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DISABILITY-RESEARCH  January 2003

DISABILITY-RESEARCH January 2003

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Subject:

Re: Obstacles to identity formation, + comparing ableism to homophobia

From:

Jim Davis <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Jim Davis <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:43:52 -0500

Content-Type:

Text/Plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

Text/Plain (216 lines)

Re: Marifn's post:

Those observations tend to be more true for severe disability, than for
other disabilities.  More precisely, more true for readily visible
disabilities and less true for invisible disabilities.  Which to some
degree tends to correlate with severe / non-severe.

Of course invisible disabilities aren't always invisible, it's
situational whether they get disclosed or not.  When you're in a
situation which calls for you to do the thing you cannot do, or can only
do in a different or assisted way, then your invisible disability is
"outed".

Example:  I have visual problems too complicated to quickly describe
here, suffice it to say they're short of the US legal definition of "low
vision", but functionally significant and worsening steadily.  Every
time I order food at a fast food store, I have to read the menu which is
typically overhead and behind the clerks, and is often in tiny and/or
unclear type, or low contrast, and often installed with the lighting
glaring off the glossy plastic.  I have to get close enough, then may
have to move sideways towards the part of the menu I want, and move
again to get the glare of the lights off tha part I'm trying to read.
As typically, the only customer doing this and taking an extra 30
seconds or so to order, believe me, there is often a negative reaction
from the clerks, an acting out of stigma.  And I posted in this
discussion thread, at end of December, another first person example of
being unable to turn my neck due to early stage of spinal fusion, which
considition was most clearly "outed" at around age 11 by a required
summer camp swimming test in which I was not able to swim the required
"crawl" style (I had called it "breast stroke" in that posting, and
somebody wrote to correct that term).... and after that situation
"outed" that semingly unimporant impairment and by adding discrimination
turned it into a disability, I was not allowed to swim at all, which
then triggered peer harassent, (though the "safety" excuse given was a
lie since I was in fact able to swim in other ways, and was already
drownproof).

Looking at M's new post from the other end of the dual topic -- reality
is not quite so simple as saying gay kids or adults have the ability to
control when they're "out", either.

Though gender non-conforming kids can be heterosexual, many such kids
are gay too and their unconcealable gender non-conformity (especially
for the femme boys, as there is often much more leeway for girls to not
conform, as "tomboys") --
is both perceived as gender non-conformity and (in boys) assumed to also
be evidence of hated homosexuality, which may be a sort of forced
outing, even if the heterosesists don't really have good evidence of the
sexuality (their guess might turn out to be be correct).  As that kid
ages into the teen years, this supposed "freedom" to stay in the close
(turning that word up-side down) to "control" when one is out, tends to
only come at a high cost in terms of any refraining from having the
same-sex relationships one really wants to have or seek, and even
refraining from slight expressions of gayness.  And such kids may also
be coerced into what Adrienne Rich has termed "forced heterosexuslity",
because if you're to be perceived as not gay, then you are expected to
engage in different-sex dating.  (Because the essence of homophobia is
that bigots are hyper-vigilant, "a little goes a long way".)  OTOH, if
the teen is relatively empowered by a liberationist POV with the notion
of asserting a right to have a same sex partner, or even (gasp) the
right to take this partner to the Prom, (see "Rock Island Lobster"
memoir) then just being yourself outs you.

The notion that a L/G/B/T person "can" (or "can easily") avoid stigma by
avoiding coming out, intentionally or not IS THEREFORE EXTREMELY
HOMOPHOBIC, as it assumes that nothing of value is being sacrificed by
knucking under to forced secrecy, when in fact, plenty is being
sacrificed, a central part of your life is being sacrificed, including
freedom of speech.

Yes, there are some interesting paralells between how ableism works, and
how homophobia works.  BUT they should not be explored in an
oversimplified manner that pits one group against the other, or which
can be easily interpreted by DS students as doing so.  (Also one should
never forget that these minorities overlap, so that pitting one against
the other as is occasionally seen in popular disabled rights literature,
puts people who live with both stigmatised identities in a terrible
bind.)

Three years ago I wrote an essay that is a call for research at the
intersection of PWD & LGBT studies & identities, for the newsletter of
the principal LGBT studies organisation in the US, CLAGS (Center for
Lesbian & Gay Studies, at the Graduate Center of CUNY, City University
of New York).   The essay includes a list of 8 areas that go beyond mere
population overlap, that might be interesting to explore, and might be a
starting point of interest for getting LGBT scholars and students to
grasp ableism and the disabled rights viewpoint.

