Disability and aging reporter @19thnews. Opinions are my own. Send tips to: sluterman@19thnews.org or slooterman.18 on Signal.
Washington DC
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Pink collar jobs are working class jobs. Pink collar jobs are working class jobs!!
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Just so everyone understands, wheelchairs are often custom-fitted devices that cost thousands of dollars. Fixing them can involve specialty parts and a complex approval process for the majority of people who can’t just pay out of pocket.
Wheelchair users have been trying for ages to raise awareness about their wheelchairs being broken so often when they fly, and the devastating impact this has on them.
@AmericanAir baggage handlers decided to give a demonstration of how much they enjoy breaking them 😡
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Kids should be allowed in most public spaces even if they’re not spectacularly well behaved. Socially isolating parents until their kids are older (or indefinitely if their kids have certain disabilities) is bad, actually. Adults can suck it up and deal.
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The fight for marriage equality isn't over according to disability advocates. Disabled people who rely on programs like SSI face steep penalties if they choose to tie the knot. I wrote about it @19thnews. 19thnews.org/2023/09/disabil…
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My therapy practice just announced is no longer doing televisits. Telehealth has been a godsend for me in terms of my mental health. It’s not the kind of medical appointment where I need to get a blood test. There’s no physical reason to go to an office. This sucks so hard.
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The first person to ever have received an autism diagnosis, Donald Triplett, has died. He lead a full life in a community that supported and appreciated him. wlbt.com/2023/06/16/don-trip…
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Some personal news: I am now officially @19thnews’s aging and disability reporter. I am still mostly covering the same things, but now there’s more room for the parts of aging and disability that are beyond or apart from caregiving. I’m excited for this evolution of my beat.
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In four states, you can’t get divorced if you’re pregnant, and they have now also banned abortion. 19thnews.org/2024/04/states-…
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My spouse is moderately to severely immunocompromised (takes daily high dose corticosteroids) and just got turned away for a second bivalent booster at our local pharmacy. So that’s frustrating. The new CDC guidelines don’t mean a lot if pharmacies aren’t following them.
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Churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, etc. are not required to be accessible to people with disabilities — A carve out in the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is an even bigger problem than usual when religious institutions are polling places.
Something you may not know: religious institutions like churches are exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act. But 20 percent of all polling places are in religious institutions, meaning many people with disabilities are denied the right to vote msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opin…
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The word “retard” is a highly derogatory term for people with intellectual disabilities. You do not have an intellectual disability. I do not have an intellectual disability. Autistic people without intellectual disability don’t get to “reclaim” or use that word.
ATTENTION DREW HATERS: To all the haters who claim I am not neurodivergent enough to reclaim use of the word “retard” in a progressive and liberating fashion, I just dug up my old kindergarten records - EXPLAIN THIS.
I was basically the GOAT of being on the spectrum as a kid. My Mum got me tested when I was 4 because I was obsessed with 9/11 in kindergarten and kept building block towers so that I could try understand how the World Trade Center buildings collapsed.
Instead of playing with other kids at the park I would stay inside and obsessively read about the Titanic and Ancient Egypt. I watched David Cameron’s Titanic like 50 times and almost knew every scene by heart. I remember that I used to fast forward through the nude painting scene every time because I didn’t want to get in trouble with my parents.
In the end the test results apparently showed that I was not autistic however I remain convinced that I am probably a bit on the spectrum. Which is based because I strongly believe that all the best people - the greatest artists, visionaries, statesmen in history - are on the spectrum.
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Ah yes, the extremely apolitical era after 9/11 and during the early phase of the Iraq War. Nothing political happened in schools at all during that time.
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I am just laughing about the fact that the wildest achievement neurotypical people can imagine for us is giving a TED Talk about Living with Autism.
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I want to push back a little bit against some of the (well-intentioned) comments my latest article has been getting.
Accessibility for disabled people is not about kindness. It is about equal access to society and civil rights.
19thnews.org/2024/08/dnc-chi…
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“Any human being who suggests that people with disabilities ‘should just die’ is fundamentally unfit to serve.” - @SenDuckworth to @EricMGarcia. independent.co.uk/news/world…
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One of the weirdest things about covering disability is that sometimes when I interview disabled advocates, they'll namedrop someone we both know is a big deal historical figure, but then I go to Google looking for a news article explaining that and there's nothing.
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.@SenDuckworth took her daughters to see #Barbie. But a broken elevator meant they went up to see the movie while she waited outside.
33 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, much remains inaccessible, even for a US Senator. 19thnews.org/2023/07/senator…
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The Harris campaign is hiring a disability engagement director! jobs.lever.co/BFP/e13678c8-1…
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The DC encampment, before it got dismantled, was unique — It had a sizable Deaf contingent from Gallaudet University’s new Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. Read more in my latest. 19thnews.org/2024/05/campus-…
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#CovidIsntOver for disabled, older and chronically ill Americans. I interviewed some folks about feeling isolated and abandoned four years into the pandemic.
