Marriage Equality…
…pass it on. To echo Keori, the terrifying face of marriage equality: John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney (the link is to a PDF of their plaintiff statement in Woo v. Lockyer).
SF PRIDE banner in a MUNI station (the ad is also up on bus stops all over SF). Gee, the happiness and love on their faces is just terrifying, innit?
“Gay!”
I accidentally tapped a girl in the head with my book today while I was on the bus. As is typical of the 14, the bus was jam packed, standing room was at a premium, and people were falling over in the aisle and grabbing at hand rails while the bus lurched down Mission and the driver yelled, “Move to the back! Move to the back!” In the midst of it all, a querulous voice said, “You hit me in the head.”
I looked over and saw a black pre-teen, saw that my paperback was slipping ever so slightly from the hand that I was using to clutch a hand rail, and said, “I’m sorry.” And that’s the end of it. One of your run of the mill encounters on public transit, where the seething masses of humanity bump into each other, apologize, and move on.
As it turned out, the girl, another girl, her father, and I were all getting off at the same stop. As Girl #1 and her father stepped out, Girl #2 paused in the step well, looked at me, said, “Gay,” and stepped out.
I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her correctly in the midst of all the noise–”Move to the back! Move to the back!”–and got off the bus and started walking to a coffee shop, in the opposite direction from Girl #1, Girl #2, and their adult. Not more than two steps away, I heard it again.
“GAY!”
Oh, hell no. I turned around, saw Girl #2 staring at me, walked up to her, and said, “Excuse me, what did you say?”
Girl #2 looked at me, looked away, and said, “I didn’t say nothing.”
PD: No, I heard you call me “gay.” Using that as a homophobic insult is unacceptable.
Girl #2: I told you, I didn’t say nothing!
At this point, Girl #1’s father, who is a good half a foot taller than me and probably 75 lbs. heavier than me, comes over, plants himself right in my face, and says, “Get out of her face! She’s my niece! You don’t talk to my niece like that!”
I figure he’s obviously hoping to intimidate me with his size and masculinity, and react accordingly.
PD: Excuse me, your niece called me gay. It’s completely inappropriate for her to throw around homophobic insults.
Father: DON’T YOU GET IN MY NIECE’S FACE! SHE’S MY NIECE! WHAT’D SHE DO TO YOU?
PD: I understand that she’s your niece, and her behavior is unacceptable.
Father: I DON’T CARE, YOU DON’T TALK TO HER LIKE THAT, YOU DON’T GET IN HER FACE!
PD: I wasn’t in her face, I asked her what she said, and I would appreciate it if–
Father: SHE’S JUST A LITTLE GIRL, GET OUT OF HER FACE!
PD: –you would get out of my face.
Girl #1 dances around her father and shouts, “She wasn’t talking about you!” Girl #2 smirks, making Girl #1’s claim dubious.
PD: I want your niece to apologize.
Father: GET OUT OF MY DAUGHTER’S FACE!
PD: I wasn’t talking to your daughter, I was talking to you.
Father: GET OUT OF MY DAUGHTER’S FACE, I DON’T CARE, SHE’S JUST A LITTLE GIRL.
PD: I don’t care how old your niece is, it’s completely inappropriate for her to go around calling people gay as if it’s an insult.
Father: HOW OLD ARE YOU? HOW OLD ARE YOU? SHE’S JUST A GIRL, YOU DON’T GO NEAR HER!
PD: I wasn’t near your daughter–
Father: YOU WERE IN HER FACE!
PD: How can I get in her face if she dodges around you to yell in my face while I’m talking with you?
Father: I DON’T CARE, YOU WERE IN HER FACE, I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE.
At this point, I’m almost losing it because the scene is so surreal: two preteens who are by no means little girls, dancing around their father/uncle and smirking; a man visibly trying to intimidate me with his size and volume and utterly failing, even as he leans in closer and closer, trying to loom; the repeated cries of “DON’T YOU GET IN HER FACE!” while he’s most definitely in my face. All I can think is, “Do as I say, not as I do!” while trying not to break out in laughter.
Father: HOW OLD ARE YOU? HOW OLD ARE YOU? MY NIECE IS JUST A LITTLE GIRL.
PD: How old are you? I don’t care how old she is, trying to insult someone by calling them gay is homophobic and inappropriate at any age and your niece needs to learn that.
Father: I DON’T CARE. I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE.
PD: I think your niece should apologize and I think you should get out of my face.
