Ok so we've all heard of the Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn trauma responses, but on behalf of Autistic people I would like to gently suggest a fifth: Inform.
My brain is too tired tonight to really flesh this out, but I just realized that in traumatizing circumstances, I sometimes fight and sometimes fawn but my default is pretty much always desperate attempts to convey information.
Jan 11 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
As part of my research, I asked participants to share a single photo of their cat and also WHY they picked that particular photo. The commentary is *priceless*. My synapses are flooded with serotonin. I want more. I *need* more!
Show me your cat pic and tell me why *that photo*.
For ethics reasons, I can't/won't use your photos and commentary in my dissertation. This is purely recreational. I just want to see more cat pics and hear why I needed to see that specific image.
Sep 18, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Ppl hate learning about the oppressive roots of common words and phrases bc "it doesn't mean that anymore", but think for a second...
How often and for how long did a word or phrase need to be repeated *with it's original meaning intact* for it to become such a standard part of the lexicon that ppl neither remembered nor cared why it was coined in the first place?
Sep 4, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
How the fuck was everyone somehow convinced that the collective trauma experienced over the past 3+ years was due to remote work and masking and not, y'know, being abandoned to mass death and disablement in the name of unprecedented capital accumulation by the ultrawealthy?
Remember how in 2020 folks were like "what the fuck have I been doing with my life" and started quitting their jobs en mass?
How did we get from there to "I missed rotting away in meetings inhaling the virus-laden, defeated sighs of my dead-eyed coworkers"...
May 29, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I was at a rowing lesson this week and a person saw my wheelchair on the dock and was like "who left this here? We should throw it in the water. These things float right?"
This is not funny.
It actually really scared me. I have a recurring nightmare in which my wheelchair has be stolen, broken, or lost. My life would come to a standstill if that happened. My wheelchair is an $11000, custom-made piece of equipment that is necessary for me to function.
Not. Funny.
Apr 16, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I've been noticing that allistic people absolutely do stim when they're distressed, and it's making me wonder whether stimming is characteristic of autism or whether we're just put into distressing situations on a daily basis and are therefore constantly self-regulating?
Does anyone know more because I am curious...
Apr 14, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
The difference between accommodations and accessibility is when your department gives a disabled white male professor with tenure the option to attend a department event via Zoom but will not distribute the link to everyone so other disabled folks can be also attend. 😒
Just @UBCGeog with the ableist shenanigans again... I've given up on addressing these things in my department. I work with other departments and offices in the institution that actually give a crap.
Apr 7, 2023 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
What's with the Nike "controversy"? Do people think trans women don't wear bras? That the ta-tas they grow defy the laws of physics? That they do not breast boobily down the stairs?
Or are people just mad that trans women exist... 🙃
Mar 24, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The take is one I hear a lot and react to very strongly. The assumption that all PhD students *can* take a clock-in/clock-out approach is toxic and disregards the realities of marginalized grad students.
I see this take most frequently from a particular demographic and I wonder why tf the people saying this aren't investing some of that relative free time and energy into making academia more equitable rather than shaming their classmates and colleagues?
Mar 22, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Just thinking about the time when, more than a year before my EDS diagnosis, I saw an awareness post describing the signs of EDS and I was like "no way that's a real 'condition'; all bodies are like that."
Dear reader, all bodies are not in fact like that.
Mar 20, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Gentle reminder that ADHD is a legitimate disability and not a reflection of how much an ADHDer cares about something or someone. 🙂
We can't help what things we struggle with, but you can choose to shift your expectations of what we "should" be able to do or how we "should" be able to do it.
Please don't set up ADHDers to fail in our relationships with you.
Feb 26, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
The rampant ableism among gay men on dating apps in Vancouver is actually a bit of a relief relative to my experiences dating queer women here. Hear me out...
The guys who just can't fucking deal see the wheelchair and weed themselves out. I also see their profiles with shit like "must be of sound body and mind" and swipe ALL THE WAY LEFT.
Saves us both time and energy.
By contrast...
Feb 13, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I have been leaning more into connections with gay/queer men, and masculine intimacies/intimate masculinities feel somehow like... coming home?
I am still trying to find language for it... There's a very gentle sort of grief (how did it take so long?!) but also immense gratitude and joy and just... ✨🤗✨
Feb 12, 2023 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
So I've been trying to think about ways to discuss the cognitive and emotional changes I've experienced on testosterone while also being very careful not to play into essentializing explanations of gendered behaviours, and this is the best description I've got so far:
It's like a library in which the systems for cataloguing and retrieving items have changed, but the volumes on the shelves are still the same.
Jan 30, 2023 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
I want to talk about the *accessibility* mental load. 🧵
Feminists define "mental load" as the cognitive labour of managing a household. This is often very gendered. Even when tasks are shared equitably, women are often expected to shoulder a greater portion of the mental load.
Jan 28, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
It's wild how many self-proclaimed leftists view disability as a "distraction" when the marginalization of disabled ppl is actually one of the most effective tools for coercing adherence to capitalist social relations... 🤔
If your analyses don't take disability seriously and your organizing doesn't attend to access needs, you're doing your oppressors' work for them. 🤷♂️
Dec 28, 2022 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
Why the fuck are people so horny for "walkable cities" when we could be talking about ✨accessible✨ cities?
This strikes me as an important insight:
I am begging nondisabled folks to stop equating "standardization" w/"fairness" (à la "it's only fair if everyone does it the same way"). The dominant culture categorizes ppl as disabled on the basis of our "non-standard" bodyminds; standardization cannot produce fairness for us.
Standardization is often a tactic for denying us fairness while keeping up appearances.
Dec 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Can someone pls write a primer on gay male culture for all of us trans mascs who somehow arrived here, very disoriented, via the lesbianism?
Testosterone makes boys hot. 🤷♂️
Dec 12, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I am so hesitant to tweet this bc I don't want it to sound like if you just know how to navigate systems of oppression as an oppressed person, you can somehow escape their effects. You can't. But this week I stood up for myself using all of the tools I've been forced to accrue...
...through a lot of really shitty experiences, and for once it actually had an effect? ??
I need to be clear. Self-advocacy is not a solution -- especially when the damage has already been done.
In the words of @KrebsIsOK: self advocacy is a systemic critique.
Dec 12, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I have a shorter answer: ableism.
It's generous to try to rationalize this situation but ppl's responses to the pandemic have not been rational.
Disabled ppl can and do recognize what's going on here as a simple extension of how society views illness/disability and values sick and disabled lives.
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