Tag: hate against the neurodiverse

Well, that went… badly

I got a free-to-review queer ebook, set in a summer camp for disabled kids. (The MC and LI were staff, not kids.)

I had to nope-out by halfway, after pervasive, persistent ableism.

(Oh, and one reference to the Gestapo, when the parents were seeing their disabled kids off. I guess the author doesn’t know – or doesn’t care – that the Nazis used disabled kids as their test subjects for the Final Solution. Thousands of them.)

Please, writers. Disabled and neurodivergent people don’t need you to labour every other page how much of an inconvenience we are, how ‘quirky’ our mannerisms are, how emotionally exhausting we are, how disgusting our bodily functions, how annoying our routines and dietary and sensory needs are. How we’re sucking the life from our families like vampires.

You never have to tell us. You never let us forget.

(No, I’m not going to name-drop the author or the book. I just need to vent.)

EDIT: I will add that this wasn’t just a ‘ugh, won’t read any more’ situation. This book gave me a severe anxiety spiral requiring a long hot bath with a Lush bath bomb, a valium, and I’ve been sitting here rocking most of the day, something I generally only do when my anxiety is most severe. I very, very rarely leave a book unfinished, but this was a ‘for my own safety’ situation. Ableism is toxic, y’all. Get a sensitivity reader. Not a professional, not a family member, but an actual disabled person who feels comfortable enough to call out your bullshit.

EDIT 2: The author contacted me and was really respectful and thankful for my review, so, guys, THAT IS HOW YOU DO IT when a marginalised person has genuine concrit of your thing, when you have asked for an-honest-review-for-free-book. Even if you don’t 100% agree with the reviewer, it costs you nothing to respect the feedback and the position of the reviewer as an expert in their own experience.

aureliaborealis:

prokopetz:

prokopetz:

Rape is the only crime on the books for which arguing that the temptation to commit it was too clear and obvious to resist is treated as a defence. For every other crime, we call that a confession.

I’ve gotten more angry asks about this post than I have actual reblogs.

imagine hearing “well if he didn’t want to be shot, he should have worn a bulletproof vest” on a trial

The thing is, though, it is said, in the case of racial minorities and vulnerable people. How often has a black person been shot just for driving/walking/ringing the cops for help/wearing a hoodie/playing in a park? How often do people say they should have behaved differently, as though their actions were a logical precursor to their murder?

How often do Jewish people, Sikhs and Muslims get blamed for being ‘too’ who they are in public? Especially women wearing a headscarf or men wearing a turban? How many are told, ‘well, what did you expect?’ when they try to report a hate crime?

How many queer people are blamed for their own murders and assaults simply for existing in public spaces? How many are told that if they just made an effort to be normal, they’d have been safe? How many were assaulted when they were actually passing, but were outed as queer and found themselves trapped and abused by people who felt angry at being ‘tricked’?

How many disabled people have been murdered just for not being normal? How many autistic children and adults are killed by their caregivers annually, or subjected to torturous therapies to try to cure them? How many interviews, articles, memoirs and documentaries justify this cruelty in the name of normalisation and blame the disabled person for the impact of their disability on their families?

People have always blamed victims. Yes, it happens to victims of rape and sexual assault, and always has done, and is disgustingly regularly reported as justification for what happened. But it happens to others too. Also, please remember that the rates of rape and sexual assault of people of colour, queer people and disabled people are far higher than the general population, and that it is far harder for these victims to access the justice system, compensation and health/support services.

autasticanna:

“uwu but if there was a cure for autism nobody would force you to-

Bullshit. Yes the fuck they would.

Want to get hired? Oh, you have autism? Well, we can’t hire you unless you get cured.

Want to get paid? Oh, we’re legally allowed to pay you less because you’re autistic. We can pay you a reasonable amount when you get cured!

Need accommodations? Why don’t you just get cured instead? 

You know, you wouldn’t need all this therapy and assistance if you just got cured. You should just get cured!

We don’t need special care programs for autism! There’s a cure available! Just get it!