Unfortunately there is no digital copy of this essay except the e-mail
used to submit it for publication.  If anyone on this list would like a
copy, I can e-mail it to you or snail-mail a photocopy.  It is being
used in readings packets of several required first year diversity /
tolerance courses.....though it was not intended for that use.

---

The essay's title is a quote from a question that two different peers,
architects, asked me, both in those exact six words -- when in two
separate introductory conversations I mentioned to them that I am
currently studying & advocating universal design -- which made no sense
to them because at the moment my mobiliby disability was still invisible
to them.  This experience of being told in effect that the group is so
stigatised that it's inconceivable that anyone outside the group would
give a damn about disabled rights in the built environment -- this
ableism was actuallly quite SIMILAR to the homophobia I encountered when
I took a sociology course "Social Deviance".  Only after I "came out" to
them as a person with a mobility disability relating to steps, did my
interest in applying disabled rights to the designed environment, make
any sense to them.

When I spoke up in that class disagreeing with the homophobic "gay"
chapter in the textbook and the homophobic way the class discussion had
begun in it's first 5-10 minutes, this was immediately interpreted by
heterosexual students in the room as a coming out statement, based on
the bigotted logic of "You must be one of them, or why else would you
say those things?"  What in "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" literature is known
as the "irrebuttable presumption." if you do anything but conform to
expected heterosexist speech or action.  (After replying "Yes, I am a
gay man" I was then verbally harassed by a heterosexist student, for the
balance of that class and most of the next one; which was done with the
passive approval of the otherwise distinguidhed Old Left professor and
of nearly every other student in the class; a few of whom actively added
to the harassment, while the rest either cowered in fear or simply
didn't care.  This was 1977, in "liberal" New York City in a
"progresive" mini-university.)

One difference between ableism homophobia, is that the "irrebuttable
presumption" of -- "If you're saying non-homophobic things, you must be
gay." does not apply to people with oe or more invisible disabilities.
There is no presumption that "If you favor disabled rights, you must be
one of them,"
Because the ableist typically is unaware of the concept of invisible
disabilites and indeed even of the concept of non-severe disabilities.

Of course, that "essentialist" definition of disability as equalling use
of wheels, or of being limited to a very short list of severe and highly
visible forms of disability, is not a view that is only encountered in
not-yet-disabled people.



Essay title: "Why Do You Care About This?  Part One", by Jim L. Davis,
CLAGS News, Winter 2000 (Dec. 2000), Vol. X, Number 3, page 14.   (Not
on the web site www.clags.org )

Part Two has yet to be written, and will probably include AIDS which I
excluded from Part One only because it was impossible to intelligently
deal with it within the short word limit I was working under.

----

NEWS

Towards the end of this month the scholarly org. CLAGS will be having a
historic first meeting to discuss ways to integrate DS into the org's
many lecture / panel / conference prsentations each year.  This is a
long awaited thaw, after I brought this up sporadically throughout the
90's starting with event-accessibility issues.  Then when a new director
came in, I set up a historic first meeting in September of 1999 to
advocate reforms by initiating PWD inclusion in programing, a meeting
between CLAGS management and staff, with myself and a CUNY grad student
in counselling Anthony Trocchia negotiating for the inclusion.  (Anthony
was soon to become the only out LGBT president in the 30 year history of
Disabled In Action of Metropolitan New York, which is the oldest
surviving DR activist org that we know of.)

At this historic second meeting later this month, we will discuss both
generalities and specifics about how to integrate DS into the org.'s
20-something presentations per year (it was excluded from their recent
"space" conference; I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen at the
second one)... and ideas for individual presentations.   I would like to
resubmit some names to them and add to that list -- of possible speakers
to invite, but frankly it is probably more feasible for presenters to be
scheduled if they're closer to New York City, than it might be  to
persuade the org. to pay for airline tickets from afar.  But I will
explore that topic at the meeting, and remind them of the historic
imbalance waiting to be rectified.  This org also publishes LGBT studies
anthologies (2 so far), individual books (some in cooperation with NYU),
and gives out some scholarships, all areas in which we're seeking
equitable inclusion.  Which does require people submitting proposals of
that kind (it would be helpful if Anthony & I could be informed of such
proposals, so I am not relying on the org to for that info and hearing
"We've never received any such proposals.")  How to submit proposals is
explained in the Programming Committee part of the web site
www.clags.org

YOUR SUGGESTIONS FOR TOPICS AND SPEAKERS at the intersection of
disability studies and LGBT studies,
ARE INVITED, ASAP, so I can bring them to this historic mid-January
meeting.

Jim Davis

-------

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