J. Logan Smilges
@jlsmilges
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Always all of my love, always all that I can hold. Author of #QueerSilence , #CripNegativity , and other words on crip, trans, and queer worlding. They/them.
Joined August 2011
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It's time for a new era in disability studies.
It's time for some bad crip feelings.
#CripNegativity
Coming May 30th. Open access.
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While I was at CVS today, a woman began having a psychotic episode. Despite that she wasn’t causing harm, another customer demanded that she be kicked out. The manager responded, flatly, “We don’t discriminate against disability.” And that was that. Anti-ableism! In the wild!
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I am once again warning you all that I am this close 🤏🏼 to opening a gym that centers disabled and trans people’s needs with wheelchair-friendly machines, no loud music, soft overhead lights, individual shower rooms, fat-positive trainers, and classes led by drag queens.
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I don’t care that 20 year olds circulate weird lists of “problematic” books on Twitter, but I do care about the challenges that come with teaching a growing population of students who are accustomed to using leftist vernacular to defend their own puritanism.
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There is no better evidence that the show The Good Doctor employed zero autistic writers and actors than a storyline in which the autistic neurosurgeon doesn’t know what a trans person is. Like, girl, every other autistic person I know is trans. Gender is a mystery to our kind 💀
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Today during a frustrating meeting about a department-wide class attendance policy, I said, “This is what institutionalizing ableism looks like—this right here.” And suddenly the energy of the conversation shifted.
People were uncomfy, and I’m proud of it.
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This past semester was my first teaching as faculty and my first teaching in Texas. I was so excited. I entered break thinking I'd made a difference. But I just received my course evals, and they are cruel. Comments about my body, my makeup, my clothes. I'm heartbroken.
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I am truly overwhelmed by the love, generosity, kindness, and encouragement you all have poured out on me. Thank you from the bottom of my genderqueer, neuroqueer, and queerly queer heart.
Today is my first day teaching this semester. I am DRESSED and ready to GO.
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One thing that deserves more attention about the Oher suit is disability. Oher is not disabled, but his representation as such justified the Tuohy’s involvement in his life. It’s a classic example of racialized ableism: the figure of disability weaponized for anti-Blackness.
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A Deaf boy on the corner is selling lemonade for $1.50 per cup, but there’s a $0.50 discount if you order using ASL. He has a little poster with all of the signs printed on it, so people can learn. Disabled kids fucking rule.
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It shouldn’t be lost on us which colors are severed from the rainbow in addition to the trans ones. LGB disavowals of trans people are part of a larger racialized eugenic project because gender fascism is, at its core, a vector of white supremacy.
*SNIP SNIP* It is now OFFICIAL.
I now pronounce the mutual divorce between the LGB & TQ+ community.
The time is now. 🏳️🌈✂️🏳️⚧️
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I need all disabled people & folks who love us to note the growing list of states that have proposed legislation to designate autistic people on their driver’s license. 5 states (NY, NV, RH, NC, WV) have introduced a version of this biocertifying registry in 2023. It’s alarming.
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Well, it’s official. Georgia’s SB140 explicitly names autism, alongside “other mental health and developmental conditions,” as a justification for criminalizing gender-affirming healthcare.
Again and again, I say: ableism is the packaging in which transphobia is delivered.
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The Special Olympics lifting it’s vaccine requirement because they “don’t want to fight” conservatives is exactly why accessibility & inclusion of disabled people are not synonymous with liberation & disability justice.
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Every semester, at least a few colleagues express anxiety about student participation. I always suggest reframing the issue to honor multiple forms of engagement: how can we invite students to engage in ways that are accessible to them?
Here are some examples from my courses.
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CN: suicide.
Shortly after I exited conversion therapy at 18, I attempted suicide. My parents cried because they believed a completed suicide may have spared my eternal soul.
When trans people forge chosen families, it’s often because our given families would prefer us dead.
A TERF on the Montana house floor admits that she'd rather watch her kid k*** themselves than provide gender-affirming care
These are the people who say they're "protecting children"
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My students wrote 6-word memoirs in class today. It’s a fun activity to practice concision, so I joined in. When finished, I wrote mine on the board: “That beautiful stranger loved me once.”
Students gasped. One said, “It’s wild how words make you feel things.”
C’mon teaching!
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In happy news, this was me two years ago right after I successfully defended my dissertation. Afterward, I promptly went home to dump my ex, who had forgotten about my defense 🥰
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If you’re an educator reading this, your friendly disabled professor of Disability Studies hereby grants you the power to distribute accommodations to any student, for any reason, at any time, regardless of their affiliation with Disability Services, from now until you die.
