#ownvoices on Twitter respond to that ableist SF Signal post

After writing up my thoughts last night on Amy Sterling Casil’s ableist post on SF Signal (which, for what it’s worth, SF Signal apologized for), I started seeing discussions on Twitter about how Jim Hines’s post, one in which he seems to position himself as not disabled, was the primary response getting linked to and read. Hines’s post is fantastic and I’m very glad he made it, but with disability as with other axes of oppression, the voices of those who experience the marginalization directly need to be centered. Unfortunately, most of us had expended a lot of spoons last night discussing Casil’s ableism on Twitter, or even just reading the article. (Here’s the original post on spoon theory, and here’s the tl;dr version at Wikipedia, in case anyone’s unfamiliar with this metaphor.) One of the painful ironies of disability advocacy is that advocacy itself can use up the precious energy we need to go through our lives, resulting in abled people speaking for us when we prioritize living over fighting. I was lucky enough to have an abundance of spoons today, though, so I put together Storifies of some of the powerful words tweeted by disabled people yesterday and today. S. Qiouyi Lu also contributed a Storify, the first on this list. Please read these tweets and follow and support these incredible writers and advocates.

Responses to Amy Sterling Casil’s Column on SFSignal – S. Qiouyi Lu’s Storify, mostly collecting Rose Lemberg and Bogi Takács

My Storify of India Valentin’s tweets

My Storify of Bogi Takács’s tweets

My Storify of Lev Mirov’s tweets – cw for abusive Christianity as well as ableism

My Storify of Kayla Whaley’s tweets