#disabilityjustice — Public Fediverse posts

I stand in my kitchen wanting to use an appliance I have already paid for. Its smooth touchscreen gives me no tactile information. I use a camera app to find the controls, place markers where I think buttons may appear, and hope the layout has not changed. One accidental tap can take me somewhere I cannot identify or exit without sighted help. A task that should take moments becomes a process requiring concentration, technology, and luck.

Many disabled people know this experience. We become skilled at adapting. We label buttons, memorise layouts, ask friends or family to help with setup, search for accessible workarounds, and learn to make do with only part of what a product offers. Those strategies can be useful, and they can protect our independence in the moment.

Yet the effort is rarely recognised as work. It takes time, money, energy, confidence, and sometimes privacy. Products then appear “accessible” because a disabled person has managed to force a way through, even where the design itself has excluded us from using the product fully and reliably.

The barriers differ across disability experiences. A device that communicates only through sound can leave Deaf and hard of hearing users without vital information. Controls requiring fine precision, force, or repeated physical effort can be inaccessible for people living with pain, fatigue, mobility limitations, or reduced dexterity. Busy, inflexible interfaces can overwhelm or exclude people with cognitive disabilities and neurodivergent people. Voice assistants cannot serve everyone, especially people whose speech is not reliably recognised.

Manufacturers have choices. A touchscreen appliance can include tactile controls and meaningful feedback. Digital instructions can be made accessible. Settings can be simplified and personalised. Disabled people can be included while products are being researched, designed, tested, and supported. These approaches recognise that disabled people are customers, experts in our own access needs, and members of every household.

Sharing adaptations with each other remains important because people need solutions today. We also need to expect more from society, from businesses, and from the institutions responsible for consumer access. When access barriers are treated as individual problems for disabled people to solve, exclusion becomes routine. Naming the barrier, reporting it, supporting disability led advocacy, and insisting on inclusive design can help shift that expectation.

#AccessibleDesign #DisabilityJustice #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

I stand in my kitchen wanting to use an appliance I have already paid for. Its smooth touchscreen gives me no tactile information. I use a camera app to find the controls, place markers where I think buttons may appear, and hope the layout has not changed. One accidental tap can take me somewhere I cannot identify or exit without sighted help. A task that should take moments becomes a process requiring concentration, technology, and luck.

Many disabled people know this experience. We become skilled at adapting. We label buttons, memorise layouts, ask friends or family to help with setup, search for accessible workarounds, and learn to make do with only part of what a product offers. Those strategies can be useful, and they can protect our independence in the moment.

Yet the effort is rarely recognised as work. It takes time, money, energy, confidence, and sometimes privacy. Products then appear “accessible” because a disabled person has managed to force a way through, even where the design itself has excluded us from using the product fully and reliably.

The barriers differ across disability experiences. A device that communicates only through sound can leave Deaf and hard of hearing users without vital information. Controls requiring fine precision, force, or repeated physical effort can be inaccessible for people living with pain, fatigue, mobility limitations, or reduced dexterity. Busy, inflexible interfaces can overwhelm or exclude people with cognitive disabilities and neurodivergent people. Voice assistants cannot serve everyone, especially people whose speech is not reliably recognised.

Manufacturers have choices. A touchscreen appliance can include tactile controls and meaningful feedback. Digital instructions can be made accessible. Settings can be simplified and personalised. Disabled people can be included while products are being researched, designed, tested, and supported. These approaches recognise that disabled people are customers, experts in our own access needs, and members of every household.

Sharing adaptations with each other remains important because people need solutions today. We also need to expect more from society, from businesses, and from the institutions responsible for consumer access. When access barriers are treated as individual problems for disabled people to solve, exclusion becomes routine. Naming the barrier, reporting it, supporting disability led advocacy, and insisting on inclusive design can help shift that expectation.

#AccessibleDesign #DisabilityJustice #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

I stand in my kitchen wanting to use an appliance I have already paid for. Its smooth touchscreen gives me no tactile information. I use a camera app to find the controls, place markers where I think buttons may appear, and hope the layout has not changed. One accidental tap can take me somewhere I cannot identify or exit without sighted help. A task that should take moments becomes a process requiring concentration, technology, and luck.

Many disabled people know this experience. We become skilled at adapting. We label buttons, memorise layouts, ask friends or family to help with setup, search for accessible workarounds, and learn to make do with only part of what a product offers. Those strategies can be useful, and they can protect our independence in the moment.

Yet the effort is rarely recognised as work. It takes time, money, energy, confidence, and sometimes privacy. Products then appear “accessible” because a disabled person has managed to force a way through, even where the design itself has excluded us from using the product fully and reliably.

The barriers differ across disability experiences. A device that communicates only through sound can leave Deaf and hard of hearing users without vital information. Controls requiring fine precision, force, or repeated physical effort can be inaccessible for people living with pain, fatigue, mobility limitations, or reduced dexterity. Busy, inflexible interfaces can overwhelm or exclude people with cognitive disabilities and neurodivergent people. Voice assistants cannot serve everyone, especially people whose speech is not reliably recognised.

Manufacturers have choices. A touchscreen appliance can include tactile controls and meaningful feedback. Digital instructions can be made accessible. Settings can be simplified and personalised. Disabled people can be included while products are being researched, designed, tested, and supported. These approaches recognise that disabled people are customers, experts in our own access needs, and members of every household.