This isn’t covered by your healthcare because autism is a pre-existing condition, sorry!

My child was autistic and we didn’t want him to be, so we cured him! He didn’t want or ask for it, but we did! 

Look, autism can’t be cured. But if it could, that cure would would absolutely not be a choice. It would just be disguised as optional. 

Look at the danger already for people of colour, disabled people, women, nonbinary people, transpeople, etc. if they are labelled noncompliant by medical or benefits services. Tell me not consenting to be ‘cured’ wouldn’t land you in it. Tell me that they wouldn’t make being ‘cured’ conditional for lighter sentencing in the court system, the way some courts still, in 2018, make sterilisation an ‘option’ for people charged with repeat offences. Tell me they wouldn’t exclude uncured autistic people from public housing, education and support services. Tell me again, and then go and look at history. See if you can convince yourself it won’t happen again, when we have Nazis marching in the streets and eugenicists running for election who openly call for murder of disabled people because they’re a drain on resources. Tell me that if there was a cure, it wouldn’t become a genocide.

Sean Kirst: For Valentine’s Day, a quiet, but monumental, love story

autisticadvocacy:

“Their marriage, which will reach 25 years in August, is a quiet and monumental symbol of advances in civil rights for the disabled.”

This is beautiful. Disabled people shouldn’t have to choose between sharing their lives with someone and receiving supports they need, and this is a really good example of what is possible for DD and ID people if they are given the freedom to both live and love without being penalised for it. For those who don’t realise it, many disabled people who want to share their life with someone in the US have to choose between love and their benefits and supports that enable them to survive.
Sean Kirst: For Valentine’s Day, a quiet, but monumental, love story

UN says end cure culture and Listen to Autistics about Autism

jumpingjacktrash:

nothingisalliknowisnothing:

From the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights:

“The autism spectrum should be understood from a broader perspective, including in research. We call for caution about enthusiastic attempts to find the causes of autism and ways to ‘cure’ autism through sophisticated but not necessarily ethical research. Autism as a condition is a critical challenge for modern health systems, in which we
need to ensure that the practice and science of medicine is never again
used to cause the suffering of people.

More investment is needed
in services and research into removing societal barriers and
misconceptions about autism. Autistic persons should be recognized as
the main experts on autism and on their own needs, and funding should be
allocated to peer-support projects run by and for autistic persons.”

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15787&LangID=E

I discovered this because it was posted by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network facebook page.

holy crap this is so important

geekysciencemom:

Credit to Beth Wilson.

I think I would like this better if the ‘group picture’ contained the first two figures. Yes, there are autism stereotypes, but the implication by their exclusion is that these two do not exist in our multifaceted community, when the reality is, they are just as much a part of us as any other. So yes, portray diversely, but don’t leave those autistics who fit the stereotypes out in the cold. I’ve seen this kind of gatekeeping in queer communities, too, often to exclude people who fit the stereotypes about queer people too closely. The moment we tell people they’re letting us down just for existing and living as their true selves, the more we define a rigid idea as to what it means to be autistic, and become hypocrites. We should never make an autistic feel they have to change their movements, their dress, their special interests, stimming behaviours, or speech because they are overrepresented. Don’t make that autistic person feel shame because of who they are. That’s what neurotypicals do to us every day.

So, for the autistics who wear headphones, who love trains, who are ‘little professors’ with encyclopaedic knowledge of baseball stats or vacuum cleaners or planes, who are maths prodigies or synaethetes or have eidetic memories or are savants – YOU ARE WELCOME. YOU BELONG. YOU ARE JUST AS AUTISTIC AS ANY OF US. WE LOVE YOU.

strangerdarkerbetter:

autismus-obscurus:

Y’all i have a question.

Is it an autism thing to panic whenever someone yells (due to aggression)? Or is that just a conditioned response?

This seems to be really common amongst autistic people.

I think it may be due to difficulties reading people. We often don’t notice signs that a person is getting angry until they start yelling which can set off sensory sensitivities as well.

