#disability theory

[solarpunk-nightbird]

As a disabled person: a world with no modern tech, no modern medicine, no electricity, and no single-use plastics is a world that cannot keep a great many disabled people alive

Disabled people have always been a part of humanity, and we always will be

And if an imagined future doesn't involve keeping us alive, I want no part of it

[autisticautonomy]

"disability isn't a social construct because I'd still be dis-" Hey maybe before you poo-poo the entire foundation of critical disability studies learn the difference between "socially constructed" and "not real". You can't pride yourself on being "pro Disabled" and not have any actual interest in Disabled theory or liberation.

[sapphoslilhelper]

I have a hypothesis that exposure to disability theory makes folks less likely to be persuaded by reactionary separatist rhetoric. Haven't tested it, but I'm pretty sure

[yoursonlucifer]

leah lakshmi piepzna-samarisinha is one of the most annoying writers I've ever read. i read 40 pages of care work and could not keep going, and every time i read one of their essays in an anthology, it's a little bit painful. more than my mere annoyance though, i think a lot of their writing demonstrates the ways that language associated with marginalization become symbolic of pretend social awareness rather than knowledge. fascinatingly enough, the only time I've ever found their work compelling is when they were talking about their mother, someone who they (mostly) could not overuse under-defined leftist buzzwords to describe.

largely, their descriptions about their mother were actual descriptions: scenes, behaviors, and when words were repeated, like "smart" and "ugly," their social connotations were investigated. identity labels were not treated as easily regurgitated, repetitive, stable adjectives--they meant something.

many leftists have a tendency to do this, but it is extremely present in their writing: putting autistic, brown, femme, BIPOC, queer neuroweird, whatever in front of a noun doesn't make them relevant to it or true. what the hell is autistic silence? autistic family, autistic revolution, autistic needs? terms seemingly self explanatory, despite the purpose of engaging with this language at all is to acknowledge that nothing about your being is self explanatory.

"autistic silence," for example, could describe nonspeaking, parallel play that doesn't feature talking, quiet stimming behaviors, a need for quiet related to sensory issues. who knows, though, what it actually means because it is just said and then left alone.

leftists use these words like children who have just learned words like "therefore" and "however." they are everywhere, overused, deprived of meaning where we're supposed to pretend that their use makes sense. with children though, it's sweet, and it's a sign of excitement and growth, new neural pathways forming. in adults with platforms and careers, it's an example of inattention to history and context. in left spaces, it's an opposition to words' meanings that people pretend is a radical defiance that is actually a failing to be critical, accessible to people of multiple educational levels, and intentional about the language they're using.

piepzna-samarisinha writes and chronically misuses terms through phrases like "cis-femmes" and "intersectional people," failing to consider? or perhaps has considered but simply refuses to say? that a cis-femme is just a (cis) woman. and every person is intersectional, even cishet white men--because intersectionality isn't an identity, it's a framework to analyze the way that people's lives are affected by systems. (something does feel... relevant here about the way the term "intersectionality," coined by a black woman (kimberlé crenshaw) has started to just mean 'person of color' plus 'something else marginalized' to a lot of people.) not everyone who is feminine is a femme. their non-lesbian mother is not a femme. femme is a gender identity rooted in lesbian history, not a shorthand for feminine that is radical because queers use it.

this misuse also leads to the misinforming of others on language related to disability, such as "hyperfocus." they've associated it with autism, when it is only to be solidly considered to be associated with ADHD. failing to explain this language also leads to the now-common assumption that "hyperfocus" just means "really focused" instead of being, while for some, enjoyable, also debiltating, leading to hours of fulfilling task completion, but also total neglect of needs like drinking water and using the bathroom.

how close are we to overusing the meaning out of this language, glomming onto it because it seems to feel right to the self without ever even knowing the meaning or acknowledging the history of meaning before, and who it affects now?

[autisticautonomy]

A lot of younger Autistics who aren't that familiar with Autistic rights activism or actual neurodiversity theory know that the Autistic rights movement rejected functioning labels and severity labels, but they don't actually know why they were harmful and so they end up reproducing the exact same ableist assumptions but using support needs or levels without changing anything else instead of actually learning that every single Autistic has different traits and have wildly differing experiences. Instead of actually learning that the spectrum is a colour wheel and not a gradient. Instead of actually examining how some Autistics are raised to assimilate and mask and other Autistics are raised not being taught life skills or given a proper education because of presumed competence and how that negatively effects all of us. Instead of learning how nonspeaking Autistic people are systematically failed time and time again and just attributing bad outcomes and bad quality of life on them being too "high maintenance" to be happy. Instead of recognizing that allistic people also have needs but have their needs catered to and ours aren't. Instead being learning about the social model of disability and becoming angry Marxists like God intended. Passionate Autistic youth having their strong desire for a better world wasted on trying to find out whether you're Autistic enough for this or too Autistic for that instead of fighting to make sure that we all have access to as many resources and as many opportunities as possible, reading the fucking DSM instead of Capitalism and Disability. #SAD.

[dykesynthezoid]

I often see people talk about how they can’t confront with what they’re going through physically while chronically ill bc to do so would break them, to live in their body would be too awful, so any kind of somatic acceptance isn’t possible— and I get it, of course, I do, I’m in the same boat, and even though I’m really only able to be out of bed 1-2 hours a day right now, I also feel very privileged to not be more uncomfortable, or in more pain, and I know exactly how both those things cause dissociation. And it’s not as if I think there’s some easy solution. But I also feel like trying to not ever be in my body right now would be self-abandonment. Even when it’s deeply unpleasant. Even when it hurts me. I keep thinking about this Clarice Lispector quote from The Passion According to G. H. :

But with hellish relief I bid it farewell. What comes out of the roach's belly is not transcendable— ah, I don't want to say that it's the opposite of beauty, "opposite of beauty" doesn't even make sense— what comes out of the roach is: "today," blessed be the fruit of thy womb— I want the present without dressing it up with a future that redeems it, not even with a hope— until now what hope wanted in me was just to conjure away the present.

But I want much more than that: I want to find the redemption in today, in right now, in the reality that is being, and not in the promise, I want to find joy in this instant— I want the God in whatever comes out of the roach's belly— even if that, in my former human terms, means the worst, and, in human terms, the infernal.

My body is not transcendable. I cannot escape it. It hurts me. Frustratingly, maddeningly, heartbreakingly, beauty (or maybe beauty beyond the concept of beauty, or the sublime) still exists. I keep touching the Real and can’t get away from it. I want to believe that there is a way of confronting abjection that holds something we’re missing when we can’t be in our bodies. It has been so much more deeply relieving for me than any moment I’ve spent trying to get away from my body. I don’t think anyone with chronic illness can ever be in their body all the time and no one should be expected to; but the edge of self-abandonment is shadowy and deceptive. Confronting abjection; allowing it in, in little sips, like an inoculation; finding the, at times, horrible incongruity of your own suffering and the sublime of the Real and its transient beauty; it feels like being able to put down the burden of living for just a moment. And I wish more of us could experience that relief

[tapewyrm-talks]

sometimes I play with the idea of my mobility aids making me a cyborg, my cane is a piece of technology, it is like an extension of my body, it feels like part of me is missing when I do things without it. I find that fascinating in a way

[daisyprayers]

Does anyone have recommendations for books on disability theory (or more personal memoirs written by disabled folks)? I have been picking up a few for an essay I’m writing but the lists of recommended books I can find all heavily feature ones written by parents of disabled children and I’m getting a bit frustrated. Thank you!!