The father leans in closer so that I’m practically looking straight up at him, and leans and leans and leans. It’s ridiculous. There’s a pregnant silence, where he looms, I refuse to step back or back down, and he tries to loom some more. The moment drags on and on because there’s nowhere for this tension to go: he and his niece aren’t going to apologize and I’m not going to run away crying. As we stare at each other, we both fail at our prescribed gender roles: he’s failed to intimidate me and I’ve failed to be intimidated. The father says, “Whatever,” and walks away, Girl #1 and Girl #2 in tow. As I turn and walk away, he calls out over his shoulder, “Go back to China!”
Oh, dear. At that point, my temper explodes and I turn around and yell at him, “RACIST BASTARD!” Then I rifle through my mental file of insults, thinking that using bastard as an insult is inappropriate, because there’s nothing wrong with bastardy. A couple minutes later, the ridiculousness of the whole scene strikes me:
- It’s bizarre to call someone gay as an insult, because, well, so what? It has never made any sense to me as an insult because sexual orientation has no moral value or lack thereof. I’m queer and if pointing it out is supposed to make me feel ashamed of it, that is illogical and stupid. When used as an insult, gay is a catch all phrase for everything from “doesn’t adhere to stereotypical gender roles” to “gross” and the conflation just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t understand the homophobic mindset.
- In a heterosexist society, everyone is assumed to be straight, except when it comes to insults. So does this mean that Girl #2 and other homophobes think that the people they yell at are actually gay, in which case the insult is even more nonsensical (“Yeah, I’m gay. And the sky is blue. Is that an insult to the sky?”), or do they think that the people they yell at are straight and will feel insulted at being called gay? The latter also relies on the assumption that being gay is bad and so a straight person would feel bad at being called gay, which takes us straight back to point #1.
- There is something distinctly ludicrous about being called gay while feeling too sore to walk due to some acrobatic sex with my boyfriend last night. I’m queer but currently in a relationship with a straight man–how does this fit into a homophobic paradigm? Am I supposed to feel insulted at being called gay? I DON’T KNOW!!!!!!!
- The spectacle of the father standing with his face not half a foot away from mine, screaming at the top of his lungs not to get in his niece’s or daughter’s face while his daughter dodges around him to yell at me: oh, the irony. As I texted to a friend, “Easy to see where the kids got their manners.”
“Go back to China.” It’s not a new insult to me, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. It’s racist because it assumes that I don’t belong here by virtue of my ethnicity; it incorrectly assumes what ethnicity I am; and it tries to reduce me to that erroneous assumption. Couldn’t he think of a less tired insult?
-sigh- I texted my sibling afterward, saying, “while on the way to coffee, was called gay&told to go back to china. As far as insult accuracy goes i guess 1 out of 2’s not bad? Its a failing grade@school Lol” That about sums it all up.
Prop. 8 Case
[I wrote most of this on Wednesday and hadn't finished it by the time the Court announced that it would be ruling on Prop. 8 on Tuesday, May 26 (PDF).]
So, head down in cooking, dance class, going out, and figuring out things with the +1, I’ve mostly put thoughts of Prop. 8 out of my head. The CA Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments back in March and had 90 days from that date to issue their ruling. Since all the protests last fall and winter, I’ve dropped out of the local activist scene entirely. When the oral hearings began, I marked down the 90th day out in my planner and then avoided thinking about it.
June 4: dinner for three at Maverick. June 5: Court ruling? Schubert's Great at the SF Symphony
June was tucked safely away behind many, many pages in my planner, but now, it’s nearly here. The Court normally publishes opinions on Mondays and Thursdays, with announcements of forthcoming opinion filings going up the Friday or Wednesday before. Next Monday is Memorial Day and so any opinion that would have been published on Monday will be published on Tuesday, with an announcement going up on the website on Friday. According to Day of Decision, the Court will rule by June 3, which leaves three possible dates for the ruling: Tuesday (5/26), Thursday (5/28), and Tuesday (6/2). God, we’re so close.
This decision will be a ruling once more on our humanity, on our dignity and our worth as equal human beings. Yes, the ruling is about marriage rights, but it’s apparent from looking at the ads and rhetoric of the anti-marriage equality side that the issue at hand is much broader. Are GLBTQI people indeed people, or are we monsters? By virtue of our nature, do we deserve to be shoved into the closet and hidden away so that we don’t corrupt the minds of (assumed to be straight) little children with our existence? Are our lives political footballs to be punted around for points until the election’s over and we’re told to just wait a little longer, our expectations are unreasonable and our demands unimportant?
