Crossing Many Rainbows

wyrdwulf:

I’m aware. This is appropriation. Did you not read the text from one of these people in their own words, by their own admission? It’s pure appropriation and as an ACTUAL DISABLED PERSON, I find people WANTING to be oppressed but go back and devour their privilege and use it to their advantage horribly appropriative, highly problematic, trivialising, ableist and patronising. This person described and treated being disabled as the equivalent of shoe shopping. She wanted to choose which disability, how disabled and when she could decide when not to be for her own convenience. Don’t pull that bullshit on me unless you know the fucking context. Not only that, but the language they choose to use are specifically appropriated from transgender people(and as someone who is also transgender, it comes as a double punch in the face, heart, stomach and pretty much all parts of me that I DONT GET TO ERASE FOR MY OWN CONVENIENCE.) This is also going to contribute to systemic ableism because someone like this individual who just wants her “disability” as the latest trendy fashion wants to go on disability and take funding and social services from actual disabled people who ACTUALLY NEED IT.

You really need to check up on the basic definitions of appropriation and oppression. I hate to say it but you can’t just decide to be oppressed because it makes you feel special and then decide to not be because it’s more convenient not to be. It’s horribly fucking privileged, and it trivialises, fetishises, and erases actual human beings who don’t get to choose “disability” as a fucking identity. I’d love if being disabled was just an identity though, how convenient would that be?

Honestly.  

This also goes for that fucker who wants to be a trans-Korean or whatever the fuck.  

But yeah, my disability is just an “identity” I can remove whenever I feel like it right? 

I did not read the whole argument—what I read was the piece that got taken out of context and presented as the crux of this argument, since that was what was apparently deemed relevant to the current discussion.

If there are people claiming that they are oppressed when they are not, especially if they currently enjoy the privileges of being white or non-disabled or anything else that merits them privileged regardless of how they may internally identify, then that is definitely not okay, I agree with you there.  If they are not transgender themselves and are using comparisons to being trans* to describe their experiences, then that’s not okay either.

If, however, somebody feels that their body is not the way it should be, and is struggling with what they need to do and how far they need to go to make it feel right, then that, to me, seems reasonable.  It still might be problematic, depending on how they conceptualise the idea and how they choose to discuss it, and given what context you’ve given to the rest of their posts, then yes, I agree, especially if their end goal is to take away resources from people that need them.  It’s problematic and ableist.  I’m not remotely going to argue with you there.

My only reason behind reblogging the post was to point out that transableism is frequently coming from a real place of physical discomfort (that is, BIID, though just like with anything else, it might only get diagnosed as such if it’s a severe or life-threatening or life-altering situation) and to also point out that nobody is making up these identities.  Or if they are, then that’s something that needs to be taken up with them as individuals, not used to dismiss an entire group because of the bad apples that crop up within it.

I’m sorry that I offended, and I’ll concede to you and back out of the discussion.

(via wulfflaed-deactivated20130510)