1 Link: Community

Someone Who Moves Like You

And Julia, who had endless words for a great many small and unimportant things, couldn’t say anything more about Abed beyond he moves like me.

Abed Nadir, you see, is an autistic character.
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Crip Big Bang Artist Claims

Artist claims for the first round of [community profile] cripbigbang are now open to the public! If you didn't sign up as an artist, but find a summary that strikes your fancy in the claims post [link goes to LJ], I encourage you to submit a claim. Visual artists, fanmixers, fanvidders, meta writers, and meta vidders are all welcome to participate.
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Blind vs. Masked

I first started using "Masked" instead of "Blind" when I worked on a scientific study where some blind people were participants. Blind is both a medical term and an identity category, and therefore it means a lot of things already; "masked" is more respectful and we used it in place of "double blind study" for example. This was before I got into disability politics, maybe around 2005.

Then I met [personal profile] jesse_the_k who convinced me to stop using "blind" as a metaphor entirely.

Here is some background reading:
Kestrell: What Good writers Still Get Wrong about Blind People
Kate Nepveu, panel writeup: I'm not your metaphor: Explaining Oppression with Analogies
Jesse the K: I'm not Colorblind, I'm Totally Blind!

Jesse says: "Blindness doesn't endow one with greater spiritual insight nor better hearing than sighted people..."

This is key. The whole idea of a "blind" study is that it makes a scientist less biased. But it's the built in ignorance of the drug or intervention being used that makes the scientist less biased. It's a way to build safety into a study. It has nothing do with sight in particular: it has to do with knowledge, and sequestering knowledge. In the case of reviewing, it's the ignorance of who the author is, etc.

The stereotype of blindness, of blind people, being perpetuated here is that they are purer, less biased, more forgiving of flaws, better judges of data and of character. They can't be, you know, just people. Once again, disabled people aren't given the benefit of being full human beings, of having full moral character.

"Masked" is preferable because it is a separate term that evokes temporarily putting on and taking off of a mask, for the purpose of doing a study or review. A mask could cover up your identity, make you seem like someone else, or no one at all: it gives the idea of being anonymous. For reviewing in particular, this metaphor works very well: what if the manuscript was submitted by Anonymous? A person in a mask. It's not that the reviewer is "blind"--a stereotype of someone pure and unbiased, it's that the submitter is wearing a mask.

Your thoughts here are welcome.

This post brought to you by recent SF/F calls for "blind reviews" (blech).
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Phoenix Comic-Con 2013: Brief accessibility recap.

I'm not someone who needs accessibility services, but I did want to report on a couple things that went wrong at Phoenix that I hope future cons will take notice of.

Accessibility issues either reported to me or that I noticed myself. )

Disability in Star Trek Into Darkness

Content notice: the linked blog post contains discussion of eugenics, genocide, euthanasia, institutionalization, and major character death. Also, major spoilers for the film.

Star Trek Into Darkness: Able-Bodied Angst and Abrams’ Anti-Intellectualism

1 link 14 May 2013

Think Progress: In "The Michael J. Fox Show" and "Ironside", NBC bets big on Characters with Physical Limitations

The network is remaking Ironside, a show about a detective who uses a wheelchair after he’s shot in the line of duty that ran on NBC for eight seasons between 1967 and 1975. And it’ll be airing The Michael J. Fox show, a sitcom featuring the titular comedian, who did seven years on NBC with Family Ties, which ran from 1982 to 1989, as a news anchor who returns to work despite the way his Parkinson’s Disease, from which Fox suffers in real life. In other words, NBC is putting two shows on air that feature characters with physical limitations, moving a kind of character who’s often relegated to supporting roles—and who’s often there to illustrate the goodness of or provide moral tests to fully able-bodied characters—to the center of the frame. And from the trailers, it looks like both Ironside and The Michael J. Fox show won’t shy away from discussing their characters’ physical limitations, and other people’s reactions to them, directly.
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New Policy re Mental Health-Related Posts

We've created a new policy for posts regarding mental health issues in this community.

Copying the changes from our profile page


This community accepts a variety of cognitive styles and welcomes everyone. You are in charge of maintaining your own safety as much as possible. Mental health issues are challenging.

Content notices/warnings/advisories/cues/clues are helpful, but there are also limitations
- the poster must understand what sort of issues need caution
- the readers must recognize what they need to avoid

Therefore: POSTING RULES re Mental Health Issues
These are rules. Err once, you're publicly warned. Err twice, you're banned for two weeks.
Moderator decisions are arbitrary and final.
ETA: These decisions are at the mods' discretion and are final
1. Use very specific titles.
not "Gloomy themes" but "Suicide in RPGs"

2. Start with brief overview
describe topic, what kind of discussion you want, what's your goal

3. Place the entire remaining post under a cut

Ask questions by messaging a mod if needed.


We hope this works for everyone, and we encourage you to comment here.

ETA to change "arbitrary" decision to "discretionary"
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Hurt/Comfort and PTSD

I wrote something for fun at one point. It was a scene from the point of view of a character with PTSD, set immediately following the part of canon where he returns to the exact location where most of his trauma occurred. If I were to draw a graph where the Y axis represents being more mentally unwell, and the X axis represents time since the end of the original trauma, then I might draw a line sloping shallowly downward as it heads further right, with a bump in the middle. The fic would be that bump. It has its own beginning, middle and end.

I hear bad things about H/C, and I think this fic might be H/C )

Because I feel uncertain about this, I would like to invite the thoughts of anyone with relevant experience or information.

