cripchick’s weblog

I feel hopeless when I’m supposed to be speaking on sexual consciousness but am feeling disconnected from my own body because I don’t look white, skinny, or able-bodied like the masses of queer people there

I feel like I’m misleading people and betraying my own when I talk about disability in a cross-disability intersectional framework and the only visual image people are getting is that disability=mobility because the only disabled people presenting (including myself) are wheelchair users

I feel home when I fly into North Carolina and am surrounded by bodies of all sizes, shapes and colors— my, how one can miss this love/hate relationship with the South is surprising

Like this weekend, I sometimes feel invisible

Like this weekend, I sometimes feel like I talk about disability too much, but this is hard to balance when I feel like I am brought somewhere to only talk about disability

Like this weekend, I am unsure what the future holds or what community actually looks like for me

Here’s to friends that remind me why I am in this, the spirit of community, and those disabled people and allies who through all this, made the sessions and trip worthwhile.

The Diiiiiiivine Ms. Jimmi had a great post about World AIDs Day and corporate America, check it out:

People feel that just by buying products that are stamped with (RED) that they are doing something to fight AIDS. These products lull you into feeling good about yourself and letting you rest your head. Don’t be deceived. However, Corporate America is also making a ton of money from these sales. It may make a token donation, like $10 from the sales of (RED) iPods from Apple, and pocket the rest. Whatever happened to making a special product and giving all the proceeds from it to the cause? Whatever happened to People Not Profits?

This World AIDS Day, remember the dead and fight like hell for those still living. Remember that the Corporate machine is not our friend. Do your bit to demand that they do more and contact your lawmakers. Talk about it and spread the word.

Oh, and on another note, Lisa linked an amazing artist, Nix Williams, who wrote a song about division in the feminist movement, especially around the transphobia transwomyn face from many feminists. It’s beautiful and you must read the commentary that comes with it. It can be downloaded here.:

Are you there? You said you’d be
A place to turn to in my need,
And I need you now, I need that space,
I need you, but you turn away.

An article on queerness and disability came out this week titled Double Outsiders. When I think of disability and sexuality I think firstly of the exclusion we face in both circles and then the tabooness of it all. This article really reminded me of how many of our people are living in group homes and institutions and how their sexuality (and freedom in general) is so unbelievably oppressed. How is it that it’s almost 2008 and in many ways we haven’t come very far? I guess I can’t be surprised…it’s not like I’ve told my parents or home health nurses either..:

“Dating for people with developmental delays can be difficult, whatever their sexual preference. Even if two people are interested in each other, it can take months just to set up a meeting among guardians and caregivers — sometimes as many as a half-dozen people — who must sign off before anybody even thinks about heading to a movie or a restaurant.

Leslie Falanga tried to help her brother, Andrew, arrange a date with a man he met at the support group. Because neither man could drive, transportation was an obstacle. And with house rules that prohibit closed bedroom doors, privacy was not an option.

So Falanga dropped her brother off at the other man’s group home. It was a junior high-style first date, with bright lights and hovering chaperones. When it was time to say good night, a staff member drove Andrew home.

And the relationship “really didn’t continue,” Falanga said. The logistics were just too difficult.” –Double Outsiders

There are so many articles about how lonely disabled people are, how frusterating is it that most would never to connect it to conditions like this.  

“You’re talking to somebody who talked about gay Americans in his convention speech in 2004, who talked about them in his announcement speech for the president of the United States, who talks about gay Americans almost constantly in his stump speeches.”
  —Barack Obama

Ohhh. Well, yeah, sure, go ahead and support funds raised from people who blatantly hate queer people then.  That whole mentioning-us-in-your-speech thing makes it okay. Here’s your cookie. I hope it’s worth it. (more…)