19thnews.org/2024/03/covid-i…
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The cartoon wasn’t just in poor taste. It also underlines that disabled people are not treated as full citizens. People do not expect us to have jobs, to get married, to have children. But we do all of those things.
Did you see Roll Call's ableist cartoon yesterday?
The daily experience of Americans with disabilities has no business being the punchline in any joke.
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I was born disabled. But most people acquire their disability later in life. Learning to exist in a disabled body is hard.
This is a stellar story from my colleague @jazzmyth about disability doulas — People who help newly disabled people navigate. 19thnews.org/2023/07/disabil…
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This is probably going to get buried by other news, but on Wednesday the Supreme Court is going to hear a case that might gut a major enforcement mechanism for the Americans with Disabilities Act. I wrote an explainer @19thnews. 19thnews.org/2023/10/supreme…
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A couple people have emailed asking me about the ableism of “weird” as a campaign strategy, especially pertaining to the autistic community. I don’t think it’s necessarily ableist — There’s always been good weird, bad weird and neutral weird.
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The blue suit thing is a completely normal thing to be more inclusive of blind participants. She was in a meeting with disability rights leaders, so it made sense in context. More here: 19thnews.org/2022/07/kamala-…
"I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit."
Community note
This is a recording of a meeting with disability advocates, which included blind and low-vision members. The meeting and recording were intended to be accessible to those with sight and hearing impairments.
whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…
ameridisability.com/the-one-main-f
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I am begging TV writers to understand that being autistic and being terrible to women are not the same thing.
The Good Doctor
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Happening now: @RealNatlADAPT marching near the Capitol, chanting “affordable, integrated housing” for people with disabilities. Organizer I spoke with pegs it at about 80 marchers? I like the hats.
ALT A line of people in wheelchairs wearing cardboard hats shaped like houses.
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I have been doing this work for eight years and it is not normal to sext with a source, actually.
Inappropriate involvement with a source who you report on and whose political rivals you report on is wrongdoing in and of itself.
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Cool autism fact: We don't really know what percentage of autistic people are nonspeaking because the only research on the topic has tiny sample sizes. There are billions going into autism research and nobody thought looking into this might be a good idea?
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The @DNC is going all-in on expanding accessibility this year, and disabled delegates are excited about it. My latest @19thnews 19thnews.org/2024/08/dnc-chi…
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.@adaptanita has been on the front lines of disability advocacy and activism for 37 years. I interviewed her about the most interesting places she’s been arrested, fighting racism within the movement, and what she’s planning post-retirement.
19thnews.org/2023/05/anita-c…
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Congratulations on having text documentation of your landlord admitting to a literal crime, I guess?
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I cannot stress how deranged it is to describe painful electric shocks used to punish undesirable behaviors as “lifesaving.” disabilityscoop.com/2023/09/…
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Seconding @CitizenCohn here — It is completely bananas that more Serious Politics People aren’t talking about Harris’s Medicare proposal.
The social media messages I got before and after writing my piece were pretty much “wow, this would be life-changing” across the board.
Social media reaction to Harris home care proposal like nothing I’ve seen
So many people saying they’re struggling, could use the help
And reaction of the political set is … a collective shrug
huffpost.com/entry/kamala-ha…
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Not a lot of people have heard of @shortyvoorde outside disability spaces, but she’s had an outsized impact on disability policy through her longtime friendship with @SecretaryPete and @Chasten. I profiled her for @19thnews. 19thnews.org/2024/02/emily-v…
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I’m working on a piece about how disabled folks are feeling four years into the COVID pandemic. Interested in chatting with a journalist about your thoughts and feelings? DM me or email sluterman at 19thnews dot org. #NEISVoid #CovidIsntOver
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If you ever think “people being mean to me about my job is just like racism” and you’re not a person of color, probably don’t say it out loud. Definitely don’t publish a whole academic paper about it. Trust me on this.
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Disability history has been very poorly documented. There's a handful of books and NYT has been doing an "overlooked" series of obituaries, which are great but only happen when somebody dies.
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Do… Do people not know who Steve Albini is anymore? I feel like my body is going to crumble into dust and blow away.
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It’s also worth noting that Senator Duckworth had to shelter in place in her office during January 6 because the escape routes weren’t wheelchair accessible. businessinsider.com/wheelcha…
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For the first time, there is a federal minimum on the amount of care nursing home residents get every day. I talked to experts and workers about what that means and why it matters. 19thnews.org/2024/04/nursing…
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#CovidIsntOver for disability advocates. But with the end of the COVID public health emergency, organizers are struggling to figure out best practices for a world where everyone else acts like it is. 19thnews.org/2023/07/america…
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I'd love to speak to college organizers who have set up D/deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent contingents at campus encampments for a piece. My email is in my bio and my DM’s are open. I’m curious about how disabled students are showing up for these protests.