I’m not married and never plan to be unless it’s fully legal everywhere in the country. At the moment, I’m going out with a straight man. And still, this ruling matters to me, because it’s a judgment on my very worth and dignity as a human being. I know that eventually, Prop. 8 will be repealed, if not in the next two weeks then in the next decade or so. That is cold comfort, though, and the legal justifications for upholding Prop. 8 are equally cold comfort. No matter how much I cherish rationality, logic, and the rule of law over emotions, there comes a time when the law is wrong and people of principle must not acquiesce to it.
I love this city and I love this state, but if the government decides once again that I do not have the rights to equality that are inherent to me by virtue of my humanity, if it decides once again to codify my second-class status into law, not content to leave it unspoken, assumed, and societally enforced, what place will there be for me here?
Yesterday was the thirtieth anniversary of the White Night Riots (h/t Faith). This summer will see the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Activism and change are not always peaceful, are not always conducted within the stately halls of the legislature by calm, soft-spoken people who are expected to sigh, shrug philosophically, and accept it when their humanity is decried and they are accused of being perverts, child molesters, unnatural, disgusting, sick, sinners, and abominations that will destroy society. Homophobes unleash hatred and vitriol and attack GLBTQI people and batter and kill them. And yet, it is we who are admonished not to raise a fuss, not to defend ourselves, not to overreact, not to say a word about our lived experience of homophobia.
But how can you overreact to the persistent harassment and persecution? The admonishments to behave lest there be a backlash and the demands to go quietly into the good night, those are demands to keep heterosexism in place. Those are demands to not disturb the status quo and not disturb the illusion that things are OK and that queers will get our rights some day, if we only wait long enough and quietly enough, closeted enough. Those are demands to not make people uncomfortable with the fact that homophobia is a constant, active presence for most people who aren’t straight. Those are demands to hide our dead and our wounded.
Every time I go home to my parents’ house and see their old church friends, I get asked if I have a boyfriend. They assume I’m straight. They all voted yes on Prop. 8. I want to tell them that no, I don’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and thus challenge their default assumption of straightness by making it clear that loving a girlfriend is an option for me. I have to weigh that against my parents’ reaction, though, because if I so much as mention Prop. 8, homophobia, queer rights, or anything queer-related, let alone suggest that I’m not straight, my mother will pitch a screaming fit. She’ll ask me why I have to be so “outspoken,” why I have to talk about “those people,” why I can’t just “get along,” why I have to make everything “political,” why I can’t just be “quiet.” She’ll sulk the rest of the weekend and potentially for weeks afterward. She’ll never acknowledge that by demanding that I not disturb the social peace, she’s demanding that I lie about myself and hide. She’ll never acknowledge that she’s flaunting her heterosexuality every time she goes somewhere with her husband, calls him “honey,” and invites people over to the home that they’ve made together, where there are pictures of our smiling family all around the house: female parent, male parent, and two kids. She’ll say that her old friends have “the right to have their own opinions,” not realizing or not caring that those opinions are hatred for her daughter. Sure, our family friends think queers are sick and perverted sinners, but in my mom’s mind, saving face and preserving the gay atmosphere of a dinner party is more important than how I feel about breaking bread and quietly sitting at a table with people that say that people like me are subhuman, enjoined to say nothing in my own defense. The church friends don’t know they’re talking about me when they say that gay couples will destroy marriage, but I’m not allowed to tell them they are talking about me. I’m out of the closet everywhere but at my parents’ house, even though I’ve come out to my immediate family. For the sake of the fragile peace with my mother, I’m a hypocrite.
I believe in the importance of being out and used to speak about it as the most important component of changing the hearts and minds of Prop. 8 supporters. They assumed they didn’t know anyone who was queer and so they voted for Prop. 8. If they knew that their daughters, parents, children, friends, colleagues, and neighbors were queer, that would do more to change their minds about GLBTQI equality than anything else. That is what I said. For the sake of family, though, I’m not living what I believe: I’m out to my friends, out to my family, and have no problem talking with homophobes, but the stress of parental relationships makes me a hypocrite at heart. I’d rather keep the peace with my mother than live according to my principles and correct their friends when they assume I’m straight or go on about Prop. 8. I dread going to my parents’ house if I know that their church friends will be around. And it’s all my fault, of course, for having the temerity to think that I deserve equal rights and for thinking that I should be unashamed of who I am, rather than hiding in the closet.