Sharing adaptations with each other remains important because people need solutions today. We also need to expect more from society, from businesses, and from the institutions responsible for consumer access. When access barriers are treated as individual problems for disabled people to solve, exclusion becomes routine. Naming the barrier, reporting it, supporting disability led advocacy, and insisting on inclusive design can help shift that expectation.

#AccessibleDesign #DisabilityJustice #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

I stand in my kitchen wanting to use an appliance I have already paid for. Its smooth touchscreen gives me no tactile information. I use a camera app to find the controls, place markers where I think buttons may appear, and hope the layout has not changed. One accidental tap can take me somewhere I cannot identify or exit without sighted help. A task that should take moments becomes a process requiring concentration, technology, and luck.

Many disabled people know this experience. We become skilled at adapting. We label buttons, memorise layouts, ask friends or family to help with setup, search for accessible workarounds, and learn to make do with only part of what a product offers. Those strategies can be useful, and they can protect our independence in the moment.

Yet the effort is rarely recognised as work. It takes time, money, energy, confidence, and sometimes privacy. Products then appear “accessible” because a disabled person has managed to force a way through, even where the design itself has excluded us from using the product fully and reliably.

The barriers differ across disability experiences. A device that communicates only through sound can leave Deaf and hard of hearing users without vital information. Controls requiring fine precision, force, or repeated physical effort can be inaccessible for people living with pain, fatigue, mobility limitations, or reduced dexterity. Busy, inflexible interfaces can overwhelm or exclude people with cognitive disabilities and neurodivergent people. Voice assistants cannot serve everyone, especially people whose speech is not reliably recognised.

Manufacturers have choices. A touchscreen appliance can include tactile controls and meaningful feedback. Digital instructions can be made accessible. Settings can be simplified and personalised. Disabled people can be included while products are being researched, designed, tested, and supported. These approaches recognise that disabled people are customers, experts in our own access needs, and members of every household.

Sharing adaptations with each other remains important because people need solutions today. We also need to expect more from society, from businesses, and from the institutions responsible for consumer access. When access barriers are treated as individual problems for disabled people to solve, exclusion becomes routine. Naming the barrier, reporting it, supporting disability led advocacy, and insisting on inclusive design can help shift that expectation.

#AccessibleDesign #DisabilityJustice #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

I stand in my kitchen wanting to use an appliance I have already paid for. Its smooth touchscreen gives me no tactile information. I use a camera app to find the controls, place markers where I think buttons may appear, and hope the layout has not changed. One accidental tap can take me somewhere I cannot identify or exit without sighted help. A task that should take moments becomes a process requiring concentration, technology, and luck.

Many disabled people know this experience. We become skilled at adapting. We label buttons, memorise layouts, ask friends or family to help with setup, search for accessible workarounds, and learn to make do with only part of what a product offers. Those strategies can be useful, and they can protect our independence in the moment.

Yet the effort is rarely recognised as work. It takes time, money, energy, confidence, and sometimes privacy. Products then appear “accessible” because a disabled person has managed to force a way through, even where the design itself has excluded us from using the product fully and reliably.

The barriers differ across disability experiences. A device that communicates only through sound can leave Deaf and hard of hearing users without vital information. Controls requiring fine precision, force, or repeated physical effort can be inaccessible for people living with pain, fatigue, mobility limitations, or reduced dexterity. Busy, inflexible interfaces can overwhelm or exclude people with cognitive disabilities and neurodivergent people. Voice assistants cannot serve everyone, especially people whose speech is not reliably recognised.

Manufacturers have choices. A touchscreen appliance can include tactile controls and meaningful feedback. Digital instructions can be made accessible. Settings can be simplified and personalised. Disabled people can be included while products are being researched, designed, tested, and supported. These approaches recognise that disabled people are customers, experts in our own access needs, and members of every household.

Sharing adaptations with each other remains important because people need solutions today. We also need to expect more from society, from businesses, and from the institutions responsible for consumer access. When access barriers are treated as individual problems for disabled people to solve, exclusion becomes routine. Naming the barrier, reporting it, supporting disability led advocacy, and insisting on inclusive design can help shift that expectation.

#AccessibleDesign #DisabilityJustice #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

#Money, the interesting thing about it is if you #exist in #poverty, you desperately need it for your day to day survival, then if your on the opposite end as in being a multi million or billionaire in reality money means nothing, because everything you own and do is leveraged off of debt that you one don't actually own and second can never actually satisfy, and the rules of the game are very different for those in poverty, and the rules are slightly different if your in the middle, but if your on top, the rules don't apply to you unless somehow your generation and hoarding of wealth imposes upon another top income holder, basically if your in poverty all the way to the bottom end of double digit millions, your beholden to the entire state if it where, and beyond that the entire state apparently is beholden to you and your ability to leverage debt, it is a rigged system of epic inequality and strongly embraces prejudice against the rest of us whom simply would appreciate the basics in life to be readily available without so much turmoil, and stress to our mental and physical wellbeing, money is an illusion of power and has left far to many of us going hungry, literally;