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I’m visiting family in Florida & overheard a woman at the gym tell her friend that she refused the COVID vaccine for her immunocompromised, autistic child for fear that it would “bump them down the spectrum.” I nearly dropped the barbell at the sheer volume of misinformation.
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Thinking about the absolute chaos that would ensue with an academic nepo baby chart.
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babe are you ok you’ve barely acknowledged that memes—etymologically related to mimesis—are a digital expression of autistic echolalia that has been rendered normative through neurotypical engagement, despite that mimetic communication is still pathologized in other contexts.
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Please stop positioning “nonbinary” as some type of conceptual or aesthetic middle ground between “cis” and “trans.”
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We need to talk about how often disabled instructors, attempting to provide radical access with flexible deadlines & participation requirements, wind up with their courses deprioritized by students who are desperately trying to shoulder other instructors’ hostile pedagogies.
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After being stuck in quarantine for the past five months with an abusive boyfriend who refused to use my correct pronouns, routinely belittled my intelligence, and casually mocked my disabilities, yesterday I moved to a new apartment in a new city for a new life.
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So much of ableism under capitalism emerges out of two assumptions:
(1) disability is the worst burden that could ever befall a person because it limits productivity, and
2) should disability happen to you, it’s naturally your own burden to bear because care is a commodity.
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It was actually a great day until I received an article manuscript back from the copy editor, who changed all 79 instances of identity-first language to “person with disabilities.”
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Received an “accept without revision” decision from a flagship journal for an essay that I wrote in a 9-hour fit of rage prompted by the worst thread of tweets I’ve ever read
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No students misgendered me in their course evaluations 🥹, not even the one that wrote, “This class really disappointed me. Dr. Smilges is clearly biased, and they always prioritize disabled people’s opinions over the opinions of doctors, as if that makes sense.”
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your campus’s disability services office that begrudgingly allocates accommodations to students in order to avoid violating federal law is not practicing disability justice.
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I long for a world wherein the rise of openly disabled college students can be celebrated as a victory rather than cited as evidence that students are lying.
Woah.
“There was a 292% increase in students classified with disabilities at the top eight liberal arts colleges over the past 12 years”
Pretty strong evidence that a “disabled” label is becoming a fasion accessory for rich kids.
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I deleted the tweet about my attack because of the homophobia and transphobia crowding my mentions & DM’s.
It’s not new that a queer victim is made out to be the perpetrator. It’s not original that transmisogyny is propped up to “defend” women. But damn, it’s all so cruel.
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WE HAVE UPDATES!
After reading so many brilliant suggestions, we are adding warming/cooling rooms to regulate body temp, a resting space with rollers & pillows, disabled and multi-age trainers, size-flexible (weight and height) equipment, and limited television screens.
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Grad students debriefing after being told by admin how lucky they are to be making sub-minimum wage
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MORE UPDATES:
You’ve spoken, and I’ve listened! I’m adding a zero-depth entry, warm pool with wheelchair access, a sliding scale for membership, low-cost access to physical/occupational therapy, & live-streamed classes for people who want to workout from home.
Radical. Access.
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Why isn’t the disability pride flag just a heating pad on a stick?
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I don’t buy that the language people learn in therapy is somehow eroding their innate selflessness, but I do think this article captures how people with no interest in the work of community will weaponize anything—including the sacredness of their own healing—to justify it.
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Mad and neurodivergent graduate students are CARRYING the field of disability studies.
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Academics will really say “your work is so accessible” as an insult 🤡
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My non-academic significant other just patiently sat through a practice round of a talk I’m giving this week. Afterward, he said, “Do you know how beautiful your smile is?”
When I say that I’m open to Q&A, THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS THAT I WANT.
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Canada called, and--
I am delighted to share that, starting Fall 2022, I am joining the University of British Columbia's Department of English Language and Literatures (
@ubc_english
) as a trans, disabled assistant professor of the rhetoric of health & medicine.
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An older man at the gym approached me this morning. He said, “I’m sorry for staring, but I don’t often see young people wear masks anymore. It means a lot to folks like me.”
Ten minutes later he returned, “I’ve also been looking at your ass. You have a great ass.”
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Perhaps it will seem obvious, but it bears repeating that revolution requires many different kinds of people, including those who are kind and gentle.
