Hello, I was having a chat with a friend this week about the change in attitudes towards disability we’ve seen since we met six years ago. It’s so much better, we were saying, half way through a bottle of wine. In many ways, that is undeniably true. Especially in terms of visibility. There’s a slew of books about disability by disabled people coming out this year. Disability issues are routinely covered in the mainstream press (editors are even
I so appreciate this Lucy (and just upgraded to paid so i could post here!). The dissonance and whiplash is interesting. Ive also been thinking a lot about things related to your point about awareness and rights being afforded only to some disabled folks - ive been wondering how the huge shift in neurodiversity-affirming talk and environments is leaving people with more visible disabilities behind.
"Whenever a disabled person tweets about the lack of masking meaning they can’t go to an event, they are met with a tide of responses saying their safety and freedom aren’t worth nondisabled people’s discomfort." This one gets me so much. It has the same vibe as a lot of things straight people said to me as a queer person in the 90s. Like, "I don't care if you're gay, just don't advertise it."
I always appreciate your writing. I always appreciate how you share your experience with clear images that aren't too gentled-down. The change you've made in me is the ability to see all around me a dominantly exclusionary architecture and infrastructure. Every store I enter, every library, every restaurant, every sidewalk and intersection, every door, every restroom door, sink and stall. "Accommodation" made to satisfy a building inspector are very often gratuitous at best. If you and I happened to have an afternoon together in my towns in the US, our options would be edited by inaccessibility. So instead of being personally angry, your writing is provoking me to action-to call out and document these offenses. The dehumanization of your plane experience: hideous. Optimism and offense traveling side by side.
I so appreciate this Lucy (and just upgraded to paid so i could post here!). The dissonance and whiplash is interesting. Ive also been thinking a lot about things related to your point about awareness and rights being afforded only to some disabled folks - ive been wondering how the huge shift in neurodiversity-affirming talk and environments is leaving people with more visible disabilities behind.
"Whenever a disabled person tweets about the lack of masking meaning they can’t go to an event, they are met with a tide of responses saying their safety and freedom aren’t worth nondisabled people’s discomfort." This one gets me so much. It has the same vibe as a lot of things straight people said to me as a queer person in the 90s. Like, "I don't care if you're gay, just don't advertise it."
I always appreciate your writing. I always appreciate how you share your experience with clear images that aren't too gentled-down. The change you've made in me is the ability to see all around me a dominantly exclusionary architecture and infrastructure. Every store I enter, every library, every restaurant, every sidewalk and intersection, every door, every restroom door, sink and stall. "Accommodation" made to satisfy a building inspector are very often gratuitous at best. If you and I happened to have an afternoon together in my towns in the US, our options would be edited by inaccessibility. So instead of being personally angry, your writing is provoking me to action-to call out and document these offenses. The dehumanization of your plane experience: hideous. Optimism and offense traveling side by side.