i love that motorcycles exist. like i’m genuinely so glad that someone was like “what if bikes were as fast as cars and could turn you into roadkill if you hit a pothole”
what if there was a vehicle so dangerous you had to wear armor to drive it
it’s really frustrating to see people buying into arbitrary and incorrect divisions between “mental” and “physical” disabilities to describe the very real ableist aggression and disparity in social privilege that is better described by the ability to conform to abled hegemony
like… yes, there is a very real phenomenon of the adhd tiktokker with perfect makeup reacting with disgust towards the wheelchair user in their space
this is because that adhd tiktokker is able to fit into normative abled hegemony. their symptoms do not, currently, present as a significant barrier to engaging in abled hegemony to the extent that they exist entirely outside of it and therefore have to question its very roots. they are still able to be seen as productive, attractive, and therefore socially valuable under abled hegemony, and so they find value and utility in that hegemony and are able to use it to punch down on other disabled people who cannot.
this is still true even if their adhd manifests as what many refer to as a “physical disability” (for example, it’s not uncommon for adhd to manifest with invisible breathing and heart problems, which i’m not going to get into the methodology behind here because it’d be derailing). i’ve encountered scores of people with what would generally be classed as “physical disabilities” who exist in this space–asthma, joint hypermobility disorders, chronic pain, limb replacements, hearing disorders–i have seen people whose “physical” disorders do not disqualify them entirely from acceptance into abled hegemony, time and time again, enact violence on people who are incapable of conforming to abled hegemony. i see this in the “spoonie” and “zebra” communities, i see it in “chronic illness” spaces that accept capitalist class interests and breed liberalism.
equally, i’ve encountered scores of people labeled as solely “mentally ill” or “mentally disabled” who experience the kind of disenfranchisement that is associated with “physical disability” separatism right now–people with ID and autism who are nonverbal/use AAC or who experience severe mobility issues causing them to use mobility aids for purely “mental” reasons, for example. people who tic visibly/audibly in ways that subject them to social violence. schizophrenics who are subject to physical violence simply because of their body language, even if they don’t interact with anyone at all. people who uncontrollably faint at certain stimuli due to panic disorders and face public access barriers as a result.
there’s a pattern being picked up on, in that what we classify as “physical” symptoms tend to actually be visible symptoms, and what we classify as “mental” symptoms tend to be invisible symptoms. but that is a false and arbitrary dividing line; there isn’t a hard and fast line between the brain and the body. as with the sex binary, classifying something into two dialectic categories extremely rarely works as anything other than a thought exercise.
broadly speaking, the more publicly visible your disabled traits are, the less you’re able to fit into normative abled hegemony; broadly speaking, the disabled people who enact oppression on other disabled people via utilizing abled hegemonic ideals tend to have more invisible disabled traits. but that doesn’t sort into a clean physical/mental divide, because that method of sorting bodymind traits is outdated and unscientific.
Okay, this is super preliminary, but since we’ve been talking about zoo accessibility I wanted to launch a project I’ve been planning for a couple months.
One of the hardest things about visiting zoological facilities when disabled is the lack of knowledge ahead of time, right? Often the information on the zoo’s website about accessibility doesn’t contain everything folk need to know to plan a visit. I think we can probably help fix that, even if it’s with just crowd-sourced knowledge!
This is a google spreadsheet for recording accessibility information for various zoos. It is super unfinished right now, FYI. That’s partially because I need to fill in more of it from my own experiences, and partially because there are things I didn’t note or experience - which I’d love for y'all to chime in about.
Categories for the spreadsheet so far include rentable assistance options, service dog information, accessible bathroom locations, mobility, vision, auditory and sensory issues (or accommodations), food allergy options, and general notes. I’m also including the information each zoo website provides, and guest assistance phone numbers, so all the information is in one place.
To add to this crowd-sourced zoo accessibility resource:
Send an ask to the blog, or comment on the appropriate cel on the spreadsheet (if the facility you want to comment on is already listed).
Provide the name of the zoo/aquarium/sanctuary and the approximate date you visited.
Tell me your experiences / information, and what categories they belong in.
Feel free to submit photos, if that’s useful info! I’m going to see if I can find a way to host them and link in the spreadsheet.
I’ll take information as it’s submitted and integrate it into the sheet. If the zoo you’ve visited isn’t on the list yet, I still want to add it! This resource is going to stay US-based, however. (I just don’t have the capacity to manage an international one).
Obviously, I can’t personally verify everything people submit, so this is very much a resource and not a definitive guide. Date stamps are crucial important for keeping track of what’s recent and what might have been updated since someone visited.
Let’s make zoo, aquarium, and sanctuary visits more accessible for everyone!
Okay! I think I’ve got almost everything that was added (via ask, reblog, or spreadsheet comment) integrated! Had to take a bit of time off for health reasons, but happy I can come back to it again.
I’ve added a bunch more categories based on your suggestions and contributions, including: parking, multi-lingual support, ride/show/transit accessibility, sun exposure, food & water, low/no cost entrance, support staff policies, options for SDs (bathroom spots, etc), behind-the-scenes accessibility, elevator locations, bench frequency/locations… it’s getting huge but I think it’s super important information.
I’ve done a bit of formatting to try to make the spreadsheet less visually overwhelming. Topics aren’t in any particular order, although I tried to group related concepts together. Grey columns are for information copied from the facility website, and white comments are for the most important part of the spreadsheet: your comments and feedback! That way what’s shared officially can be differentiated visually from what people have contributed.
Please feel free to send me more information and I’ll update it as I have time.
Comments and feedback from personal experience are the most useful contributions. I’m going through as I have time and populating the information from the zoo’s website, so while I super appreciate it when you send me that, you don’t need to duplicate that work. What I want to know is what I can’t find online!
How long are the hills? How’s the path conditions? How did you feel like the staff reacted to your SD? Is the signage at wheel-chair level appropriate for adults, or just kids? That sort of thing is the meat of this project.
TIA.
Hellooooooo disabled tumblr, do you wish zoos were more accessible to you? Do you wish you could reliably go to the zoo and not be kept from one area or the other- or entering at all- due to your disability and aids?
Then do I have a post for you! @why-animals-do-the-thing is a wonderful friend of mine, disabled herself as well as a huge disability advocate, and she works primarily with zoos to ensure their policies remain as current with modern science and standards as possible. She is gathering a ton of information on what makes zoos accessible or not and will be working to fix the problems that are there so that zoos can be enjoyed by all people instead of just some.
If you want to have someone vouch for her- I can tell you that speaking with her over the years is what allowed me to go to zoos again in the first place, and using her animal knowledge is also why I am a big advocate for cooperative care with my animals nowadays. She really is a wealth of knowledge and has done great work, and participating in this survey would help her greatly in her goal to improve zoos nationwide.
“if you put too many people together they start shooting each other!!” that just sounds like usamerican projection, but okay
also: western lib: *sees an apartment building in a socialist country* western lib: is this a gulag??
i love the ‘imagine the energy consumed by this building’ because like. it’s actually very clear and obvious that a building of many apartments will require less energy than the same number of detached houses, since it shares services and thermal inertia
imagine going to visit so many of your friends and they’re like only a few floors away or maybe right next door
imagine the tenant’s union that this kind of place can form 😍
The ideal living arrangement, according to the people on this post lmao
If you like this idea then go live there, go live that dream.
I personally will live like a human instead of a lab rat, I want to be able to go outside and touch grass and listen to the wind blow through the trees.
Usamericans are so suburbpoisoned they don’t realize you can just. Walk out of an apartment building. You aren’t stuck inside.
ALT
ALT