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Proximity to disability does not make someone an expert in Disability Studies, an ally to disabled people, or a spokesperson for our community.
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I’m sorry but describing your class, let alone your deptartment’s curriculum, as something designed to “weed out” students is so embarrassing. Like, why are you building a fake scarcity logic into your pedagogy?
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I stand corrected. He is not a neurosurgeon. Just a regular, run-of-the-mill surgeon with *checks notes from the Google description* “savant syndrome.” I MEAN 💀
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I’m seeing folks in the replies who *do* seem to enjoy shitting on young people’s behavior on social media, which is expressly the opposite intent of my tweet. We can be honest about the need for new pedagogies without bemoaning an entire generation of students.
I’m muting now.
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FYI the “Pride” in
#DisabilityPrideMonth
is for disabled people to feel about ourselves. It’s not for parents, caregivers, social workers, or medical practitioners to feel toward us. It’s not inspiration porn month.
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Sia, the person who made a whole ass movie about autism with no autistic people, came out as autistic today.
If you’re trying to make sense of why that news forms a super icky feeling in the pit of your stomach, I have a book for you.
#CripNegativity
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Hold your trans and disabled kin close. It’s about to become very, very ugly, I fear.
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PSA for Exam Season:
Did you know 🤔 that if a student 🧑💻turns in an assignment a few hours late 📝, you as the professor 🧑🏫 can just be cool 😎 and accept it without making it into a whole thing ✅?
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Hell hath no fury like the parent of a disabled child being gently corrected by disabled people.
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I don’t think we talk enough about the psychological toll it takes on disabled people to spend your entire life navigating the societal assumption—sometimes made explicit, sometimes only implied—that you’re, at the end of the day, a burden.
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My dearest neurodivergent friends, I think it’s time to reflect on our attachment to the endless stream of threads attempting to enumerate neurodivergent traits or essential differences between neurodivergence/neurotypicality.
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Collapsing “accessible” and “family-friendly” is actually incredibly ableist and makes Pride *less accessible* to disabled queers.
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The whole “HRT causes irreversible changes to your body” argument is so weird because, like, being ALIVE causes irreversible changes to your body. Every bend of the knee, every minute in the sun, every bowl of cereal. Living is changing! Irreversibly!
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Today at the gym, I overheard a mother tell her child, “It’s time for a body check. Do you want to take a break?” The child drank some water, breathed, and decided to stretch for awhile.
I LOVE when parents teach children how to listen to their bodies while exercising.
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The coterminous nature of these proposals and the onslaught of anti-trans legislation is not coincidental. The same forces that prop up trans people as “groomers” and “pedophiles” also construe disabled people as monsters who pose a direct threat to the nation’s wellbeing.
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I’m in tears over this anonymous essay in College English (1974) about life as a gay PhD student:
“I remember being asked, in behavior therapy, what would make me perfectly happy: ‘To walk down to the lake with someone and just feed the ducks.’”
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No one prepares disabled people for the amount of energy we expend holding space for others who are grieving that they’re one of us. It’s tiresome and painfully disorienting to cradle someone’s sadness when you know that sadness is because they wish they weren’t like you.
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I’ve debated saying anything because it shouldn’t matter, but to the folks in my DMs mocking my idea for radically accessible gyms, hit me up when you can squat 405, bench 315, and deadlift 495 like I can.
Till then, I’m going to keep hiring drag queens to teach powerlifting.
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CN: suicide
Whenever suicide enters The Discourse, I’m surprised by how many people believe the biggest obstacle to prevention is people keeping ideation a secret rather than that people are rightfully frightened of being institutionalized/incarcerated when they do disclose.
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Crip time doesn’t just refer to the temporalities produced by disability but also the disability produced by time: waiting too long for surgery because it’s expensive, working too many hours for the money, skipping meals to make the shift. Crip time is also debility time.
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For me, it’s always this one:
Be gentle with people who want to learn. Be suspicious of people who only ever want to teach.
what’s some advice you’ve received that’s never left you?
can be personal or professional
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Cisableism—the entwining of cissexism and ableism—is not restricted to the oppression of disabled trans people. Instead, it’s dual axes affect all disabled and all trans people by hinging each vector of violence on the other. Ableism justifies transphobia and vice versa.
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I am tickled by the support I’ve received since yesterday. Disabled and trans people care deeply about our bodies! We all deserve spaces to celebrate, strengthen, and love on our ourselves.
I’m muting this thread now, but I look forward to making this gym happen one day.
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Coming October 25, 2022.