You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…

#Austerity #Awareness #BrokenSystem #Capitalism #Change #ChronicPoverty #CorporateGreed #CriticalThinking #DailyStruggle #DebtSlavery #DisabledVoices #DisabilityJustice #EconomicInequality #EconomicJustice #EconomicViolence #Economics #Education #ExistentialThought #Financial #FinancialTrauma #FinanciallyDistressed #FoodInsecurity #Hunger #Homelessness #HumanCost #IllusionOfWealth #Inequality #Justice #LateStageCapitalism #MarginalizedVoices #MentalHealthMatters #MutualAid #Neoliberalism #Oligarchy #PhilosophyOfMoney #Plutocracy #Politics #PovertyAwareness #PowerAndControl #PowerDynamics #RealTalk #Reform #RiggedSystem #SocialCommentary #SocialEconomicWarfare #SocialJustice #Society #Solidarity #SpeakTruth #StatusQuo #SupportDisabled #Survival #SystemicOppression #SystemicPoverty #TaxTheRich #TruthBomb #TruthToPower #WakeUpCall #WealthGap #WealthInequality #WorkingClass #WorkingPoor

❤️💛💚 Happy Juneteenth

Juneteenth reminds us that freedom & equality must include access, opportunity & full participation for everyone.

Today, we celebrate the strength, leadership & contributions of Black Americans, including people with disabilities whose advocacy helps move all of us toward a more inclusive future.

Freedom means access
Equality means inclusion
Community means everyone belongs

#Juneteenth #FreedomDay #PCB #Accessibility #Inclusion #DisabilityJustice #VisionLoss #Blindness

RE: https://ohai.social/@Garwboy/116753869821948051

Unintended consequences - The age verification debate is backwards. It prioritizes theoretical risks to privileged kids over documented harms to those already marginalized. For disabled youth, LGBTQ+ teens, and kids in unstable homes, social media isn't a distraction—it's a lifeline. Banning access punishes the most vulnerable while doing nothing about algorithmic harms. Real policy would protect without erasing. #AgeVerification #DigitalEquity #DisabilityJustice #a11y #MarginalizedVoices

Not enough people understand narcissism.

Trump’s behavior is classic narcissistic, addict behavior. He’s actually very predictable.

It’s all about Trump.
It’s all about survival.
It’s all about getting to the next day.
No matter the costs.

#trump #uspol #donjr #mentalhealth #disabilityjustice

Gelebte Solidarität statt Pinkwashing! ✊💜

München sonnt sich gerne im Glanz der „Rainbow City“, doch für viele von uns ist das Leben in der teuersten Stadt Deutschlands ein täglicher Überlebenskampf. ⬇️

#MünchenWählt #Stadtrat2026 #DieLinke #Linke #QueerPolitics #Inklusion #DisabilityJustice #Intersektionalität #Queer #LGBTQIA #MünchenFürAlle #München #Munich #CommunityCare #CommunitySupport

München wählt am 8. März. Zeit für eine Stadtpolitik von unten!⬇️

#MünchenWählt #Stadtrat2026 #DieLinke #Linke #QueerePolitik #Inklusion #DisabilityJustice #Uferlos #RadioLora #Intersektionalität #Queer #LGBTQIA #MünchenFürAlle #München #Munich #CommunityCare #CommunitySupport

Heute ist der Internationale Tag der Menschen mit Behinderung und ich denke an mein jüngeres Ich. An einen jungen Menschen, dem niemand zutraute, jemals sichtbar zu sein. Der ohne Vorbilder aufwuchs, in einer Welt, die behinderte Leben klein hält.⬇️

#InternationalerTagDerMenschenMitBehinderung #Behinderung #Inklusion #Inkluencer #Disability #FaceSMA #DisabilityJustice #DisabledAndProud #BarrierefreiheitJetzt #CripPride #DisabledVoices #HumanRights #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #DisabilityPower

For International Day of Persons with Disabilities, celebrate and educate with Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution! Get our free Crip Camp lesson plans to teach about ableism, disability rights history, and the connection to disability justice.

https://journeysinfilm.org/film/crip-camp/?utm_source=Mastodon&utm_medium=Social+Media&utm_campaign=IDPwD&utm_content=Link

@histodons

#DisabilityDay #IDPD #DisabilityPride #DisabilityJustice #DisabilityHistory #Activism #DisabledVoices #History #Education #Homeschooling #Edutooters #Movies

Wenn Menschen wie ich politisch Stellung beziehen, kommt sofort der immer gleiche alte ableistische Reflex: Wir seien "missbraucht", "vorgeschoben" oder "manipuliert". Dahinter steckt kein Zufall, es ist eine Strategie.⬇️

#DisabilityJustice #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #Disability #IntersectionalFeminism #QueerAndDisabled #AntiAbleism #Ableism #AntiRacism #QueerResistance #DisabledAndProud #Solidarity #Solidarität #Inklusion #SolidarityIsPower #MarginalizedVoices #Behinderung #FaceSMA

Gestern durfte ich beim Klimastreik am Münchner Königsplatz eine Rede halten. Ein Moment, der mir viel bedeutet.⬇️

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mydte1BTSE

#Klimastreik #FridaysForFuture #FFF #Klimagerechtigkeit #ClimateJustice #ClimateStrike #ClimateCrisis #SystemChangeNotClimateChange #Antikapitalismus #Klimabewegung #SozialeGerechtigkeit #DisabilityJustice #QueerAndDisabled #Queer #IntersectionalFeminism #Antirassismus #Activism #Solidarit #ClimateAction #ClimateEmergency #JusticeForAll #Protest

i really resent the idea the #disabled people "need" ai as an accommodation.

saying #DisabledPeople need to destroy the environment and exploit others as an "accommodation" is a messed up thing to say and not true. disabled people are adaptable and creative. and disabled people who like ai shouldn't shove their usage of it on disability.

