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24 Nov, 5 tweets, 1 min read
Hi everyone, I'm Holly, a blind person from the UK and I will be hosting the account this week. I usually tweet as @CatchTheseWords
I was born blind, but grew up with very conflicting and complicated feelings about my blindness. I started blogging when I was 17, and through this I met a lot of disabled people who educated me about ableism, activism and figuring out my place in the world.
I'm now 26 and am preparing to go back to university to get an MA in social and public policy, so I can fight the system for a living!
I want to use my lived experience as a disabled person to conduct research that respects the rights of disabled people, that learns from our experiences rather than just treating us like test subjects.
More equitable, social justice oriented research can do a lot of good, but a lot of the time research is really problematic. So I work on projects that are working to change this.

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More from @WeAreDisabled

@WeAreDisabled Profile picture
27 Nov
One thing I think about a lot is how, in research, disabled people are always viewed as participants. But it goes beyond that. We're a resource, to take from, always to take and take and take from.
And we're subjected to some really problematic stuff, but we're told we should be thankful, because the research will benefit us in the end.
This is why I think disabled led research is so needed. Not just in disability spaces, but all kinds of research. We have to be researchers as well s participants, and it's also vital that non-disabled researchers become educated about social justice.
Read 7 tweets
@WeAreDisabled Profile picture
25 Nov
As a blind person, one of the most difficult things I experience is other people's negative and inaccurate misconceptions about blindness. This happens to all disabled people of course.
Often people approach me, wanting to solve the "problem" of blindness with new technologies, because they see a blind person and assume that person can't live or function in society. I then have the task of explaining that it is this attitude that is the problem.
I'm not saying there are things I can't do. But those things are typically a result of an inaccessible world. If more things were actually accessible, I wouldn't be denied opportunities.
Read 7 tweets
@WeAreDisabled Profile picture
12 Nov
If anyone can make threadreader unroll after this, I appreciate it.

TW Eugenics. I have said it a lot on my personal page but I will say it here as well. A lot of people keep claiming that the society during Covid is showing the worst in people but honestly that is just not the
case. The society during Covid is a direct result from the society before Covid. And ableism.
So we are going to talk about one of those elements I have seen a lot from in the Netherlands and eventually ended up being the reason the hashtag GeenDorHout and the action group was
started. The disability is a burden trope. Since most of you following are disabled yourselves, you will probably know what it is but for the eyes of the ableds: Disability is a burden is the idea that being disabled or someone who is disabled is a burden on society and the
Read 21 tweets
@WeAreDisabled Profile picture
12 Nov
Tw racism

Oh yeah we absolutely had and still have covid related racism in the Netherlands just like a lot of countries. Punching down, for humour or not, is a favourite pastime. That song was met with a lot of controversy but also a lot of people liking it. And politicians
do a lot of Covid related racism too. From small microagressions to bigger ones. Like not wanting to acknowledge successes in covid management in Asian countries and failures in those of western and claiming it's population density or they don't know why those countries manage
covid better. Or a politician asking what we are going to do when another pandemic comes when someone Chinese decides to fry up another bat.

I know I have been talking a lot about the Netherlands, I promise I will talk about other stuff as well but when you are in isolation for
Read 4 tweets
@WeAreDisabled Profile picture
12 Nov
TW trauma. To add into talks about mental health: Covid and trauma. I think that after this all is over, You will see a lot of trauma appearing in people related to Covid. Whether it is from how people are treated by society, near dying, of having closed ones dying, it is a lot.
I actually see it already in myself and some friends that we seem to be getting trauma responses and many in our community talk about this. The thing what bothers me is that there is no talk about this on the grand scale, and in the Netherlands the breakdown of mental health
care is still happening, so the chances that there will be room for people to deal with this is very slim.

We have this ableist saying in the Netherlands. “Just be normal, then you are crazy enough.” People responsible for trying to tear down mental health care used things like
Read 7 tweets
@WeAreDisabled Profile picture
12 Nov
I am experiencing a Covid burnout. I don’t think it is just only about Covid but it is almost entirely Covid adjacent at least. We don’t talk enough about the effect of Covid on the mental health of high risk people stuck in this pandemnic. So I kinda want to create a thread that
will give you all room to talk about it too.

It has been rather a ride since Covid started and I was not in a good place before either especially physically. I was prepared for a lot of ableism, a lot of ableism in these areas. I was also prepared that the politicians will not
really want to protect us because disabled people are still seen as the blight on the human existence, as a burden on the economy and so on. I even was prepared for the trauma to come, but we as a society but especially high risk groups and disabled people are going to what is
Read 10 tweets

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