as small as a world and as large as alone

8:32pm September 1, 2014

pxnkabed:

the whole autism = mentally a child thing is awful in itself, but it’s even worse because it’s used to deny us personhood. you can take away our autonomy if it’s to ensure our care, you can criminalize every single sexual encounter we have if it’s because we’re unable to consent, you can ignore our needs because we’re non-compliant.

‘mental age’ is an incredibly ableist concept and it needs to stop.

pxnkabed:

the whole autism = mentally a child thing is awful in itself, but it’s even worse because it’s used to deny us personhood. you can take away our autonomy if it’s to ensure our care, you can criminalize every single sexual encounter we have if it’s because we’re unable to consent, you can ignore our needs because we’re non-compliant.

'mental age’ is an incredibly ableist concept and it needs to stop.

Yeah.  Mental age sucks pretty much no matter who it is used on.

I’ve seen it used mostly on developmentally disabled people (autistic, CP, and ID) but I’ve also seen it used on psychiatrically disabled people at times, things like “an emotional age of 5” or something especially, but sometimes “mental age” as well.

And always, no matter who it’s used on, it’s used to deny us adulthood.

But then when they realize it’s a bad idea, they don’t get it either.  They go to the opposite direction and start banning us from doing anything that could possibly look childlike.  As if liking My Little Pony or something isn’t compatible with being an adult.  (And note the double standard, if it were a nondisabled guy liking MLP he’d just be a bronie, but if he’s disabled it means he’s being “not age appropriate” and needs to have all his toys and videos and computer time taken away until he agrees to stop watching it.)

Like… you can be an adult, and like “children’s stuff”, and consent to sex, and vote, and not have “the mind of a child”, these are not mutually exclusive categories.

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