#DisabilityJustice doesn't align with the use of generative ai at all.

📢 Werkstätten sind keine Inklusion. Sie sind organisierte Ausgrenzung.

👉 Über 300.000 Menschen arbeiten in Deutschland in Werkstätten. Für 1,35 €/h. Ohne Tariflohn. Ohne Arbeitnehmerrechte.⬇️

#Werkstätten #Mindestlohn #Disability #Inkluencer #Inklusion #Behinderung #AbleismKills #Ableism #DisabilityJustice #UNBRKUmsetzen #Selbstbestimmung #CripTheSystem #InklusionJetzt #EqualRights #DisabledAndProud #StopAbleism #SolidarityIsPolitical #IntersektionaleGerechtigkeit #Menschenrechte

Manchmal braucht der eigene Körper einfach nur die Chance, endlich sein zu dürfen. ✨
⬇️

#TransIsBeautiful #DisabledAndProud #DisabilityPride #Disability #Behinderung #Queer #Trans #TransPride #BodyAutonomy #QueerAndDisabled #DisabilityVisibility #TransHealthcare #HRTworks #TraumaHealing #TransJoy #DisabledJoy #BodyPositivity #TransAktivismus #IntersectionalFeminism #DisabilityJustice #StigmaKills #MentalHealthHealing #QueerActivism #LoveYourself #HealingJourney

In Which We Answer Some Questions

Here are some questions posed to us for inclusion in an allied organization’s newsletter. We cover community art, direct giving, research, ableism, and more.

Table of Contents

• The artwork on your website is amazing, where does it come from?
  • Featured Art
  • It’s gonna be an art party.
• What is your latest research on?
• What does direct support look like for your organization? The website mentions a lot about mutual aid?
• How can individuals reading get involved in mutual aid in their communities?
• What are some wins you want to share with the community at large?
• What are some barriers you want the community at large to know about regarding ableism?
• How can we best support Stimpunks.org?
• How can Non-Disabled People show up better? And love better?
• I love how activist research is also about transformative action. Can you speak more to this?
• The ideas of community, interdependence, and the political really spoke to me, can you speak more on this?
• “We recognize that there is no justice that neglects disability.” (Philosophy – Stimpunks Foundation)
• I really like these ideas: Community is resistance. Asking for help. Showing up to give help. Collaboration.

The artwork on your website is amazing, where does it come from?

Our art comes from our community. We practice constructionism and actively engage in constructing things in the world. Practicing our art makes our souls grow.

Featured Art

Description: A bursting kaleidoscopic geometrical form with 4 sides of symmetry pointing angularly to each of the four corners of a square shaped canvas against a dark grey textured wall. There is a small red shaped plus at the very center, surrounded by orangish-peach and periwinkle butterfly like shapes at 45 degree angles from each other aligned to the mid center going up and also to the sides. The butterfly shapes are encased in a deeper red flower like shape before a region of light blue geometric textures. Near the corners are feathered white, dark grey-purple, burgundy and orange feather like edges.

Our featured artist is Adriel Jeremiah Wool.

Adriel Jeremiah is an computer programmer with a deep background in origami and folding. This artwork is an extension of a world view involving folding; often involving higher dimensional spaces. Many of these designs contain the mathematical magic of the transcendental numbers of nature, and all of them are the extension of the provisions of space itself; to be both physically folded, and conceptually folded, circularily and across many levels of expression.Shop Art by Adriel

His spectacular new piece derives its color stream from a fluorite crystal that has a spheralite imperfection / inclusion (the red, purple, and orange).

AJ describes what these fractal pieces are in this accordion. Their construction will broaden your perspective on perspective.My artwork is digital photography in a world where objects exist in more than 3 dimensions, and where no known means of physical representation has yet been discovered to exist.

AJ is a regular contributor at Stimpunks. He kindly licenses his work as free cultural work. He helps us tell our stories with his art, music, photography, videos, audio engineering, poetry, prose, and lived experience.

AJ has a gallery in Ketchum, Idaho. Drop by if you’re around. He tries to make it a welcoming third place.

Stimpunks is gently debugging society.

The charity protects, helps and comforts individuals, while pointing out library-level flaws in some of the concepts that end up harming those individuals.

This help is profoundly wonderful, morally and functionally coherent to great need, and as true as a pure circle in its cause-and-effect form.

Adriel Jeremiah Wool

The artist hopes to convey this: that the universe is given forth folded and unfolded. Although explicit understanding helps, it is too cumbersome, and should only provide refinement to something already greater that exists.

That greater thing is what was given to the artist first by the practice of origami. An enlivening of the intuitive mind, experience with a universe of many dimensions, and the promise of creation revealed when one folds a flat square into the likeness of a higher dimensional thing. That inspiration reaches a young mind in a powerful way.
The artist wants the viewer to see proof of what their intuitive mind already knows is true, the universe is a multidimensional phenomenon and the ability to understand its nature already exists within us each.

The artist hopes the viewer will be inspired to seek the understanding of freedoms available to the individual inspired by the exposure to artistic expressions, and of a nature of dimensionality unimaginably greater than the object presented here.

