By Anna on 10 November, 2009
Reading Rights is a US-based advocacy group that is campaigning to have equal access to electric book formats through text-to-speech on the Amazon Kindle. Their campaign is based around the American Author’s Guild demand that people must either prove their disability to the satisfaction of the Guild (and thus give private information over to e-book publishers) or pay extra for the same access to books.
Posted in accessibility, activism, autonomy, disability activism | Tagged disability activism, print disabilities, reading rights
By s.e. smith on 9 November, 2009
For some reason, all of my most intimate and personal conversations in the outside world take place in cars. Which is kind of odd, now that I think about it, because in a car you are captive with nowhere to go when things go bad, and sometimes they do. I think it must be all [...]
Posted in autonomy, bodies, identity, social attitudes | Tagged disability
By Staff on 3 November, 2009
There are some things which people need to be aware of, both about policing identity, and about our community specifically. Policing Identity: Policing identity is not acceptable. People who self-identify as disabled may come to this from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, and it is not appropriate for an outsider to determine when someone [...]
Posted in autonomy, bodies, identity | Tagged disability
By s.e. smith on 29 October, 2009
How about not? Truly, this is probably one of the most annoying things which people say to me. Well, ok, I exaggerate, but people have been saying it a lot lately so it’s on my mind. I’m a rather private person. I don’t think I’m that much more private than most, but as a general [...]
Posted in autonomy, bodies, social attitudes | Tagged but this is about me, family, privacy
By lauredhel on 27 October, 2009
(This was originally posted at Hoyden About Town on July 29, 2009, and has been edited for FWD) I got a scooter just a few months ago. It’s red, and shiny, and its name is Smaug. It’s made my life vastly better. No longer do I struggle to walk the block to school pickup, and [...]
Posted in autonomy, i'm right here, social attitudes
By s.e. smith on 17 October, 2009
One of the many problems which people with disabilities of all genders experience is well-meant advice. How is advice a problem? Well, it plays into a long history of infantalization of people with disabilities, and it’s a reminder to us that non-disabled people often believe that they know what’s good for us. The fact that [...]
Posted in autonomy, bodies, feminism, identity
By abby jean on 13 October, 2009
I have a longstanding problem with reading any comment threads on posts discussing whether people with mental disabilities should be “allowed” to decide what medication and treatment they want, if they want any at all. The threads usually have one or two comments agreeing with the post, and then quickly devolve into stories from people [...]
Posted in autonomy, mental health
By Ouyang Dan on 10 October, 2009
Moderatrix note: This post is the love child of my coming to terms with a need and actual want of pills. When discussions arise of disability, especially, it seems, of invisible disabilities, someone will almost always jump in and start harping about Big Pharma and how they have certainly invented our illness or disorder just [...]
Posted in autonomy, shaming | Tagged chronic pain conditions, drugs are bad mmm'kay, fibro, pain management
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