Look, I have a much longer post about this which I'll make at some point when I'm not on deadline for paid writing about trans healthcare, but:
There is no meaningful division between "mentally disabled" and "physically disabled" because the brain is an organ in the body. A person with a mental illness has a disability of their physical body.
Your brain is not a discrete and separate thing from the rest of you.
Disabilities of the brain and of the body overlap, affect each other, and are often continuums with each other. Brain disabilities are often not just brain disabilities but disabilities of other body parts as well.
The word "cripple" has been used for all disabilities. As a word, it has been aimed at all of us. That is an inarguable historic fact.
Crip theory and crip activism, which predates cripplepunk by a really long time, has always included psychiatric and intellectual disabilities.
Redefining "cripple" more narrowly to exclude people hurt and killed by ableism is not within the purview of any one person, even if they put "punk" on the end.
The imaginary boundary between disabilities of one organ (brain) and disabilities of all other body parts was not put into place by disabled people. It was placed on us by doctors. Continuing to enforce that is just enforcing the things that doctors have done to us.
As we learn more about the body's interconnectedness, it not only doesn't serve us to enforce that, it actively hurts us as a community.
Violent ableism including murder, medical torture, medical abuse, neglect, forced treatment, forced surgeries, medical experimentation, domestic abuse, and other horrors, have been visited on mentally ill and mentally disabled people as well as people with disabilities of all other body parts. Attempting to claim otherwise doesn't make Aktion T4 go away.
Pretending that all disabilities of all other body parts share an inherent similarity of experience which isn't shared by people with brain disabilities is foolish and incorrect.
Disabled people can in fact be ableist, even if they have good intentions.
If a movement attempts to redefine a term more narrowly and remove people from it rather than looking for similarities and solidarities between people of the same oppressed class, that movement is not doing any good.
I identified as a cripple and lame long before I identified as a cripplepunk, and frankly, I'm embarrassed by watching people try so hard to undermine a movement of historical solidarity in the name of ONLY THIS ONE KIND OF CRIP ALLOWED. I know Tumblr really loves to cut things up into little pieces and say "this is only for this group, you outside invaders," but that's the opposite of useful. No one should talk over others about their own disabilities and their experiences and what that means to them, fucking obviously. So why is that okay when it comes to brain disabilities?
Now I've gotta go back to fighting with Medicaid about whether or not I can have reconstructive surgery on my ankles and knees due to my EDS, so I'll write my long post later. But seriously. This isn't useful, it isn't cute. It's harmful and only undermines our ability to do useful shit.
