Recommended Reading for February 26th

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language and ideas of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post. I attempt to provide extra warnings for material like extreme violence/rape; however, your triggers/issues may vary, so please read with care.

Mia Mingus at Leaving Evidence: “Intersectionality” is a Big Fancy Word for My Life (Excerpts from MBGLTACC 2010 Keynote Address)

We live in a heterosexist society, we live in an ableist society and we all have a responsibility to actively work against it. We can’t guarantee that things won’t be ableist or won’t be racist (that’s not the world we live in right now); but we CAN guarantee that when there is racism, when there is ableism, that we will do something about it. We will LISTEN to those most impacted; we will listen to people of color, we will listen to disabled folks; we will listen to trans folks; we will listen to the queer disabled people of color—and hear them. […]

So I would say the same thing to the queer able-bodied folks in the audience and the folks who benefit from able-bodied privilege (in many different ways): how are you connecting your fight for queer liberation to challenging able-bodied supremacy? How are you connecting your queerness to your able-bodied privilege? How are you listening to queer disabled folks in your world, supporting them and practicing solidarity? How are you actively noticing how ability, ableism and able-bodied supremacy play out in queer communities, student groups, organizations, and movements?

cripchick: memo on “intersectionality”

“intersectionality” is not simply the meeting place of single issue politics. it is something where pieces of our experiences are so intertwined and so entangled together that they cannot be pulled apart into strands.

the way you treat intersectionality is like asking me to look up in the sky and pinpoint where the clouds begin and end.

megpie: Sometimes Shit Happens

But try explaining this to the average layperson who doesn’t have depression, and they look at me as though I’m even more crazy than I actually am – I can’t just be this depressed without a REASON; it goes against all logical thought. […] So maybe what’s needed is a little less time spent searching for the massive, traumatic REASON for my mental illness, and a bit more time spent on dealing with the reality of its existence.

justira at Dreamwidth: Utah actually considers criminalizing miscarriage, my brain explodes

And then there is the presumption that a family without children is incomplete, not a proper family, so when are going to start a family? You better do it before you’re 30, or 90% of your eggs will shrivel up! And then it’s back to the fertility clinic, but watch out, if you have the gall to delay having children for that long you will probably have some kind of gross disabled kid. Better get a gene scan just to make sure and keep working on those cures! Unless you’re some lazy unemployed slut, in which case you should be sterilized against your will. Feminists / liberals / pro-choicers / whathaveyou don’t get a free pass here, either, not when shit like this and this needs to be said. Not to mention this and this. Not when you use a misogynist slur to describe one of the lived realities of women in childbirth. In short: white, non-disabled upper-class women are to have white, non-disabled children, whether they want them or no, and be goddamn happy about it.

The Washington Post: Shinseki: US will fix broken VA disability system

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said he’s making it a top priority this year to tackle the backlog of disability claims that has veterans waiting months – even years – to get financial compensation for their injuries. […]

Shinseki said he’s often asked why, 40 years after the Vietnam war and nearly two decades after the Gulf War, his agency is still trying to resolve issues related to those veterans’ illnesses. […] Shinseki said he’s looking ahead to make sure Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries don’t have similar problems getting financial compensation.

The Telegraph: Travel industry ‘failing to cater for disabled’ [via Rolling Rains Report]

Britain’s leading travel companies are failing to serve the needs of disabled travellers, new research has found. […]

Brian Seaman, head of consultancy at Tourism for All, said the travel industry needs to do more to understand the needs of disabled travellers. “We have conducted independent research in the past by sending disabled travellers to the high street to find a disabled-friendly holiday to Majorca,” he said. “In every case, not one travel agent was able to offer a product that might have resulted in a booking. The agents had great difficulty in finding suitable accommodation and when it came to visiting the accommodation on the island that they were able to find, they turned out not to be as accessible for disabled people as the agents had suggested.”