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When I picked up @NaomiAKlein’s Doppelgänger, I did not expect incredibly thoughtful writing about parenting a kid on the spectrum and the harms caused by “autism warrior parent” culture.
Guys. It’s so good. I am trying to tweet less but I want to tell you how good it is.
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Disability and aging advocates got an extremely unexpected win at the Supreme Court today. My latest @19thnews. 19thnews.org/2023/06/talevsk…
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Nurses have to lift people in and out of bed. What major physical exertion does engineering involve? Are those numbers heavy?
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At this point it’s not even about the COVID risk for me. Televisits for talk therapy are much more convenient and allow me to use my lunch break and get right back to work. I haven’t missed or had to reschedule an appointment in three years because it’s so much easier to do.
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For #AutismAcceptanceMonth, I interviewed @jordynbzim. She’s a rising disability rights leader and her signature issue is communication access. Zimmerman types to talk and wants more nonspeaking people to be given opportunities to fully express themselves. 19thnews.org/2023/04/jordyn-…
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Can people please be normal about how President Carter looks? He’s a hundred years old and in hospice care. He’s not going to look like a male model.
I hope he had a good birthday and I’m glad he got to spend it with family and the sun on his skin.
Former President Jimmy Carter celebrated his 100th birthday surrounded by family and friends in his backyard in Plains, Georgia. CBS News was there as he was wheeled outside, beneath the shade of his trees, to witness a military flyover with four fighter jets.
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Maybe we should use our editorial judgement and not give RFK Jr. prime time TV news interviews in the first place. thehill.com/homenews/media/3…
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Accusing gay men of picking out their children like accessories feels like some really vintage homophobia.
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This is straight up eugenics and it shouldn’t be getting cute, completely credulous headlines.
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Disability accessibility is not a nice treat for the poor, unfortunate disabled. It is one of the first steps to building a more just, equitable and inclusive society.
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I don’t know if this is related to the end of the public health emergency. I had hoped discussion of continued flexibility from the Biden administration would have meant I could keep doing my appointments online.
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I resigned from @Spectrum’s advisory board because of the complete failure to build bridges and meaningfully include my community.
They did not learn anything from that, apparently. spectrumnews.org/opinion/vie…
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.@juststimming is stepping down from leading @autselfadvocacy due to long COVID. I’ve admired her work for a long time and had the opportunity to profile her last year.
This is a loss for the movement IMO, and I hope she is able to get needed rest. 19thnews.org/2022/04/julia-b…
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Apropos of nothing, I stopped going to my local autistic adult meetup group years ago because autistic men kept making passes at me. In one particularly memorable incident, a guy’s mother tried to get me to go on a date with him.
It didn’t make me feel safe or supported.
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I think it’s worth mentioning that how our current society treats old and disabled people is Incredibly Awful. We don’t live in a world where elders are respected. Feinstein’s behavior makes perfect sense in that context, as does our current gerontocracy.
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I should probably feel threatened about more reporters covering disability as a beat, but honestly, I love it. It isn’t physically possible for one or two people to cover everything. I have a cold right now. I love that I can rest and the news coverage will still happen.
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In Georgia, a disabled-lead local effort to bridge obstacles and get more disabled voters to the polls. 19thnews.org/2024/11/roll-2-…
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#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs is a principle from disability rights that is good to apply to journalism. If you are not interviewing the people you’re writing about, you didn’t do your job right.
so a month or so ago, i wrote an article about how to cover trans kids. chief among my points was talking to actual trans kids for your story and centering it on them. the FP piece that went viral yesterday and the actual trans kids' response is a case study proving my point.
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I sort of have to love the irony of writing a whole article about the focus on accessibility at #DNC2024 and then I can’t actually understand a lot of what people are saying on the disability caucus stream because captions are unavailable.
ALT A cursor hovers over a YouTube stream’s caption button. A pop up says “Subtitles/closed captions unavailable.”
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A new poll from @19thnews/@SurveyMonkey found that nearly half of disabled women reported experiencing sexual harassment or assault in the workplace at some point.
More shockingly (to me), this was possibly the first time a pollster bothered to ask. 19thnews.org/2023/09/poll-di…
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Hannah Gadsby was the first autistic woman like me I ever saw on television, and I will always love her for that even if it isn’t especially cool to do so.
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Yesterday, an Uber driver congratulated me on my pregnancy. I’m not pregnant. I’m just fat. I still gave 5 stars and tipped because I’m not a monster and he was well intentioned. But. Don’t congratulate people on being pregnant unless you are 100% sure!