Adriel Jeremiah Wool

A time has come to again look at changes in the way technology allows us to see the world and experience it. First was the human eye, with a lens made of flesh. Later humans developed a replacement for the eye but in the form and fashion of the lens of the eye; this time it was made of glass doped with metals to enhance its control of light. To see, the human eye has a retina filled with responsive cells which look for contrast and color.

Technology has allowed us to create a replacement for the retina called a CCD with metals which respond to color and report those values to a microchip which converts them to bits and bytes for storage. I will present to you the same extension of sight by explaining how the images you will see come into existence.

In my artwork the landscape is created via the execution of a seed of a formula, allowed to grow and flourish in a mathematical set of steps. In a similar way, crystals grow underground in a cave over many millennia but they follow a seed of a universal pattern related to their atomic structure and facilitated by the chemical nature of their environments. In our regular world, we have 3 directions we can move, forward-back, up-down and left-right, but these crystals can move in another set of directions allowed by the universe and mathematics. They are, and must be considered elements of nature, and it follows that the methods used to convey them must be considered legitimate tools of expression. 

A crystal starts at a virtual geometric position, a virtual center, then it mathematically and procedurally grows outward and inward according to a seed formula. However it exists in a dark world devoid of light and color; it is only a cloud of form. As an artist, I create an eye with a lens which follows the same mathematical processes as the lens of a camera and the eye itself. I situate the virtual eye to be gazing upon the crystal as I create sources of light which will illuminate the crystal and reflect light back to the lens.

As an artist I imbue color to the crystal, I imbue reflectivity, I imbue refractability, and I imbue density or transparency exactly towards the same purpose as a painter would do, in combining pigmented oils on canvas with a brush in his or her hand.

My artwork is digital photography in a world where objects exist in more than 3 dimensions, and where no known means of physical representation has yet been discovered to exist.

Adriel Jeremiah Wool

It’s gonna be an art party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZRFkJsGNjI

We’re gonna make, make something great for
All of us to see and appreciate
It’s gonna be an art party
It’s gonna be an art party

Come on over it’s time to start
It’s a great big party where we make and share art

Art Party (feat. Portugal. The Man & Paul Williams) – YouTube

What is your latest research on?

Monotropism, neuroqueer learning spaces, and Cavendish Space.

What does direct support look like for your organization? The website mentions a lot about mutual aid?

Direct support includes, first and foremost, giving people money with no strings attached. Folks know what they need and how best to spend the money. We also help people navigate our systems by filling forms and making calls for them. We provide warm lines and peer respite. We practice library economies, competency networks, sharing spoons, and support swapping.

“Mutuality is a feeling, an action, and a relationship based on shared benefit between individuals and groups in a society. It materialises in many, many ways and is arguably a universal constant of our human nature. We rely on mutuality to survive and progress through our day to day life.” (Andrewism)

“When systems of power fail, it is mutuality—neighbours helping neighbours—that holds communities together.” (Andrewism)

How can individuals reading get involved in mutual aid in their communities?

Start with pod mapping.

1. Find a few people.
2. Identify your zone.
3. Invite neighbors.
4. Get a name.
5. Have conversations.
6. Support each other.

Source: Mutual Aid 101 – Google Slides

What are some wins you want to share with the community at large?

Our Map of Monotropic Experiences has been widely shared and incorporated into care settings and training.

What are some barriers you want the community at large to know about regarding ableism?

We live in an age of mass behaviorism. Behaviorism such as ABA and PBS are rife in education and healthcare settings. “Behaviorism is a dehumanizing mechanism of learning that reduces human beings to simple inputs and outputs. There is an ever-growing body of research suggesting that behaviorism is not only harmful to how we learn, but is also oppressive, ableist, and racist.” (Human Restoration Project)

Behaviorist education is ableist education. Behaviorist healthcare is ableist healthcare.

How can we best support Stimpunks.org?

• Read our website.
• Share our website.
• Amplify us on social media.
• Give whatever you can, be it time or money or attention.

• stimpunks.org
• RSS Feed
• WordPress
• Bluesky
• Gravatar
• Threads
• Mastodon
• Tumblr
• GitHub
• Twitter/X
• Facebook
• Patreon
• YouTube
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Counter Social
• Raindrop.io
• Mail

How can Non-Disabled People show up better? And love better?

We exist as friction. Load-share the burden of existing as friction.

• Promote and practice access intimacy instead of forced intimacy.
• Question the narratives of wellness, and engage in critical wellness instead.
• Reframe yourself and others. Help people reframe from the pathology paradigm and medical model to the neurodiversity paradigm and biopsychosocial model. This is hard and important work necessary to all other work. Change the narrative. Start reframing.
• Advocate for accessibility at school, work, and in your community.
• Be a threat to inequity in your spheres of influence.
• Combat the myths.
• Use and promote Identity First Language.
• Elevate care as infrastructure. Stimpunks exists because our systems effectively don’t.
• Celebrate our interdependence!

I love how activist research is also about transformative action. Can you speak more to this?

“three characteristics that delineate activist research from other types of research:”

(1) combination of knowledge production and transformative action;

(2) systematic multi-level collaboration; and

(3) challenges to power.

(Denisha Jones)

A hallmark of good research is that it embraces epistemic justice and rejects scientism.

Another hallmark of good research is naming the systems of power. If you’re not naming the systems of power in your research, you’re missing a vital component.

