Thread by @alexhaagaard

1. I wondered about it a fair growing up and funnily, I was routinely pegged as queer by the other kids. But I didn’t have the language to describe my queer identities and thus to realize I actually “counted” til my mid to late twenties. #30DaysOfDisabledPride

https://twitter.com/julianagood1009/status/1404402715371917320

2. Similarly, I always knew my bodymind was “different” growing up. I was a sickly, neurodivergent kid the latter of which was especially problematized by my teachers though no one ever bothered to label it with anything others than slurs or euphemisms. #30DaysOfDisabledPride

2 [cont’d]. I claimed disability when applying to university for the purpose of having access to accommodations (not that they made any) but I felt like I was cheating by claiming something I had no right to. #30DaysOfDisabledPride

2 [cont’d]. It wasn’t til my mid-20s I learned that medically invisible disability “counts” and that I am also Autistic.

#30DaysOfDisabledPride

3. Neither was hard to come to terms with for me personally, claiming both sets of identities meant gaining access to language that described my experiences of the world, as opposed to what I’d previously had which was lazy, attention-seeking, broken, etc.

#30DaysOfDisabledPride

3 [cont’d]. That said, I’d be lying if I said I’ve ever felt fully welcome in either community. With disability, I’ve felt that invisible disability/chronic illness is accepted insofar as we’re willing to pretend differences and tensions don’t exist… #30DaysOfDisabledPride

3 [cont’d]…between the experiences and needs of different subcategories of disability. And in the queer community, I have watched both nonbinary identities and especially asexuality be dismissed as “not enough” to count. #30DaysOfDisabledPride