A lot of you learned to use person-first language when it comes to disability — “my son with autism” rather than “my autistic son” — because that word order puts the person first. We need to see the person before the disability, they said.

This is ableist reasoning. Using person-first language is necessary at times, particularly when no adjective form exists. My daughter with cerebral palsy is worded that way because cerebral-palsied daughter isn’t an accepted language structure. It simply isn’t used.

Person-first isn’t inherently wrong.

I’m going to be in so much pain tomorrow.

And the reasons why are so lovely, with a side of lovesick. Brutiful, as my friend @GlennonDoyle would say.

Here’s the story: Lee ran cross country in high school. He continued to run long after.

Jocie was 5 when she ran her first 5K. They ran together. When J’s mental health was precarious for a while, he’d drive her to the track at a nearby middle school so she could run it out.

I don’t know how to say it any more plainly than this:

💔💔💔💔💔
Parents, you are raising your healthy children to be selfish and concerned primarily with their own comfort if you are opposing masks and refusing vaccines if you’re able to receive them.

💔💔💔💔💔
1/x You are teaching your children NOT to care about our neighbors, the sick, elders, disabled people, & anyone else as you preach “as for me and my house, I will yell about my freedoms and refuse to protect myself or those more vulnerable than me.”
💔💔💔💔💔

The ladies of TikTok are telling “sex trafficking near miss” stories again.

In all reported cases of sex trafficking, how many times has a victim been taken while shopping at Target, as an adult or as a child accompanying an adult? ZERO.

This isn’t a real thing, & it’s harmful. I’m not saying women who tell stories about what they think were sex trafficking attempts are lying.

I am saying they aren’t telling the actual truth, not out of malice, because they don’t know better.

I 100% believe something happened in each story in which a dude was creepy.

Matt Gaetz retweeted an extortion attempt that stated the FBI had pictures of him with an “orgy of underage prostitutes.”

Here’s why we aren’t going to use that language. Underage means CHILD.

A child cannot consent to sex, which also means a child cannot consent to sex in which money is exchanged for said acts.

By definition, an “underage prostitute” is not a thing. Neither is a child prostitute.

That child — whether 7 or 17 — is a victim.

These same white evangelicals didn’t want my children in their Sunday school classes because they knew one of the kids has HIV.

Some were open to learning, but our best friends then said they weren’t okay with play dates anymore but we as parents could still be friends.

Nah.

https://twitter.com/ap/status/1379184326340907010

The friendship didn’t last, of course.

They considered us judgmental liberals.

We ultimately left.

But the thing is, these weren’t terrible people. No, they were deeply uninformed and had been taught to believe what Christian leaders said without question.

A whole lot of folks are using #SaveOurChildren to talk about child sex trafficking, praising Trump’s (fictional) actions and saying it needs more focus than COVID.

I survived sex trafficking. Don’t pretend you care for political points. #YouDidntSaveMe I will believe you care when you do instead of just talk.

I will believe your org gives a damn if you pass the mic to survivors. Don’t speaking about us as if you speak for us.

I will believe you care about #SaveOurChildren when you aren’t making it about Trump or COVID.

Hi. I’m a widowed mom of six kids, many of us disabled.

We survive largely due to social security survivor benefits.

Social security is funded by payroll taxes. Yep, those payroll taxes Trump wants to defer and ultimately eliminate.

Voting for Trump is voting against us. Simplified primer on social security:

Workers pay into the system through payroll taxes.

Then those workers get payments after disability or retirement or, to family, after death.

(In practice, it’s not this smooth due to payroll taxes collectively not being a constant.)

When people die, decisions must be made about the body and the service and such.

Those decisions are limited right now, as cremation is the only option right now in many cases and funeral services can’t happen traditionally.

But let me tell you about the decision process. The first decision I had to make about Lee’s body was fully acknowledging that it was only a body, a shell that no longer housed his soul. It looked like him, it smelled like him, it wasn’t him.

Then, body part by body part, I had to give consent for organ or tissue donations.

I could name names of others who have treated me shitty over the years when I’ve asked for representation, but most of the rest are works in progress. I think they’ll get there.

But y’all? I’m so damn tired of waiting. I’m not saying all of this because I’m bored.

I’m saying this because I’m watching a pandemic spread because too many abled people don’t give a single fuck about how their actions harm disabled people.

Maybe it would be different if they had ever heard from disabled people.