Access Resources for Cultural Events

Body of Work is an 11-day festival in Chicago this May 15-25, 2013, with scores of events across many venues. Films, spoken word, 2D art, theater, dance etc, check details at
http://www.bodiesofworkchicago.org/festival/festival-schedule.html

The festival's access resources points to the best cultural access manuals I've ever seen:
http://www.bodiesofworkchicago.org/resources/access.html

This looks like the TL;DR summary:
http://www.bodiesofworkchicago.org/images/Documents/bow_manualUpdated.pdf
which explicitly includes the 2010 ADA standards.

This manual provides backing (to wave in the face of US decision-makers: it's the law!) and also implementation details (how wide should the aisle be? minimum size type on signs?).

Awesome tool!
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Language: spotted on Tumblr

I'm actually not sure how to link to things on Tumblr (LOL) so I'm just going to quote the entire post from UnF*ck Your Habitat that I saw Today while backreading my dash:

---
Just a reminder:
OCD is something one has, not something one “is,” and most people who say, “I’m so OCD” do not have OCD and could use a thesaurus and some sensitivity training.

Here at UfYH HQ, we don’t use “OCD” as shorthand or a humorous description for personality quirks or behaviors. It’s a legitimate medical condition. Words are important, and there are better ways to get your point across without trivializing someone else’s health issue. Some potential alternatives:

Extremely particular
Attentive to cleanliness
Hates when things are dirty
Excessively tidy
Fastidious
Exceptionally neat
Predisposed to cleanliness
P.S. OCD doesn’t always (or even usually) mean that someone is extremely clean or organized.

Tag: It's not about being politically correct it's about not being a jerk
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1 link 9 April 2013

Myke Cole: What PTSD Is (and isn't)

Excellent post. Text is white on black.
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Blindness fic resources/beta

 Hi all--
This is a great resource, I've really enjoyed reading through it. I'm looking for help with a canon-divergent disability fic I'm writing. In canon, the character is blinded and then cured; I'm diverging from the cure part. I've been googling things like "experience of blindness," "sudden vision loss," etc which have been helpful but only up to a point.  

In canon (Fullmetal Alchemist: brotherhood, if anyone's interested), the character loses his vision suddenly and completely, but most of the accounts I've been reading are about people who either have partial vision or became blind gradually. Any suggestions as to what to google/good links to look at?  Most of the fic in this fandom that deals with this is frankly a little icky, and I would really like to avoid the pitfalls of the clueless. 

Thanks!

(no subject)

What do you think of this picture of Toph? (It shows Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender in an action pose, with the caption, "Oh, come on! That has to be a typo! Physical Disadvantage: Blindness cannot possibly be worth that many points.") Why do I feel like there's something problematic there, and why do I also feel like I'm just too ready to accuse everything not explicitly created from a disability rights perspective of being ableist?
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(no subject)

Hey folks!

You may remember my post a while back on my efforts to promote accessibility at our local anime convention, AnimeIowa. Well, we're back in convention planning mode now, and while I'm planning to repeat the stuff that worked and implement as many other things as I can possibly think of, I could use a bit of advice from people who may have a bit more experience in this area.

First of all, I'm getting sanitizer squirt bottles set up at every water station (we have what amount to water coolers set up at different spots in the main hallways; they don't always get refilled regularly, but it's way cool that we have them and aren't stuck relying on the few and far-between water fountains/bubblers). Does anyone have a working ratio for ounces/liters of sanitizer to number of attendees? We're expecting somewhere upwards of three thousand people, and I'd like to avoid running out if possible.

Next, we're one of the few conventions left that still runs a consuite. For those unfamiliar, consuites are basically a room or set of rooms hosted by the convention where attendees can go and get their snack on. Sometimes there's more "real" food - our consuite team is aiming to get as much fresh fruit and veg as they can on their budget, but that stuff tends to be expensive and goes fast - but mostly it's junk and snack-type stuff: chips, candy, that sort of thing. I've been in contact with the consuite team about what to label. I figure that eggs, dairy, peanuts, and tree nuts are the bare minimum for our expected fare, but I've also asked about getting the full ingredients lists for as many of our foodstuffs as possible (we're still working out the logistics of that). I'll also be asking the team to offer and label some gluten-free options, though I doubt we need to worry about that for much of our fare. Oh, and I'm talking to them about getting sanitation stations set up in the consuite as well. Basically, is there anything in particular I'm forgetting or overlooking for food-related concerns? And should I ask about offering alternative diet options (Vegan, possibly religious diets, though I don't think that's too much a concern for our snack food options outside of stuff with dairy and/or eggs? Please correct me if I'm wrong), and if so, what and possibly how?

I think that's it. If you're interested in a progress report on any of the other things I mentioned in my previous post but haven't addressed here, I'd be happy to share details in the comments. I'm also open to suggestions. Thanks in advance!

Edit: Thank you so much everyone for all of your input! I'll do my best to get it organized and sent off to the consuite staff ASAP. Hopefully they will implement as many as possible; we still have a good four months before the convention, which will give us some time to organize this. I'll be pulling for all of the most safe and accessible options, and passing on the more widely applicable ideas as best I can (scentless sanitizer, sign height, no PDFs/alternate options, etc).

I'm up for input and suggestions as long as y'all are willing to share them, so if you think there's something missing here or if you forgot something, or even if you just want to second someone else, please feel welcome to do so. I want our convention to be the best it can be, and if attendees aren't able to experience everything they want to or are harmed by our current practices, then we definitely don't qualify.

Thank you again, and I'll be replying to individual comments shortly.

1 Link 6 March 2013

Pain Relief Foundation: House MD: An analysis of chronic pain managed with opiate therapy in
entertainment television.
By Jemma Theivendran
Imperial College Medical School London
November 2007

Please note that this is a PDF.

via [community profile] metanews
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(no subject)

If anyone is interested in a commentfic meme on the topic of disabilities that start with the letter B, you can find it here.