I’d also like to add that a high percentage of autistics have been physically, verbally, emotionally and/or sexually abused, and have PTSD that can be triggered badly by people shouting or getting in their space or moving in a way that brings back those memories. Our bodies have a warning system highly tuned to recognise when a situation is flipping from ‘weird & uncomfortable’ to ‘last time this happened I got whipped with a belt so hard I bruised’. Given a lot of us also have memories that are different from the norm, sometimes photographic or eidetic, you can see why we might react poorly to highly charged situations.

Kay so it’s a hard PTSD day because social media. I love you guys, tho, and you should post whatever you like, whatever makes you happy, because that’s what social media should be about. PTSD is a minefield, and what sets me off surprises me sometimes, and I’ve been living with it for 36 years. What set me off was something that probably seemed jokey to most people, but as a neurodivergent child abuse survivor was horrifying. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have reacted like I did. My reaction was perfectly rational for someone with my perspective. It might have seemed extreme to someone else, someone not-me, but it was rational. What I don’t want is for someone to think I’m angry at them personally for posting or reblogging something that they found funny that I did not. Our perspectives are different. The world is a different place to each of us based on who we are and the experiences we went through. A joke that might be funny to some, might trigger horrible emotional turmoil in someone who’s been abused, been raped, been discriminated against or attacked because of their race, their gender, their sexuality. That doesn’t make them wrong, too sensitive, or without humour. That makes them a human, a squishy being with a different experience to yours. Please remember, please be kind, and please adjust your world-view if needed. Thanks.

iamshadow21:

iamshadow21:

proto-homo:

powerbottomjotaro:

this is such a bad product. you might have temporary control over your tot but youre just going to make it stronger. whats worse than an uncontrollable baby? an uncontrollable baby who has never missed leg day and could kill you with one kick

Also, those leg weight things aren’t even recommended by a lot of people for adults. I’ve worn then to work out, and they cause a lot of joint pain and unnatural movement. Just imagine what that does, physiologically, to a toddler, who is still growing their bones. You’re essentially putting shackles on your baby. Just use the freaking leash and flip the bird to anyone who judges you for using it. And use the backpack/harness ones, for bob’s sake. The wrist-strap ones can dislocate their shoulder if they run and fall over when it’s at full stretch.

Holy shit i just read the weights on those, the pair on their own is 5lb PER WEIGHT the ones ON THE KID are 10 POUNDS EACH. For those in metric countries, 5lb = 2.25kg. EACH. Or 4.5 kg each for the 10lb ones. (For scale, sacks of potatoes often come in 5kg or 10kg bags.) WHY DON’T YOU JUST CEMENT YOUR KID TO THE FLOOR. My hand weights I use while walking are 1kg each, and they are HEAVY after I’ve held them for longer than about ten minutes. And I’m an ablebodied adult who can drop them completely if I want to or need to. You’re strapping weights many times heavier than that to your baby’s body.

If a kid falls wearing those, not only are they going to be unable to stand, their legs are going to break on either side of those things like dry twigs. You’re gonna have a baby in full leg casts, maybe with a permanent injury if it damages the growth plates. All because you didn’t want to be stared at. Jesus fucking Christ.

prae-arx-pacis replied to your photo post

@iamshadow21 this is a joke, take a breath.

Okay, yeah, it’s a joke, but except for how it’s not, because cruelty to kids is real and if these existed, people would buy them. I’m allowed to be upset that this product is plausible, because that’s the kind of world we live in.

Go The Fuck To Sleep is a joke. As we live in a world where kids, especially neurodiverse kids, are regularly, routinely, and ACCEPTABLY restrained and secluded in special and mainstream educational settings and institutions, never mind their own homes, THIS IS NOT A JOKE. It’s a horror story with a Pleasantville, Stepford Wives aesthetic. It’s a joke, unless it’s your body, your bones, your bruises, your PTSD.

http://stophurtingkids.com/

Watch the freaking film and then tell me again how funny the joke is.