“Tell your children who the cowards were.”

A lot of disabled people have also connected the rise in the r-slur to the pandemic & the acceptance of mass death & disablement. When society decides that some people's lives & health are disposable, & that others deserve to live & get back to "normal" it reinforces a hierarchy of bodies & minds.

“Refusing to perform neurotypicality is a revolutionary act of disability justice. It's also a radical act of self-love.” - Dr. Devon Price

If your values don't apply to everyone, they're not your values. They're just a favor you do for people that you like.

"Somehow it is always marginalized people who destroy unity by existing—never bigots who create conflict by subordinating or insulting marginalized people."

The pandemic has, and continues to have, significant effects on global politics. I am certain that in the future entire books will be written on this subject, but these effects can be distilled to one concept: the vast majority of people have normalised that which is abnormal.

Silly inflatable costumes are taking over anti-Trump protests. What are they actually saying? | Julia Carrie Wong

there are good posts everywhere for those with eyes to see

RFK Jr. has shut down the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice, gutted funding, and derailed trials and studies.

"You are welcome here. Bring your true, authentic self. Wear your hair extensions and cornrows or shave your woolly hair down close to your scalp like those warrior sisters I’ve seen in the framed art aisle at HomeGoods."

The law is the culmination of a decade of anti-vaccine activism—and it could be the first of many to come.

“This is just eugenics and misogyny in a Maga hat.”

People like this will make the argument that people don't owe each other anything when it comes to masking, and then they will be shocked and appalled in a few months when RFK Jr uses the same logic to take away their kids' measles vaccines.🧵

there's been a rather ingenius, insidious, deliberate effort via propaganda and social messaging to get people to shift their anger and trauma about covid away from the officials who failed them, to the people asking them to mask.

Proud papa moment: my son J published a letter in the @nytimes.com today (in print tomorrow) on the need to think our definitions of autism.

The disabled community holds up so much of the day to day activism sky. You deserve a day of rest.

It’s really hard to watch the country rise up and not feel welcome to join in because of ableism. But do not feel guilty and do not be hard on yourself. Our very existence is resistance.

Disabled folks feeling guilty for not protesting today: *it is not your fault* that organizers don’t make an effort to make protests accessible and don’t encourage masking And despite what folks on Bluesky would have you believe, there are MANY ways to resist and protests don’t have to be your way

after a clarinet player was arrested at Sunday's ICE protest in downtown Portland, I talked to five artists, crafters and makers - a puppet designer, an illustrator, a graphic designer, a knitter, and a theatre artist - about creativity under fascism www.orartswatch.org/resistance-c...

white house has joined bluesky click here to block all official us government accounts instantly bsky.app/profile/did:...

DisCrit examines how racism & ableism intersect to shape systems of power that marginalize disabled people of color. It challenges “normalcy” & calls for collective action toward justice. Check out the video, one-pager, & other resources at crdjustice.org. Created by summer intern Mary Yoon. [1/13]

Long Covid Is Real — And It’s Changing an Entire Generation Hundreds of thousands of kids in America are struggling with an illness that many doctors and schools refuse to recognize.e Feature: www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

"It is not reasonable to place any expectations on the broad back of the majority of society, but it is reasonable to pile everything the majority won’t do on the thin slice of disabled people who are carrying their own weight and attempting to carry everyone else’s as they drown."

The entire concept of "empathy burnout" is why I think the way people talk about empathy is bullshit. It's a model where people are allowed to opt out of doing the right thing because they don't feel the right things. It's a model where everything is about vibes, not values.

All I can add to the “we reject universal masking” discourse is that it’s not about masks. You aren’t rejecting universal masking, which never happened; you’re rejecting having to think about wearing a mask, and maybe feeling badly about thinking about masks. Can’t help you there.

Wanna to go to a virtual No Kings rally that focuses on healthcare (with a side of "vaccines are good, actually" and "eugenics is bad, actually")? Organized by disabled folks who can't go to an in-person event. Join Saturday at 2:30pm Pacific time, zoom link: us06web.zoom.us/j/8467741742...