Tell us about a young child but say “my co-worker” or “my friend’s co-worker” instead of their name. (Because, you know, this is reality now for some of us.)

Ex: My co-worker asked for yogurt and is now crying because I gave her yogurt. I’ve lost count of the number of times my co-worker has watched Frozen 2

Old me would have gone to church today, figuring the odds are still probably more in our favor than not and trusting God to protect us.

(A few of us are high risk for serious complications if we got the coronavirus, and it’s in our county.) ...but then Lee died from an accident against all odds, and God didn’t protect us from Lee’s death.

So my trust in odds or that God will spare our family from another major life-changing or -ending tragedy doesn’t hold anymore.

You will see stories about the grandfather of the baby born to an 11yo survivor of multiple rapes by her brother.

You shouldn’t know their names, as those identify the girl. But you will, from irresponsible media.

You will see this presented as an immigration thing. It is not. Incest happens in all kinds of families. The father’s status as an undocumented immigrant has nothing to do with his son’s choices to rape his daughter 100+ times & impregnate her at least once.

I message with incest survivors all the time. Most of us are white & American-born.

Ten years ago today, The Lancet retracted Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent 1998 article claiming the MMR vaccine caused autism. He performed procedures on children unethically, paid kids at a birthday party to give him blood samples, and doctored data.

He still claims he was right. The study involved 12 children. Without approval from medical ethics boards, Wakefield did lumbar punctures, colonoscopies, and other tests on the children, in violation of rules against unnecessary medical procedures on children.

But some anti-vaxxers still support him.

A few years back, I was part of an event and communicated my need for accommodations due to my disabilities and recent major surgery.

The event was accessible about 50% of the time, inaccessible but able to do uncomfortably 30%, and inaccessible entirely 20% of the time. When I tried to address the issue during the event, I got treated like an inconvenience by some leaders and with apologies from one.

If you ever sense a bitter edge to my disability justice posts, this event is part of that. I’ve never felt more dehumanized than then.

“AP: Children are kidnapped and trafficked for US adoption by Bethany Christian Services, an adoption agency strongly supported by the DeVos family, after migrant parents are illegally denied asylum and then deported”

There. Fixed it for you.

thehill.com/policy/interna… I have been following this closely ever since the government contracted with Bethany Christian Services, and this same thing has happened in many other cases. This one is only rare because it was overturned.

Whenever I see a stately church with elevated wooden pulpits, I see a visual reminder that this church was designed to literally lift up abled people as preachers while letting physically disabled people know our place. That place disabled people occupy in the church isn’t usually one of intentional exclusion.

It’s merely the place of not being seen, known, considered.

Or, if we are, it’s as model of ministry to us rather than ministry with or ministry by us.

One reason abused children often become abused adults is that we were taught that love coexists with abuse.

Then, when someone new abuses us, we can accept that as love, never having known the real thing. That abuse that feels like love to us because we don’t know that love and abuse are meant to go hand in hand?

Sometimes it’s from a lover or partner. Sometimes it’s from a friend. And? Sometimes it from another intimate relationship, like - for example - a religious community.

I was 23, married a year, pregnant with our first child. I was being trained to lead a small group of middle schoolers at the church summer camp.

So was he.

He is low serving time, one of the men named in @HoustonChron database, for what he did to boys. houstonchronicle.com/news/investiga… I didn’t know. I didn’t think any of us had known. I trusted the church version of facts.

I was never told that my small group of girls included one who had been in his Sunday school class. No one ever checked on her or talked to her about what happened because she was a girl.

“Get over it; it was a long time ago.”

I’ve been told this, including by a man who raped me.

Do you understand that an unwanted and unexpected touch from a principal during a meeting to advocate for my daughter can make me jump, yelp, cuss, because my body can’t get over it? “What could have happened 20 years ago that would still matter today.”

I’ve been told this, including by a man who trafficked me 20+ years ago.

Do you know trauma memories are stored differently, coming to life in nightmares in which it feels like it’s happening today?

Things you should know about those living with chronic pain:

1. We minimize our reality because we don’t want to be seen as whiners & because we’ve noticed the “she had cancer & never complained once” stories that are usually bullshit but still consumed happily as inspirational. 2. We carefully curate our stories so we aren’t othered or pitied. I woke up in the middle of the night earlier this week, needing to pee. I had to take pain medicine and wait uncomfortably for it to kick in before I could manage to get out of bed. But that’s too sad to post.