as small as a world and as large as alone

9:39pm July 20, 2014

dendriforming:

I don’t like hurting people. And direct insults tend to be perceived as hurtful whether the insult is ableist or not, so I’m exceedingly unlikely to say something like “tumblr user x is stupid!” I might call a piece of legislation stupid. I think I called a stabbing headache I had earlier today stupid.

If I know someone finds something hurtful, I’ll try not to do that thing around them. It’s common decency. Depending on what it is, I may or may not succeed at it.

And I really wish it was more common for people to say “please try not to say this in my presence, because it hurts me” than to manufacture false consensus and decide that any use of a given word ever is horribly oppressive and anyone who can’t stop using that word shouldn’t have a voice in a given community.

For example, I have really bad reactions to a lot of endearments. This is because I have a disability that makes me look years younger than my actual age. I also have an entirely different disability that means I have a hard time figuring out some really basic things. So people tend to patronize me, often while explicitly saying or implying that I should be with a Real Adult. I strongly prefer that people not refer to me as “dear,” “cutie,” “sweetie,” etc. because of this. I’ve had “stupid” used against me too, but it will never affect me as viscerally as “sweetie.”

But that doesn’t mean every use of endearments is ableist or oppressive. I can’t articulate clear-cut rules for which uses are. I understand that there are contexts in which this category of words is really important for a lot of people.

And… I wish that level of nuance, of “this hurts me, so don’t do it” was more accepted here. Without “and it’s a terrible thing to do in any context ever” having to be attached.

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