I think P#1 knows I’m queer, given that I’ve mentioned working with Marriage Equality and local activists on Prop. 8 protests. There are also pictures of me wearing an “IN love with my girlfriend” t-shirt floating around on Facebook. If I were in his shoes, I would assume queerness, but I tend not to assume that someone’s straight unless ze explicitly says as much. Whatever way the ruling goes, it’ll open up a chance for conversation–either way, I’ll call him up for drinks, whether it’s, “CELEBRATORY DRINKS W00T!!” or, “I need to cry on someone’s shoulder.” I hope he understands.
The mess that is my mother’s uncomfortable relationship with my non-straight sexual orientation is a major part of why I haven’t told them about P#1 and don’t plan to either, in the foreseeable future. My mother would be relieved that I’m seeing a straight man and would assume that it’d mean that GLBTQI rights don’t matter to me anymore and would assume that it makes me not-queer enough to not care about GLBTQI equality. As much as she yells at me now for so much as mentioning Prop. 8 in casual conversation with family friends, it would be even worse if I told her about P#1, because she’d think that, since I’m seeing a man, Prop. 8 and homophobia have no relevance to my life.
I can’t deal with this. The Court is ruling on Tuesday.
I’m still bitter that when I organized a protest against Prop. 8, not only did my mother try to convince me that I shouldn’t and couldn’t do it, neither of my parents bothered to show up or even wish me good luck. I think that that action, right there, said everything I needed to know about how they feel about me, despite all my mother’s pretty words about how it’s okay that I’m queer. When I came out to her and my father, she said that, and then she yelled at me because she thought I was having a hard time with the conversation–”Is it so hard to talk to us about this? Are you so scared?” Yes, mother, I was scared, because your words say one thing and your actions say something completely different. You lie.
If I can’t feel safe and comfortable in my own skin with my parents, what else is left? We’ve never been close, but I guess I just need to get used to having this icy patch between us: we’ll skirt around it but never broach the topic directly, because it just won’t be productive.
A Shard of Happiness
Something to hold onto and look at during the bad times.
I’m still excited to see P#1 and to get to know him better, and I still get the butterflies in my stomach that come from worrying that he’s going to come to his senses and run away screaming. It’s different, however, from the bursts of happiness that I felt in the first few weeks, when the uncertainty and nervousness were much more intense, and thus, also, the happiness and thrilled excitement. The happiness that I feel now might be of a different variety, or it might be that I’m becoming used to being happy, which is thrilling in its own right. Happiness doesn’t come naturally to me and isn’t my default state; I had to learn to be happy and learn to relax and learn to enjoy myself. It’s been years since I first learned that it was okay to be happy and laugh and enjoy life, and it’s still a work in progress. One thing I’ve learned is that it takes effort. Another thing I’ve learned is that there are triggers for happiness as much as there are triggers for unhappiness. There are things that will put me in a frame of mind where it’s easier and and I’ll be likelier to be happy, such as sleeping regularly and sufficiently and working out. There are things that will directly make me happy, such as Di Stefano and Callas singing “Non sono in vena,” or Alagna singing “Una Furtiva Lagrima,” or making and tasting Bordelaise sauce.
Memories of people have their own category in things that make me happy. Shared jokes, time spent laughing and singing, thoughtful moments, wild dreams, etc. My happy memories tend to fade along with all the other memories, even if I want to hold onto them forever as talismans against unhappiness. So, here’s one set down to remember. Wherever this thing with P#1 goes, however it ends, I hope I can keep this in my head for the joy and uncomplicated happiness I felt.
Apr. 16, 2009: met P#1 briefly for drinks – first encounter since hooking up.
PD: lalalalalala
S: :-D
PD: i’m happy. not just like not-unhappy, but happy in an uncomplicated sort of way
S: yepyep :-)
PD: it’s the same kind of happy i felt about the french laundry. excited and good and nice [I was so thrilled by dinner at the French Laundry…I’d forgotten that, until now.]
S: :-)
S: im listening to stray italian greyhound now
S: lol now it reminds me of you
S: hmm its so funny to think u were bored
S: ive always considered ur life to be relatively dramatic
PD: my life? i am plain like vanilla
S: well for a good portion of last year was all the drama about L
PD: oh true, but that’s regular drama. i mean, ppl have drama and crap…it’s not extraordinary
S: all drama is drama. it makes for not a boring life
PD: hmm you’re right. i was about to say, that drama wasn’t monumental and earthshaking
S: umm sure in retrospect
PD: but then again, going for drinks with a cute boy a few days after hooking up and finding out that i don’t regret it–that’s not monumental and earthshaking, either, but suddenly i’m not bored
PD: so maybe it’s about happiness?
