people have been so afraid of and disgusted by visible congenital conditions (especially with i/dd) for like, literally centuries, annnnd nothing about that has fucking changed at all
like, you can "accept" a pretty person in a wheelchair (accept is in quotation marks on purpose) but you start having discussions about whether or not it's ethical to let people with down syndrome be born on a post about how people should care about people with it. people with visible congenital conditions (especially with i/dd) are alienated and ostracized both by abled people AND other disabled people- where do we fucking belong? we're the same thing as both of you.
our existence is a fucking trolley problem, our existence is an idea it's a concept it's not a reality we're not people, we're a stepladder for you to make yourself feel better, there's a million articles where someone is nice to an adult with a visible congenital condition and everyone goes "awwwh faith in humanity restored", my own fucking 1st grade(?) teacher took pics with me like i was a fucking theme park mascot, i saw a FUCKING MEME SOMEONE MADE OUT OF A PHOTO OF A CHILD WITH FACIOSCALUPOHUMERAL MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY, because when you see us you don't see us as people. we're just an idea
there are people who look ways you think people can't "naturally" look. people who look ways you would consider "uncanny" (<- me. i only blink one eye often and my face moves kind of like those fucking ai videos) and find some ridiculous "actually it's natural to be afraid of disabled people because humans are afraid of illness and "things that look human but aren't"" excuse to rationalize your fucking cruelty about. fuck you
there are young people who look old and old people who look young. there are people whose bodies are big but their arms and legs are small, people whose bodies are small but their arms and legs are big, people who have atrophied faces and ears that stick out and no eyebrows, people whose eyes are far apart or close together, people whose smiles are "too wide", people whose foreheads are tall and wide, people whose spines are crooked and sharp, whatever the fuck you think people "can't look like", they can. people who look like frankenstein. me. me, i do
we're beautiful and normal fucking human beings btw
we went from abled people actually killing people with visible congenital conditions to isolating them to making fun of them, while also doing all of those other things, just in subtler ways. they still do those things. they still do all of those things. they reject us for financial relief programs. insurance rejects our treatments, medicine we've been taking for years, equipment we use. they starve and neglect us and gaslight and blame us. they want us to fucking die.
like
can you care about us? please? can we be seen in public with you? can we exist alongside you? can you invite us into the warmth and light of your house when they shut us out in the cold to die? fuck
we deserve to fucking live and to be seen, OUTSIDE, IN PUBLIC, and loved and cared about and respected and cared for. we deserve to be represented in art, writing, on tv, in movies. we deserve to be seen as beautiful and fashionable and cool and handsome and natural. we are just as fucking normal as you are
there is nothing uncomfortable or disgusting or uncanny or horrific or unnatural about us. fucking grow up
also we don't have to be successful and impressive with 20 phds to deserve to live. no one does.