#QueerSilence
Now available for preorder wherever books are sold.
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I was called a faggot and had coffee thrown at me from a car window in Dallas today. Given the new Texas GOP platform, I don’t know how to interpret this violence as anything other than state-authorized.
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When I was 9, I hand wrote a letter to Angela Lansbury, asking whether she thought I should become an actor, and mailed it to some obscure fan PO box. She responded by hand and told me, whatever I chose to do, to tell stories that mattered.
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If you’re protesting this weekend, be sure to wear a mask to ensure that our collective resistance is also accessible resistance.
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Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of writers daydream about including all the people who got in their way or tried to hold them back from writing in their acknowledgements.
Well, I did that in
#QueerSilence
. I named names, and it feels so good.
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If you’re an educator, this 🎟️ is your anti-ableist permission slip allowing you to grant accommodations to any student who requests them, regardless of institutional policy, because access should never be gatekept & classes should never be governed by carceral, punitive logics.
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You think it’s embarrassing being out of touch with pop culture? Try finding out you’re MORE online than your students. Absolutely devastating.
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I cannot overstate how much of my time as a politically conscious disabled academic is spent reminding students that, yes, you’re allowed to have a body and reminding faculty that, no, you’re not allowed to punish students for it.
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…autistic people are disallowed from transitioning because doctors assume we are incapable of knowing what is best for ourselves or because doctors incorrectly attribute our desire to transition as a “symptom” of our autism. Either way, cissexism authorizes ableism.
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Most disabled people are unable to access socially sanctioned rest without first coding it as rehabilitative, as part of a prescribed journey toward cure.
We deserve rest that indulges & amplifies our bodyminds as they are—not just rest that is engineered to eliminate us.
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What neither trans liberationists nor disability justice folks can forget is that our movements are necessarily entwined because trans disabled people exist AND because the powers that subject both communities are mutually enforced.
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Petition for gay clubs to recognize disability pride month in July by scheduling accessible events with a mask requirement, designated quiet spaces, AC on blast, silent-disco-style music that you listen to with headphones, and a multi-height bar. I wanna turn up cripply 🥲
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Amidst all the pain and chaos of this moment, I hope you’ll indulge some joy of mine.
I am thrilled to announce that this fall I will be an Assistant Professor of English at Texas Woman’s University. My heart is so full of gratitude, and my tummy will soon be so full of BBQ.
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A professor in grad school told me I needed to footnote that I’m gay in my scholarship in order to be honest with readers about my bias.
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The Notetaker: some students engage by documenting class discussion, even if they don’t add to it. These students produce a record for the entire class. It’s a great way to ensure all students, even ones who are absent, can return to the ideas produced during each class meeting.
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In this one statement, Greene yoked her transphobia to ableism, betting on the fact that “mental illness” is a self-evident & incontestable problem. Cissexism propped up by a fear of disability. Transness and mental illness both as contagious & dangerous.
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And not that it matters, but this woman’s lifting form sucked ass. Gonna throw out her unvaxxed back guaranteed.
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Once in grad school, someone threw a PowerPoint party at which everyone had to present on a topic of their choosing. My presentation was titled, “What Your Man’s Underwear Says About Him,” and when I tell you the straight guys in my program started taking notes…
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I’ve written a book on disability & queer politics, and I promise it is not new that nondisabled gays would rather sideline disabled people’s lives than acknowledge possibilities for solidarity. This isn’t a conversation about pleasure or harm reduction. It’s about disposability.
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Consider Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comments at CPAC. In an attempt to sow fear about the existence of trans kids, she said, “Many of these victims have diagnoses of autism, of mental illness, they have depression, they have anxiety, they have psychosis.”
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Bechdel Test for Disability:
Is there at least one openly disabled character with a storyline involving more than the trials of, recovery from, or cure for their disability?
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The results of my student evaluations were released today, & as I imagine is the case for many marginalized faculty, I’m amused by the range of comments. One student will complain that there was too much reading, & the very next will say “thank you for literally saving my life.”
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This was the last time I heard from my dad. The picture in question was a selfie with me wearing blush.
At the time, this message broke my heart. Now I kinda want to put it on a tshirt.
It’s a big day for queers with fathers whose bigotry is outpaced only by their incompetence.
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When disabled people talk about “internalized ableism,” it’s usually about bad feelings they bear toward themselves. But the most pernicious forms are the bad feelings we aim at those with different disabilities or whose experiences of ableism exceed the category of disability.
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