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SCOTUS issued its 1st decision of the year, ruling a case that could have gutted a key ADA enforcement provision moot.
It is a better result than what many disability and civil rights advocates feared. My latest on Acheson Hotels LLC v. Laufer. 19thnews.org/2023/12/supreme…
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The intellectual disability community has been *abundantly* clear about how they feel about that word, and have done legislative pushes in multiple US states and at the federal level to get it removed from official documents.
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It’s not voluntary if it’s court-ordered. The slippery words people use for this stuff is wild.
Some states trying to tackle the growing mental health crisis are enacting laws and policies that would make it easier to hospitalize or detain the severely mentally ill against their will or through voluntary court-ordered treatment.
to.pbs.org/3QTMI9z
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When pitched this article, it was pretty straightforward — A Zoom call like the other Zoom calls to raise money for Harris, but for the disability community. Attendee numbers, fundraising numbers, done and dusted.
That is not what ended up happening. 19thnews.org/2024/08/disable…
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I find the TikTok and autism influencers annoying and alienating too, but that seems less to do with “identity politics” and more to do with the fact that I’m in my 30’s.
Back in @nytopinion, this time discussing what happens when mental illness and neurodiversity become entrenched in our ever-expanding identity politics.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/opini…
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People, especially younger people, need time and space to be cringe for a little bit as they figure their identities out. This isn’t even a neurodiversity specific problem.
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The way some autism professionals respond to the insistence that they use language around autism that autistic people are asking them to use is… Something.
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My dad is an ER doctor and for a while, he would point out every AED defibrillator we’d pass, back when they were newer. It is a technology that has saved so many lives.
A man just collapsed at the ATL airport. Unresponsive. Not breathing. Turning blue. All in an instant, strangers raced to his aid—some administering CPR, others grabbing the defibrillators nearby—as several of us stood praying. After a scary minute or so, he kicked a leg and started breathing,
It would be another 5 minutes before paramedics arrived on the scene. Were it not for the immediate action taken by those strangers—people who knew nothing about this man, people who would soon scatter to their own destinations, people this man will never get the opportunity to thank—he would be dead right now, headed to the morgue instead of home to his family.
A vivid reminder of our shared humanity. One I won’t soon forget.
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Editorializing a little, I think my main takeaway from reporting this out is that there is *a ton* of energy from disabled Democrats and other left-leaning disabled folks that has been left on the table by the Biden campaign. Harris campaign is hiring to change that right now.
A Zoom call was meant to mobilize and excite disabled voters to turn out for Kamala Harris. It quickly turned into a disaster, @slooterman reports.
19thnews.org/2024/08/disable…
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This woman’s only diagnoses are autism and ADHD. She has been approved for MAID in Canada. cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/c…
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Apropos of nothing, my first wedding anniversary is this weekend. #DisabledLoveIsBeautiful
ALT A person in a black tuxedo puts a ring on the finger of a woman in a white tuxedo.
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I cannot describe how much media coddling Andrew Wakefield, RFK Jr. and their ilk has damaged our society as a whole.
"Around 1.8.% of kindergartners across #Va were granted exemptions to required vaccines as of the school year ending in 2022, compared to 1% in 2012."
axios.com/local/richmond/202…
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Are you LBGTQ+ & disabled? Has your ability to participate in Pride or other queer community activities been stymied by accessibility fails?
Conversely, have there been queer places or events where you felt welcomed?
Want to talk to a journalist about it? Email or DM me!
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One of the most striking things about the #Paralympic2024 opening ceremony is the differences in team size based on country. Access to parasports is not at all equitable.
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I would like a moratorium on calling every annoying thing people from minority groups do/say “identity politics.”
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Also: Getting old and acquiring disabilities are a normal part of the human lifecycle. I’m glad he’s still going out and experiencing life while he can. It’s not shameful for someone old or disabled to be in public. If you’re uncomfortable, suck it up and be a grown up.
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You wouldn’t respond “aw shucks, how sweet” to a lunch counter getting racially integrated or to the first women being admitted to a previously all-male academic program. Disability accessibility is a similar kind of thing.
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Wow, a lot of people are surprisingly hostile to parents and children.
“Where are children not allowed? Who gets mad about children in public?” IDK man read the replies.
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I think the most quoted piece I’ve ever written was a hot take I wrote for Slate about how Elon Musk’s Asperger syndrome isn’t a hall pass for his cruelty. It got mentioned in the @NewYorker by @jill_lepore again this week. newyorker.com/magazine/2023/…
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RFK Jr. has definitely had people with intellectual disabilities at spear tip his whole life. That part is accurate, although not in the way he thinks he means.
"I have never seen someone my age with full-blown autism," says Kennedy, "and I've been at the spear-tip of people with intellectual disabilities my whole life."
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