my thoughts on the queer relationship between Cripples, sex and society. Heads up for my accounts of street harassment and mentions of abuse. also this is fairly long
I am physically and developmentally disabled but I have low support needs and most people do not read me as developmentally disabled, I am ambulatory with some trouble and very fem presenting. So to a stranger I look like a neurotypical girl using a rollator.
the first time I got catcalled in the city I attend school was when I had injured my tailbone on a hike as well as overworked my knee, at the time I didn’t use any mobility aids but I was wearing a knee brace over my legging. I was limping severely when a car of college age boys stopped beside me at a red light. The called to me saying I dropped somthing and after a minute of me looking behind me and back to them confused as to what I dropped one of them told me to smile, another told me to drop my ass to which the driver (who had been doing most of the talking) said he was sorry. I flipped them off and told him to keep his dog on a shorter leash but I walked home a little more scared. The second time I was catcalled in my city I was walking to the library I volunteer at, I was trying out a new three wheel walker and couldn’t get a steady gait. A man walked down the side walk and paused next to me, he called me beutiful and asked for my number, he walked a few steps with me before going back the way he was headed. In the moment all I could say was thank you because he was inches away from me and I could not run. In society at large there are two main ways disabled people’s sexuality is thought of, one is impossible, disabled people especially mentally disabled people are de sexualized frequently often along with infantilization. On the other hand some disabled people (namely women) are hypersexulized and fetishized. I fear I have figured out that disabled people are seen as having no want or desire for sex AND as being sexual objects for able bodied people (typically men) We cannot be sexual for ourselves but especially when we struggle to move independently we are easy pickings how many disability fetishists just like “helpless” women? How many like the infantilized image of disabled people society projects? How disabled people feel safe on the streets when we are often physically financially and socially trapped in abusive situations.
and all of that happened to a white non visibly queer person. I cannot imagine what it is like for my non white siblings, for my unhoused siblings, for my higher support need siblings. It is scary out here yall.
