people, as mansplaining is to cis men are to marginalized genders? A: a little bit? but not entirely. ableism isn't entirely comparable with sexism, and i'm not going to pretend it is; the situations that occur aren't total mirrors of each other. two people who are both disabled can ablesplain to each other depending on how they are affected by the specific thing they are talking about, even in a purely hypothetical situation where they could plausibly be totally equally affected by disability and other historical and current marginalization markers are factored in. this is an umbrella term and i mean for it to be used pretty much as broadly as possible.

[earhartsease]

ableism/mansplaining rant

I'm in a group for upright/double bass players, posting about how I'm finally going to start learning on an eub (electric upright bass) - I tried years ago with an acoustic one, but my mutant anatomy couldn't cope with the huge wooden body to reach round.

Anyway, I casually mentioned that I wouldn't be learning to play with a bow, and someone called Kim came at me immediately with "why can't you?" So I patently explained my missing muscles and how I'd tried all the possibilities for holding a bow and they all hurt like fuck.

Kim then came back with "I've seen bass players with no arms - think outside the box" at which point I began to play a game with myself that went how many more comments from Kim before I'm absolutely sure he's a man? and it only took three before I checked his profile to confirm.

At this point I got blunt, called him out for basically saying "I, an entire stranger, clearly know more about your body limitations and how much you've challenged them than you do" - he non-apologised, and I called him out on that too. He then went civil-friendly, and I did not reciprocate because I'm tired of being expected to back down and shake hands all the time for these people.

Anyway, now my hypervigilance is fully firing and my inner meerkats are on full anxious, but I'm proud of myself for this.

Seriously why are these people?

I spent six months looking for ways to use a bow, and all of them hurt immediately, and if kept up would have caused long term damage. And I don't even really care, because I'm all about the pizzicato anyway.

Push your limitations, sure - but in the context of: accept your limitations, be creative within them, don't be bullied into betraying your limitations and hurting yourself for inspiration porn approval. Push yourself cautiously, out of love for yourself, or don't do it, and know how to stop when it's not "working".

[saturdaynightlivedork]

Claiming you know all about autism because you work with Autistic children is like a man claiming he knows all about being a woman because he has ten sisters.

[triumph-of-adaptation]

[sweetandsavageautistic]

When a NTAB or allistic tries to explain autism to me.

My Autistic Ass:

[wholockiandalek]

Grandad: Oh and I once taught a boy who was autistic, do you know what that means?

Me: yeah

Grandad: *procceds explains anyway getting several things wrong, and use offensive language*