The ideas of community, interdependence, and the political really spoke to me, can you speak more on this?

In the past, the disability rights movement focused on independence, including it as one of the pillars of the ADA. Disability Justice moves away from independence framing, because independence is a myth.

“I am fighting for an interdependence that embraces need and tells the truth: no one does it on their own and the myth of independence is just that, a myth.” (Mia Mingus)

“Access intimacy is interdependence in action.” (Mia Mingus)

“It is time to celebrate our interdependence!” (Jorn Bettin)

“We recognize that there is no justice that neglects disability.” (Philosophy – Stimpunks Foundation)

Working at my org I really believe this and feel that everyone who works here also believes this. We cannot neglect disability in our policy and conversations and our care. If you have anything to add to this.

There is no path to justice that does not involve direct confrontation with ableism and inaccessibility. To neglect disability is to neglect two of the major forces of injustice.

Ableism is at the root of all -isms.

“Ableism is what makes all other “isms” effective.

White supremacy is the goal, ableism is the toolkit.” (Imani Barbarin)

“…so much of what disability actually is, is just humanity; and so much of what ableism is, is a humanity heist.” “Ableism enables all forms of inequity and hampers all liberation efforts.” (Talila A. Lewis)

Disabled and neurodivergent people are always edge cases, and edge cases are stress cases.

We choose the margin, because design is tested at the edges.

“Living as we did on the edge we developed a particular way of seeing reality. We looked both from the outside in and from the inside out. We focused our attention on the centre as well as on the margin. We understood both.” (bell hooks)

“No one knows best the motion of the ocean than the fish that must fight the current to swim upstream.” “By focusing on the parts of the system that are most complex and where the people living it are the most vulnerable we understand the system best.” (Tressie McMillan Cottom)

I really like these ideas: Community is resistance. Asking for help. Showing up to give help. Collaboration.

I think if we’re going to have a future we need to embrace and act in these ideas. How would someone start if they are new to these ideas and new to community engagement?

Find people with which you share a concern or passion. You can do this via the pod mapping described above.

“Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” (Wenger-Trayner, E. & Wenger-Trayner, B. 2015)

• Find your people.
• Communicate.
• Iterate.

“Through free association, people will find those of mutual interests in every sphere of life to form groups on the basis of their affinity.” (Andrewism)

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In person I'm a #recoveringacademic and #UnitarianUniversalist practicing #FeministTheory outside the corporate university.

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I originally wrote this email for the Des Moines City Council. For the past year, I’ve adjusted the verbiage to reflect what I’ve heard in their City Council Meetings with the Public. I also adjust the bullet points and actions I (and others) wish to see them take. Otherwise, most of the letters are verbatim what I wrote below. I am sharing this because far too many cities have poor design choices that limit the accessibility of city spaces. This is unacceptable.

Accessibility creates a more open, inclusive, and welcoming environment for ALL people regardless of whether they are disabled or not. Yes, it will mean more work, but that is not an excuse to take the quick route and create an inaccessible design. Instead, work with the disabled community, and build an accessible design that meets the needs of the most vulnerable. This, in turn, will make the design and spaces accessible and inclusive to all people – for when we take care of our most vulnerable, we lift up all people.

The Letter:

Hello {insert names of recipients here},

I wanted to share how inaccessible designs of supposedly “equal access public areas” by the city of Des Moines are harming the disabled community. The disabled community consists of people from all races, ethnicities, religions, ages, sexual orientations, and gender identities, who have differing physical and mental capabilities from what our society views as “average” or “normal.” Really anyone from any walk of life can become disabled or may be disabled. We exist and we matter just as much as any other person in this city.

However, the city of Des Moines has been relatively antagonistic toward our existence. The following is a growing list of concerns myself and other disability activists have.

During a council meeting in June 2021, the council had a discussion on sidewalks that was incredibly harmful for disabled people. I will quote Linda W. who said, “Sidewalks to affordable housing go to nowhere.” Many disabled people live in affordable housing, and sidewalks that go to our housing are not sidewalks to nowhere. That statement is harmful and rooted in the discriminatory notion that disabled lives, elderly lives, and people in poverty do not matter — which is false. We do matter, and our lives and needs are crucial and important. Please recognize this and consider the following concerns affecting the disabled community in Des Moines.

Physical Space

Physical space pertains to the environment that surrounds us and how we navigate that environment; this may include housing, restrooms, public buildings, sidewalks, streets, etc.

