#everyday ableism

[catboykatebush]

“I hate slow walkers” is just a socially acceptable way to openly say you hate physically disabled people tbh. I’m not saying all slow walkers are disabled, but a lot of people who walk slow are walking slow for a reason.

[keplercryptids]

hey general public, just checking. would you put an unusable cardboard ramp outside a building with stairs, with a sign on it that says “lol just kidding”? no?? that would actually be a very mean thing to do, yeah?? then stop fucking using image alt text and video captioning to tell your dumb jokes.

[spacedocmom]

09/01/2026 Doctor Beverly Crusher @SpaceDocMom Incoming Transmission…

"Anyone can do anything if they try hard enough" statements are ableist. If you challenge those who say such things, they'll reply, "I didn't mean disabled people." They are excluding disabled people from "anyone" from the start. That's ableism. emojis: black heart, blue heart, masked, spoon

[brasskingfisher]

Disability in sci fi and the limits of translators

Ok, so I've got a vague memory of someone in the Humans Are Space Orcs tag discussing the lack of disability in fics but a weird thought has occurred to me. Why wouldn't sci fi translators work on sign language?

I mean there's usually a translator maguffin referenced in various sci fi universes to explain why everyone speaks English/localised language, and plenty are said to work by affecting the brain's perception (The Babel Fish in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the TARDIS in Doctor Who etc.) so as they include written text so why shouldn't it apply the same mechanism to a visual language like sign language? Even if you apply the eugenicist argument of 'removing' disability, there are languages based around gesture, why wouldn't there be an alien race who use the same? Or operate like cephalopods and communicate by changing colour? Can anyone give me a reason why this is beyond ableism?

[lefthookofficial]

Me explaining that ableism is not just saying the words “I hate disabled people” out loud, in that exact order, over and over again

(I’m serious, the number of people I’ve encountered who see racism, sexism, etc. in practically everything but still need ableism to be explained to them like they’re five is just… fascinating)

[milo-myhigh]

I'll never forget when I was being diagnosed as autistic and the lady doing my diagnosis said they're required to do IQ tests. To which I went on a several minute tangent about how IQ tests don't prove intelligence much less genius, and that they're a form of eugenics used to kill mentally disabled people as well as POC bc the tests were designed for very specific people to do well on. That should have been a big indicator.

But tbf, I don't think this lady knew jackshit about autistics bc she was surprised by me getting every math question right, by my knowledge of science as a whole, and by the fact that my IQ score was 123. "You're actually really intelligent" was what she said, and tacked on that bc I have a spouse and child I can "live a perfectly normal life" 🙃 as if I didn't already know this since I "live a normal life". If by normal you mean I mask on front of everyone, have constant internal meltdowns, am overstimulated 98% of the time, and can't "function" in a regular work system.

But hey, my IQ was evidently enough for her to decide I'm "functional" and could "probably excell in college if (I) put in the effort"

[whatbigotspost]

Hi! Let's talk about neighborhood accessibility for a moment:

Every morning that I possibly can, I start the day with a 30 minute -ish walk in my neighborhood. (Tangent for another day: sure this is "exercise" but why I really commit to this practice is that it does WONDERS for my mental health and lets me "complete the stress cycle" in a way my body needs and wants. I really can't say enough how precious this time has become to me.) In the process, I have become much more intimately familiar with my neighborhood from an up close perspective that driving doesn't allow. I've grown increasing disturbed by how so many of my neighbors are repeatedly and flagrantly contributing to accessibility issues for disabled people who also live here, undoubtedly leading to challenges, frustrations, and greater isolation. While my current neighborhood is in south Austin, TX I know that there are neighborhoods just like mine all across the country...I grew up in one in Indiana. I've personally seen them in Colorado, California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey. So I decided to raise a little awareness about this with real life examples. I don't talk about this stuff enough with folks who know me "IRL" so today my (long) Instagram story is called, “my neighborhood is hostile to disabled people and yours probably is too.” If you, like me, have been privileged with 2 legs, eyes, and other body parts that work relatively well up to this point in your life, it can be easy to assume that we all experience our neighborhoods similarly. This is DEEPLY untrue. So that's where this story picks up... (Image descriptions under the cut.)

