12:53am December 24, 2013

➸ That Crazy Crippled Chick: This Is What Disability Binarism Looks Like

telephonoscope:

This, THIS is why when I get on a bus with my scooter, I sit in it and ride, even though it’s less safe, even though my scooter has tipped over on buses before. THIS is why I don’t just park my scooter outside a bathroom stall and walk in. THIS is why, when I go out in public, I let people think that I’m a full-time chair user. THIS is why 99% of my college campus had no idea I can walk. Because of attitudes like this. Because of ableism like this.

This is why hardly anyone knows that I actually use a wheel chair. This is why I walk even when I shouldn’t.

This is why I speak even when I shouldn’t and pretend to understand things even when I don’t.

This is why I don’t use more assistive tech that would help me deal with my poor visual processing. This is why I regret the two times I’ve spoken in the last ten years – people imagine I just don’t want to talk if I could talk twice in over a decade’s time, even though some situations I can’t speak have threatened my life. This is why I run myself ragged sometimes and decline to do what I’m capable of at others (and the last can make disabled people fear we are as fake as ableists assume we are).

This is actually one of the most poisonous and deadly forms of ableism: believing disability is all or nothing. Read the original post until you get it through your skull that most disability is somewhere in between. I live in disabled housing and all chair users but a couple people without legs, can stand or walk. This is the norm not the exception.

Most aug comm users can sometimes at least a little speak or communicate some other way. That’s actually what the aug part is supposed to mean. Most nonverbal people have some speech, it’s just infrequent or hard to understand or not communicative. Almost all autistic people speak sometimes and not others, it’s a matter of degree and of how communicative the speech is. Most chair users can stand or walk. Most blind people have some sight. Most paras and quads have some feeling or function in their arms and legs. Most deaf people have some hearing.

Almost nobody’s disability is 100%. That’s the rare exception not the norm. Learn this and learn this well and tell anyone who badmouths us for being less than 100% disabled in any particular area. They’ll believe you better than they’ll believe us. The more people who understand this, the more disabled people won’t have to hide our true abilities or disabilities to avoid being called a faker or exaggerator. You can’t imagine how many lives are ruined by these prejudices and misconceptions. You can’t imagine what this does to us. Just don’t treat us badly for being normal disabled people. (Or even unusual disabled people.)

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