• Sidewalks in many residential areas are not wheelchair safe. Most are broken and not upkept, especially in the poorer areas of Des Moines. Sidewalks need to be wide enough to comfortably allow a wheelchair user and a person to walk side by side. All streets need sidewalks. Sidewalks are not just an accessibility need. They help parents with strollers and elderly persons walking to stores or events. Broad sidewalks also keep residents safe by increasing the distance between vulnerable residents (such as children and pets) and fast-moving traffic. We should not be forced to walk or wheel ourselves in streets.
• All doors to buildings, especially public/city buildings, should have a button that opens the door electronically. This would allow those with mobility aids to more easily enter premises. This improvement should include doors within the building – especially doors to council rooms or other offices. All interior rooms on upper floors also need elevators so those with mobility aids can reach the appropriate floor to access particular rooms. If a building is not accessible to disabled people, then it is not accessible for all.
• All buildings need to be upgraded with high-quality ventilation and air filtration systems. The building code will need to be edited to enforce this going forward. All current buildings need funding to do repairs to these systems. We must clean our air in order to avoid the transmission of highly deadly and disabling viruses. Cleaner and well-ventilated air will also decrease the carbon footprint of the building and require less energy use, which would decrease the operating costs. The site www.itsairborne.com has excellent resources on ways to implement improved filtration systems.
• All ramps need to be clear of any debris, items, flower pots, or obstructions as obstructions can block wheelchairs from using them. Ramps also need to be upkept to avoid cracks that could trip or flip someone.
• More Public restrooms that have wheelchair accessible stalls (more than one stall especially) need to be distributed throughout the city and should not be privatized (as in placed in businesses that demand payment for their services in order to use restroom).
• Houseless camps have been consistently destroyed, and the police often destroy belongings and especially wheelchairs. This is wrong and unjust! Houseless camps do not harm anyone, and they are needed for safety. Without houseless camps, homeless persons are vulnerable to individual attack and lose the vital community aid that may enable them to find resources. They also provide stability, thus allowing homeless people to engage in job-finding and other programs more easily. Many homeless shelters do not provide enough space for belongings or provide flexibility in access to the shelter. Also, to destroy expensive wheelchairs when “clearing” these camps is brutal violence; all disabled homeless people should be compensated and given new and better wheelchairs for each one destroyed by the recklessness of Des Moines Police.
• Warming Centers for houseless must be readily accessible during cold bouts. This entails having a 24/7 set of centers distributed evenly throughout the city. One central shelter cannot be relied on to assist in these situations. (The single shelter currently available has problematic rules that make it difficult for some people to access it.) I thank Ward 1 representative for keeping our most vulnerable in mind during her advocacy for this item and other similar items.
• For housing to be accessible, there should not be steps leading up to the front doors of public buildings; input ramps should be installed instead. The City should always include elevators (or at least have dedicated accessible apartments on the first floor for disabled people), wider hallways and doors, on-site laundry, on-site parking that is free, working appliances, Internet access, and working utilities (including clean water) in City-funded accommodation or public spaces. “Disabled individuals depend on adequate utility services in their home spaces, since outside resources are so much harder to access. Without adequate wifi and comfortable accommodation, disabled people are less able to access key resources, connect with the community, and exercise their regular routines.
• The City must update zoning regulations to include mixed modes, where residential and commercial zones are combined to provide services for residents that are within walkable distances. There is a lot of evidence that mixed mode neighborhoods are not only healthier but they also encourage more public engagement and use. Please review “Walkable City Rules by Jeff Speck” as it has excellent information and studies on how to implement mixed mode zoning well.

Community Space

Community Space pertains to the engagement of the community within the physical, informational, sensory, and transportation spaces. Engagement may include the use of utilities and public areas, access to food and shelter, emergency planning, combating gentrification, accessibility of various services and housing and utilities, and public input on construction plans.

• Lack of infrastructure upkeep in poorer areas makes those areas more difficult to navigate and more hazardous. This severely limits our access to resources, especially food and emergency supplies. Often, in times of emergency marginalized populations have little to no access to supportive programs, and the spaces they utilize are the last to be repaired (if they are repaired at all by the city). We badly need to update our infrastructure and utilities and improve emergency plans.
• Food deserts due to poor planning and poor zoning regulations limit our ability to access food. We need funding to be taken from the bloated police budget and pushed into our communities to fund access to food and basic necessities.
• All construction plans should be submitted for public comment and feedback by stakeholders from the affected community; stakeholders must be a diverse group that actively includes disabled people, folks of color, LGBTQIA folks, immigrants, and those at the intersection of those identities. The more diverse the stakeholder groups are, the better the problem-solving and design process will be. Diversity brings forth imagination that strengthens designs, improves relations within the community, and helps create a more collaborative and engaging city that is accessible to all. Please do a better job by employing focus groups to review proposed construction plans, giving adequate time to distribute that information to the public, and asking local justice and diverse organizations and groups for participation.
• Accessible housing within the Des Moines city limits costs more than the disability benefits people receive monthly. Many of the income restricted residences are still outside of our price ranges. This gentrification is pushing us either into homelessness or into (often inaccessible) housing on the outskirts of the city. Affordable housing is a must for the city as a whole.
• Affordable housing for ALL people, especially homeless people, is possible. Salt Lake City, Utah, for instance, as well as cities in Finland, implemented a program in which they built a series of small houses for the homeless. This program also provided them with access to food. This program not only decreased homelessness significantly, but it also gave people a chance to rebuild and find jobs and more suitable housing (thus opening up the small houses for other in-need folks). These programs exist, studies show they work, and such programs ought to be implemented here.
• Stop rent hikes. There is no reason for one bedroom housing to cost over 800 dollars in Des Moines. We can do better about having affordable and accessible housing. Stop giving developers outside of Iowa access to buy up neighborhoods – they steal jobs and money away from local developers/neighborhood associations that could maintain or create more accessible and equitable housing.

Information Space

Information space consists of access to Internet, virtual communities, dissemination of information and various types of data, and public access to information and various types of data.