🔥from @ericmgarcia.bsky.social "Republicans used to understand that special education isn’t just something nice thing to have. It isn’t charity. It is a right. Republican presidents signed the bills that codified the right to a Free Appropriate Public Education for millions of Americans."

as charming and whimsical as some will view this, it bears noting that absurdity—not militancy or might—are what people have chosen to repeat from the portland standoffs against ICE. why is that? what purpose does this serve? a mini 🧵:

Free Halloween Zine : Disability perspectives on horror movies : files.libcom.org/files/2025-0...

Everyone I know with Long Covid (including myself) was somehow marginalized or struggling already before Covid disabled us or made us sicker (in our blue states, while Biden was president, and largely after we were vaccinated). Almost none of us has any outside support. 🧵

“This is absolutely a violation of federal law.” For @motherjones.com, I reported about how reduction-in-forces in the Office of Special Education Programs will lead to disabled kids' needs not being met, as funding may not be distributed. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

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“Treating autism as a threat is propaganda meant to stir fear, not to care for children. Demonizing difference sets the stage for cruelty… Trump… just cut funding for deaf-blind students and other special-education programs. These cuts rob children of resources, teachers, and dignity.” -Estee Klar

And, the office of Rehabilitative Services (RSA). My sources say that whole office is gone. This means no funding, oversight, or support for states' Vocational Rehab programs, which help disabled people transition into the workforce with guidance, funding for secondary coursework and job placement.

(A lot of people are about to learn the hard way that their district is not complying with the IEP process out of the goodness of their hearts, or because they have high moral ideals about inclusion. At the administrative level, they exist almost entirely not to get the district sued.)

Now--IDEA is still law, of course. But what happens if a district who has either been minimally complying or is actually trying their best but has zero money realizes there are no legal oversight or consequences for violating it anymore? No one works there. No one investigates complaints.

Today, it is often *still* a fight to get kids the services they need. Districts are cash-strapped, ableist af, or both! IDEA has a built in process of escalation that parents can follow to get a school to comply with their kid's legal rights.

The bigger issue, though, is oversight. OSERS and the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) exist to make sure that students are not being discriminated against. OSERS specifically exists because before it and IDEA, districts would just say no, we don't do disabilities. And that was that.

The federal government pays about 13-40% of IDEA related costs via formula grants on a state by state basis. This is already VERY not enough money. Now there is no one in the office to physically disburse these funds, which, btw P2025 planned to do away with anyway.

First, OSERS oversees the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) the law that gives disabled kids a right to K-12 public education, and accommodations and specialized instruction through the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process. So first, but actually the smaller concern, funding:

Yesterday we received word that the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) within Dept of Ed (DoEd) was gutted--right now we believe there is no one or nearly no one left. But what does it mean? 1/11

I have a lot of experience knowing what it looks like when disabled kids are denied an appropriate education. This isn't just going to harm those kids; it's going to affect entire schools and communities. 🧵

This article I had published at @motherjones.com in January feels very relevant with federal special ed office layoffs. Project 2025 targeted disability education services. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

It's utterly devastating to see decades of progress for the disability community being wiped out in just a few months. There was of course much work to be done, but now that effort will have to be devoted to clawing back the gains now being ripped away.

Long Covid and IACC advocacy cannot be condoning a regime that’s undertaking this project. There is no version that ends well for us.

The promotion of pseudoscience about a supposed “cause” or “cure” of autism and the destruction of special education (and all of public education, really) are part of the same project. It is a fascist attempt to expel certain people from the body politic, based in eugenics.

My publisher’s been very patient. I’m not doing everything I said I’d do to promote this book (out in a few weeks) because I’m an organizer in a city under federal attack. My days are full and emotionally exhausting. Any help getting the word out means a lot. It's a book people need right now.

There are reports that the *entire* office of special education at the US Dept of Education has been cut. These hardworking folks ensure kids with disabilities get equal access to a quality education. America’s children deserve better than this.