Thread by @lottieblix

Most of you probably don't know this because I don't talk about my family much, but my middle sister has what is most often referred to as a "severe developmental disorder." She is almost entirely non-verbal and requires full-time support. She is a person who is visibly disabled.

I frequently had people call her the r-slur to my face, or in her presence. I witnessed grown adults point and laugh at her, call her slurs, recoil from her. As kids, my youngest sister and I regularly had to deal with other children viciously mocking our "r*****ed sister"

I have spent a good portion of my life around children and adults who present similarly to my sister. They are often non-verbal, do not communicate in the same way as expected by society, or do not feel safe enough to advocate for or defend themselves.

People like my sister are subjected to constant ridicule and disgust. I could write an entire book comprised solely of the specific instances of cruelty I have myself witnessed. They are beyond counting and some of them are too hateful and horrific to share.

I am not one to police how other disabled people cope with derogatory language used against them. I am myself disabled. I am Autistic and have ADHD, but I am not visibly disabled, and the r-slur was never used against me with the same vitriol as it was towards my sister.

When it was employed as a slur towards my sister, it was with a degree of hatred and revulsion that made it patently clear that these people believe she should not exist, that her very existence was abhorrent and disgusting to them.

For me, it is a slur that is beyond reclamation, as the people who it is most frequently and most viciously used against often cannot advocate for themselves. To wit, my sister's official diagnosis in the 90s was "Mental Retardation," which is where the slur originates.

People like my sister are all too often left out of conversations regarding disability rights—they are still severely marginalized, institutionalized, ignored, and abused. You may not see them because they are so often excluded from a society which is wantonly cruel towards them.

So I ask only to please take people like my sister into consideration. They are deserving of dignity and respect as human beings, as well as full and happy lives in a society that is very much capable of being accessible and welcoming to them.