I am. I am. I am.: Oh, yay…. now blatant ableism has invaded my Facebook page
TW: Major ableism ahead. MAJOR!
Fan Q: Should a mentally and/or physically disabled person be able to marry? I don’t mean a bi-polar person, I’m talking down syndrome, autism, wheelchairs, etc. “Severe” disability/disorder. Should they be able to marry although they may not have the mental…
I am glad someone took on the autism thing, but people with Down Syndrome and other intellectual disabilities should be able to marry, too. I am so sorry this invaded your Facebook page.
I agree. I was upset that no one took on other intellectual disabilities. I guess the general consensus tending to be “but they’ll be taken advantage of because they won’t understand”, etc. So frustrating. I argued and then people kept telling me to shut up, really, because I apparently had missed the point. Well, hello, people, when something affects how I’m perceived because of a disability I have, um, yes, I’m going to get angry about it. Then, of course, they used the “but you’re so high functioning”, which is just ludicrous, of course. I gave them a short run down of how I have an unbalanced functioning level. Meaning that I can be a parent and do things for my kids while still having trouble making phone calls and putting the laundry away some days, and how every day is different.
Ugh. Anyhow, at least Facebook has stopped giving me notifications about the conversation, so I’m done. I’ve said what I need to say and I’m done.
The thing that bothers me about the whole “People with Down Syndrome shouldn’t marry” is that the arguments are exactly the same as “People with autism shouldn’t marry”.
Some of my spouse’s close friends—some of our mutual friends, even, including an ex of mine—have asked Blink if they feel guilty being married to me. They haven’t used the R-word, but the sentiment is always “Why would you marry a retarded person? Aren’t you taking advantage of them? Isn’t it impossible for them to have a mature relationship, consent to sex, or interact with normal people?”
And every Auti$m $peaks video about parents of autistics (i.e. all of them) have at least one parent bemoaning and wailing their child’s inevitable single status, throwing in “My child will never marry” along with “My child will never play baseball” and “My child will never go to prom”. As though getting married is required of most children, and their child is a disappointment if they choose not to. (Hello, sexual and romantic privilege!) As though marriage is automatically impossible for autistics, or autistics will never, ever desire marriage, and autistics will never, ever find anyone who could possible cherish them enough to marry them. As though autistics never turn out queer in societies which will not permit them to marry, rendering the question moot. (Hello, heterosexist privilege!)
The same exact assumptions and arguments, like I said, made against “permitting” people with Down Syndrome to marry.
Which reveals two important things about ableist privilege.
One, an ableist argument against one neurodivergent/physically divergent group is an ableist argument against all of us.
Two, ableism is so often tangled up in several other types of privilege. Fighting ableism isn’t just fighting for neurodivergent and physically divergent folks. It is fighting (in this case) romantic privilege, sexual privilege, and heterosexist privilege.
Abandon autistics on this score, and social justice advocates are also abandoning aromantics, asexuals, trans* folks, queer folks, and irregulars.
Reblogging for commentary. And yes, all of this. As I’ve just recently been diagnosed, I’ve just always been thought of as the weird doesn’t-have-it-all-together spouse, but not in the terms you’re talking about. And really, a lot of my hesitancy to “come out of the autistic closet”, as it were, has to do with the fact that I likely will be a viewed as less. People always like to throw in developmental disability when it comes to things like consent, and that really works against us.
And I absolutely agree that ableism ties into a lot of other privileges as well.
Bolding in the last post is mine.
This is basically my problem with a lot of the sex-positive feminists I have encountered on the Internet. Conveniently, only their definition of what counts as “consent” is legitimate; and conveniently, their definition of “consent” automatically excludes people who are unable to speak.
I cannot count how many times I’ve seen “enthusiastic consent” defined as “the ability to enthusiastically verbalize a desire to have sex”. Which not only excludes people who cannot verbalize, or verbalize on an inconsistent basic; it also excludes folks who choose under some circumstances to consent to sex, but cannot honestly be said to desire it (people on the asexual spectrum, people who are sex-repulsed, people with low libidos).
There’s this… disappointing tendency to fight one type of oppression (rape culture, in this case) with other types of oppression. You should by all rights be able to tell anybody you’re autistic. And they should not react as though your spouse is a criminal for marrying you, or as though you can’t possibly be that autistic because you are married.