S: :-)
PD: -twirls-
S: lol
PD: i’m so happy. i like this feeling
S: ur so funny
PD: :P :)
S: emotionally exuberant
PD: yup i’m just…happy!
S: yes, i know
PD: it feels sorta novel?
This conversation came to mind because P#1 and I are talking music, and he also likes “Stray Italian Greyhound.” I haven’t ever done the talking music tastes and listening to music with people or exchanging mixes thing aside from classical with Laurence and Bob and, for a brief while, indie/experimental with A-squared. I read a book last weekend that repeatedly said that music is particularly important as a means of defining personal identity and that it tends to be more so among young people. I’ve always been more hung up on books than on music in that regard, but a large part of that might be due to not having any music in common with most of the people I meet. This experience of discussing musical tastes is intriguing.
Blogging Against Disabilism Day Links
Linking to BADD and general disabilism posts I find interesting.
The Hand Mirror: Lose the language. Now.: On using “lame” or “spaz” and other ablist language. YES, THIS. This:
‘ableist’ language. That is, language that uses disabilities to disparage something. Very, very simple stuff, like saying that something is lame, or that someone had a bit of a spas / spaz.
Just.Don’t.Do.It.
Here’s why. (This is very much Disabilism 101 – old, old news to people who work with these issues all the time, but evidently, not much known elsewhere.)
You can say that x is bad just by saying, “X is bad.” But another way to say it is to compare x to something (which is also perceived is bad). So, “X is lame” carries that same connotation i.e that “X is bad.” The two statements are equivalent. And from there, it’s just a short step to: “Lame is bad. You are lame. You are bad bad bad.”
For the love of god, people: STOP CALLING THINGS LAME WHEN YOU MEAN THAT THEY’RE BAD, STUPID, FAULTY, BROKEN, NOT WORKING PROPERLY. STOP. IT.
Metal Sunflower: Opening My (Shortsighted) Eyes: On opening her eyes and noticing things.
I’ve started to see things. Things like the way that you might find a supposedly progressive space, where perhaps one or two of the toilet door signs have the braille equivalent underneath, but there’s no way of knowing how to find them, because there are no braille signposts. … Things like big public events. I’ve been temping, and one of the places I was temping at was a horse race. All of the seating was up a hill, up stairs and almost completely inacessable for anybody with mobility issues. … Things like public transport, too – things I’d seen but not really registered. There are lifts now at most big stations that I’ve been through. There are announcements on some London busses, informing everybody where the next stop is, and what route the bus is on. But it’s still not really geared up for people who aren’t able-bodied.
Womanist Musings: Fibromyalgia: The Invisible Pain: Renee on living with an invisible disability and chronic illnesses.
Please just stop and think before you speak. Moving from able bodied to disabled is a life changing experience and each person needs a different kind of support. Trying to pretend that nothing has changed is insulting. Yes these chronic illnesses are invisible to the naked eye but they are felt in every fibre of my being. Respecting me means respecting my illnesses; they are a part of me just like the the hair on my head. If I have to ask for help, recognize that it is a concession of my own will and I don’t need to be shamed for asking. There will always be a time for laughter and smiles but sometimes know they exist to hide the pain I live with that you have difficulty dealing with.
Bipolar Girl: Disability and Class: With the links between disability and health care, disability is inextricably linked to class issues:
There have certainly been ups and downs and will continue to be, but overall, I’m ok. I graduated with honors, went on to law school, and now am a successful lawyer. I honestly and wholeheartedly believe that without my parents and their money, their willingness to argue with the authorities of a university, their comfort with the legal system and ability to use it successfully – I would be dead. All in all, I had seven suicide attempts, not even counting the extremely dangerous behavior I exhibited while manic. But instead of trying again until I got it right, I had the opportunity to get my treatment right.
I believe that being born into a family with socioeconomic privilege made the difference between my success and my death.
BADD: Blogging Against Disablism Day
Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day (BADD). Check out Diary of a Goldfish for links to many, many interesting posts. Over at Shakesville, Liss wrote “BADD: Out of My Closet,” a thought-provoking piece on living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from sexual violence.
This, Shakers, is disablism in a nutshell: I’d rather call myself “fucked up” than disabled. And I’ve been doing exactly that for most of my life.