• Pandemic supplies and information distribution needs to be streamlined and made more easily accessible through online and in-person distribution. The mask mandates need to continue. Free access to vaccines, N95 masks, and other supplies need to be offered in all libraries, grocery stores, and other heavily trafficked and accessible locations.
• City Council meetings are highly inaccessible, since there is no virtual option. The in-person meetings are on the second floor of an archaic building and held right after regular working hours. The room itself has a little space for wheelchair users and those with mobility aids. Elevator access is guarded, which makes it harder to navigate safely to the correct floor. The chosen time makes it difficult for people coming from an 8 to 5 job to reach the council in time to participate. ALL Meetings should have a virtual option for those of us who are homebound and may not be able to make it in-person. Failure to provide this is a direct violation of the ADA. 2020 proved that the council is capable of implementing a virtual option where we can speak virtually, so it makes little to no sense to not continue that option even as in-person activities resume.
• All council meetings need accurate captions (captions get garbled for speakers who don’t use microphones or don’t talk loud enough or talk too fast).
• They also need a transcript for the public to easily access and review (for those that may not find the livestream accessible). Currently, City Council transcripts are difficult to locate on the City’s website. and often need to be requested. This process is not well documented in an easy to locate location.
• Transparency is a crucial part of accessibility as well as fostering public support and respect. City documents, council media, and information need to be readable, accessible, and freely available to the public. This includes providing alt text for any images used in the virtual version of documents, captions and transcripts for spoken and video media, and large spaced out fonts.
• Hybrid town halls should be held where council members actually speak to their constituents and listen to their concerns. These cannot be speeches by council members – it needs to be a listening session conducted in an easily accessible location that has an interactive virtual component (for those that cannot go in person). I want to thank Ward 1 representative for her work on creating these in her Ward. I ask that all other Wards do this also and follow her lead.

Transportation Space

Transportation space describes the way people navigate to and from spaces, such as using public transportation, any issues with roads or sidewalks that can hinder the movement, and emergency response teams and vehicles.

• Bus stops are rendered inaccessible where the curb cuts are not nearby or the curb cuts are covered with debris or snow due to plowing and a lack of Des Moines resources in keeping them cleared. This is a common occurrence in the winter, and it is often community members volunteering to clean these areas for us because the city is failing to follow through.
• Potholes in roads that never get fixed in poorer areas are health risks, especially if no sidewalks or dangerously broken sidewalks force us into the street in our wheelchairs. A pothole could send us to the hospital. We need funding for infrastructure repair and upkeep.
• ADA-compliant buses are difficult to schedule and not enough of them exist to meet the increasing needs of the community. Currently, Des Moines paratransit system is archaic. Rides are only able to be scheduled by a phone call, as there is no online option for scheduling. Applications for inclusion into the paratransit program is mail-in or drop-off only, where again, there is no online option to submit the application. Wide time ranges are given for pick-ups and drop-offs, but there is no application disabled people can access to track where their bus is on their route. This system needs a major technological upgrade.
• Paramedics are not well trained on disabled LGBTQIA needs or even how to treat us with respect and dignity. Better diversity training is needed.
• We need a better emergency response that does not utilize police. Police escalate the situation and cause further harm to marginalized populations. They cannot be the catch-all for all emergency needs. We need community-based emergency squads that are run by communities themselves with support from the city. I highly suggest creation of accountability task forces that include measures drafted by the impacted community, and to base it off of this toolkit: https://www.creative-interventions.org/toolkit/

All of the above are accessibility issues that this city has. I have covered a lot of different arenas here, but it is not an exhaustive list. There is a lot of work to be done here. I often recommend people view accessibility through the lens of “spaces,” to try to see the multiple layers that affect all of us (disabled and non-disabled alike).

As I and my other disability activists talk through the issues in Des Moines, we will update this list with more information. Please consider the fact that we exist and we matter, and our needs should be prioritized.

Accessibility is love; when the needs of the most vulnerable are met, then the needs of all are met.

We also respectfully ask that the Des Moines City Council please defund the police and fund the crucial services and fixes we detailed above regarding accessibility. Also, please cease harmful rhetoric and pro-police proclamations that ignore the needs of the people and continue to feed the police budget and agenda. These proclamations are causing enormous distrust, frustration, and anger in our communities. We matter. Police have been known to harm and kill those in my community (disability and/or LGBTQIA community) and those of my friends (Black and Indigenous People of Color communities, immigrant communities). The data that shows how police do not make our city safer ought to matter more than the money police funnel into your campaigns. I often recommend the book “End of Policing” by Alex Vitale and “We Do This ‘Til We Free Us” by Mariame Kaba as introductory texts that include the data and alternative ideas to policing. We can do better, and we need to build better programs and resources to meet the needs of our communities; those programs and resources need the funding more than police.

Again, please address the above list of inaccessible designs and lack of resources in our communities.

All of this is doable. We have the ideas, and for the past few years we have tried to share them with the City Council. I implore the City Council to listen to the people for whom Council members ought to be working.

If you side with life at all, then please side with the lives of our communities, where our lives matter and deserve respect and dignity. This is our city as well, and that ought to matter to you.

Thank you for reading,

{{Sign here}}

Aidan Z.
nonbinary disabled activist, artist, writer
Pronouns: They/Them/Their or Ze/Zem/Zir
reshapingreality.org

https://reshapingreality.org/2021/07/06/my-open-letter-to-city-designers/

#ableism #access #accessibility #AccessibleCities #disability #disabilityJustice #DisabilityPride #FightAbleism #Homelessness #NoMoreAbleism