Image 1: Shows a sidewalk ending abruptly in someone's yard. Text over the image reads, "But people who use mobility aids and depend on sidewalks to safely get out of their block are often forgotten. Here are just a few examples I peeped today:" Image 2: Shows a different side walk that abruptly ends in someone's right at a sewer access point. Text over this image reads, "Here’s a sidewalk that dumps you out in grass and no ramp. This is a HUGE gap in public accessibility in neighborhoods like mine. In fact, there are *no streets* with continuous sidewalks anywhere near me. They stop and end at random everywhere.: Image 3: Shows a sidewalk next to parking spaces where there is a big gap between the sidewalk and the asphalt, with parking bumpers in between the asphalt and the sidewalk. Text on this image reads, "Tell me, how does a wheelchair user get to the sidewalk? These parking stops are like 2 feet apart." Image 4: Shows a sidewalk with a pickup truck in someone's driveway that is parked covering 100% of the sidewalk's passage. Text on this image reads, "When there ARE sidewalks, people with huge vehicles park with their bumpers across the sidewalk. Other people become a HUGE accessibility obstacle for their neighbors. If you are bling, easily navigating around this will be a challenge. Image 5: Shows a construction pallet of materials sitting squarely in the public sidewalk. Text on the image reads, "Speaking of people blocking their neighbor’s access, let’s see how construction (gentrification, mind you) impacts things". Image 6: Shows more construction materials in someone's yard carelessly stored across 100% of the sidewalk space in front of a hour. Text over the image reads, "SERIOUSLY? The sidewalk is not yours to use as you see fit for personal storage. This stuff has been here for MONTHS at this point." Image 7: Shows another home renovation/construction site where the dirt/soil has been dug up around the sidewalk and is covering it all. No text, but a giphy of a facepalm reaction is overlaid. Image 8: Shows a badly damaged and in horrible shape sidewalk over a bridge. Text over the image reads, "This neighborhood was developed in the 60-70s and its infrastructure is crumbling like so much of our nation. We are all at danger when bridges start crumbling, but especially if you use mobility aids and the sidewalk is falling and wavy. An older person would be a hiiiiiiigh fall risk." Image 9: Shows strange speed bumps placed in a very close together pair. Text over the image reads, "These double speed bumps are supposed to slow unsafe traffic, but can you imagine being a motorized wheelchair user right now? Seriously scary." Image 10: Shows another pickup truck with some kind of additional grate added to the back of it which is parked in a driveway blocking the sidewalk. Text over this final image reads, "These issues are huge and not easily solvable but at the very least, we could: ✅Think beyond your own physical experience ❌Be aware of how we each contribute to isolating our disabled neighbors in their homes and ❌NOT block sidewalks especially when street parking is ample here. This is just CRUEL."

[exigencelost]

Not about blindness so I didn’t want to add it to the other post which was succinct and effective whereas this is a ramble but:

For a year I had limited access to an electric scooter thru my school at the time which is the most sitting-down mobility aid access I have ever had and oh my God were people untenable about doors. People see a wheelchair-like entity and lose all concept of how doors work.

All else aside, the automatic-door-open button is there *so that disabled people can press it*. You don’t have to press it for us? What an incoherent behavior.

If it’s broken or absent (which it often is) you can offer to open a door. Because offering out loud to help and reacting to the answer is normal person behavior.

But people like to press the automatic door thing for you and in my favorite incident of this, someone rushed up to press it as I was approaching the door and the door opened into me and pinned the scooter to the wall. I had to sit there until it auto-closed which was hilarious frankly but also like. Why.