I have post-traumatic stress disorder as the result of a series of sexual assaults which began when I was 16, committed across several years by someone who started out as my boyfriend.
It is disabling. It’s it a disability. I am disabled.
SKM wrote “Domestic Work is Real Work,” a post on how living with a disability, feminism, and labor intersect:
Now that I live with chronic illness, I can feel the cost of domestic labor; it’s taken out of my hide, as my grandmother would have put it. I studied my spoon theory (PDF) first-hand. I should be way ahead of those whose understanding is limited by chronic wellness. But sometimes I still find myself surrounded by homemade food and freshly washed clothes and lamenting, “I haven’t done anything today!”
In addition to being BADD, today is also International Workers’ Day. It is fitting, therefore, to think not only about the work we do, but also about who gets the privilege of being counted as a worker and why. …
The work we do to support the wellbeing of ourselves, our families, and our dwellings is real work. Asserting that truth is not only a feminist act, but an anti-disablist one as well. It is an ongoing struggle for me; one which I don’t have the privilege of ignoring.
I first ran across Christine Miserandino’s The Spoon Theory (PDF) in 2004 and found it extremely educational, as an able-bodied person that had spent most of her life without even considering the existence of spoons. amandaw’s post “What Can I Do?” was similarly eye-opening and made me think about how my able-bodied privilege isn’t an abstract concept. It doesn’t exist only when I’m consciously aware of it or run into, say, broken escalators and out of service elevators at BART stations and think, “I can still make it in, but what about someone with mobility issues?” It exists every day and takes up space every single day. I wrote a post on this topic at my other blog, “Taking the Stairs“:
Elevator closures and station infrastructure as a whole are an example of ableism working at a high level. It’s not something that I or any one individual can fix. However, it’s a result and a reflection of a society full of many people who don’t think about ableism, disability, and making things handicapped-accessible. As with any society-wide prejudice, it’s the responsibility of everyone in the dominant group, even if you or I don’t think that we’re actively the cause of it, because society is built to accommodate the desires and needs of the dominant group, which in this case is able-bodied people. And so ending prejudice and able-bodied privilege requires work both in the individual and group levels.
I take the stairs. It’s not about whether it’s faster (sometimes) or easier (never) for me than the escalator, it’s about thinking and being mindful that although the escalator is convenient for me, it’s not necessary. It might be necessary for someone else, and by joining the clogged-up line, I contribute to that clog and make their day, their participation in society, that much harder when it doesn’t need to be.
Taking the stairs isn’t just about taking the stairs and thinking that’s enough; taking the stairs is about examining the idea behind taking the stairs and applying it to everything else. It’s about noticing what’s ableist and what is and isn’t accessible and working to change that rather than ignoring it or accepting it as the way things are.
That post deals specifically with the problems with the accessibility of public transit in SF and with the need to be mindful that people can have invisible as well as visible disabilities. Lauredhel touches on a similar topic in “Can I Have A Seat?“:
[B]ecause this library has put in a couple of obvious bits of effort, I feel like they are more likely to be receptive to other suggestions. Places that make no effort I just can’t deal with sometimes – once I’ve managed the effort of somehow negotiating the obstacles, I have nothing left for standing around having a conversation with strangers, especially strangers who may be clueless and obstructive.
This is the huge barrier to the “Why don’t you just ask them?” approach to disability accessibility. I’ve tried bringing this up in the course of a transaction before, and been variously ignored, insulted, belittled, lectured, stared at blankly, and offered unsuitable solutions.
Leaving accessibility enforcement to individual people with disabilities means that a whole lot of time, it just isn’t going to get done. Because we’re already running on empty from dealing with life. Sometimes, another five or ten minute conversation that could be thorny and confronting just isn’t at the top of the priority list. Sometimes we just run out of tolerance for being insulted or deliberately ignored one.more.time. And sometimes we’re just too bloody tired. When we need to sit down RIGHT NOW, standing around chatting about it doesn’t help. When we’re bled nearly dry, we have to avoid even papercuts.
Sometimes, I really just want other people to educate their own ignorant selves. For it to no longer be my job.
As someone who is able-bodied, it is my job to: educate my own damned self. To proactively be mindful of disabilities. To not default to the assumption that everyone is able-bodied. To advocate for accessibility. To take the stairs.
Reading through today’s BADD posts is a good place to start.
ETA: Check out Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, a useful resource for making your blog or website more accessible.
