Friday, December 14, 2018

Crippled At Christmas Cartoons 2018


Happy holidays from the annual poorly drawn crew of crippled Christmas cronies! You have permission to laugh with them and at them. I won't tell. 
[An image description is below each cartoon]

To attract disabled customers, the famed leg lamp now came with an add on leg brace for $6000 extra. 
Image: A large box reads, “Fragile. ‘Now with overpriced leg brace!’” An ambulatory stick figure and a wheelchair using stick figure are nearby. The wheelie’s speech bubble says, “Fra-gee-lay. Must be that fancy Italian leg brace.” 


Another year and the Polar Express had only one accessible stop…
Image: A train marked Polar Express passes by a stick figure in a wheelchair who says “I am so not feeling the magic.”


The SSA began monitoring the mistletoe, eager to slash the benefits of any SSI beneficiaries who acted too married… 
Image: Two wheelie stick figures face one another beneath a mistletoe plant. A sign above the mistletoe says, “We see you when you’re sleeping.” One figure says “Something seems creepy about this mistletoe.” The other replies “I can practically hear my check being reduced if we kiss.”
SSA= Social Security Administration SSI= Supplemental Security Income


The “cost of living” adjustment at Social Security allowed the SSI recipients to buy exactly one more pig in a blanket for the New Year’s Party…
Image: Three stick figure wheelies wear party hats, looking on at an extra hot dog. The extra hot dog has a caption above it reading “Generously funded by the SSA.” One figure says, “Yes, singular. Now who gets it?” Another replies, “I don’t know, dude! I mean, they said mustard counts as a resource!”

The artificial tree struggled to find belonging…
Image: An artificial Christmas tree is in the corner, as “real trees” hurl insults such as “You can’t sit with us!” and “Ew. Look at that loser from Home Depot!” The artificial tree says “Come on, girls! I was born like this! Artificial tree limbs are not as different as you think!” A nearby sign reads “This celebration welcomes trees with disabilities!” 

Despite the Enabling Elves Employment Campaign (!), the wheelie elves could not work because the accessible workstation went to the South Pole on a clerical error. 
Image: Santa says, “Sorry, boys; can I offer you a gum drop (limit 1 per elf) for your trouble?” Two stick figure wheelchair users are nearby, wearing elf hats. One exclaims, “Damn it. We ordered the table 6 months ago!” Meanwhile, a banner boasts “Santa’s Workshop-Celebrating Disability Employment!”



The marketing department was confused as to why CP Barbie wasn’t a Christmas toy craze…
Image: A flyer reads, “Order today! She complains about arthritis! Realistic popping in hip and knee joints! Wheelchair footplates break from high muscle tone…just like in real life!” A wheelchair user stick figure says, “Hmmm…really thought the sparkly pink Medicaid card replica would draw the kids!”

Disabled Santa really loathed the rise of straw shaming…
Image: A stick figure in a wheelchair wearing a Santa hat sits in front of a table with cookies and a glass of milk, no straw, and a nearby Christmas tree. He exclaims, “You try drinking 52568727438 glasses of milk without a straw! I dare you!” He continues, “Damn it, Rudolph. Already told you the metal ones stab me when I startle!” Rudolph, nearby, says indignantly, “But Santa, I read it in Unsolicited Straw Advice From Non-Disabled People! It’s a bestseller!”

After Virginia established that Santa was real, she had other questions…
Image: A letter reads, “Dear Santa, Is an on-time Access A Ride real?” Santa says, “Sh*t! I hate to break a kid’s heart!”

“The stockings were hung from the chimney with care, at a height friendly to St. Nick’s brand new chair.” 
Image: Pictured is a Christmas tree and a fireplace with stockings hanging. One handle on each side of the fireplace says, “pull to adjust.” Santa, drawn as a wheelie stick figure in a Santa hat, says “It’s about time they got height adjustable fireplaces! Finally, someone realizes I’m aging!”

In light of declining mobility, the partridge in the pear tree set his sights on the accessible housing lottery…
Image: The partridge sits on a branch in his pear tree. A stick figure below says “Well, sir. Feel free to apply. The wait list for accessible units is only 67543 years long. Just make sure you meet the income limits, and be mindful that the rent will be raised should you cohabitate with the pears.” The partridge replies, “Well, f*!*” 

The wheelie was very confused when her cleverly themed cookies were not appreciated at the office cookie exchange…
Image: A group of ambulatory, non-disabled stick figures stands by. One says, “OK, the chocolate chip baclofen pump cookie was a little over the top. Another says, “I felt similarly awkward about the shortbread crutches.” The wheelchair user stick figure, dejected, says, “I made them myself! Thought they’d be a hit.”



Monday, September 17, 2018

Infographic About Plastic Straws As An Access Need

In light of the recent controversy around the environmental impact of plastic straws, I want to share this helpful screenreader accessible graphic explaining the importance of plastic straws in meeting the access needs of disabled people. Thank you HIE Help Center for making it.

Note: As a New Yorker, I can attest that I have not seen a governmentally sanctioned straw ban in NYC yet. I have reached out to HIE for clarification about the map.   
Infographic By HIE Help Center

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

The 1984 Supreme Court Ruling About Pee: Amber Tatro, PA Politics, and Access To Care When Disabled

Content note: mention of abuse, institutionalization, fluid restriction, and "caregiver" bullying

This week, the New York Times reported on the death of Amber Tatro, a woman with spina bifida who as a child, was at the center of a landmark Supreme Court case, Irving Independent School District v. Tatro,that expanded the rights of disabled students.The Court ruled in 1984 that urinary catheterization, which then 8-year-old Amber required to empty her bladder, was a “modest procedure” that could be covered under the “related services” provided by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)formerly known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1973. 

The decision distinguished between medical services (provided by a doctor) and health services (provided by a school nurse or other qualified individual) and held that students with disabilities in public schools were entitled to certain health services. This decision was groundbreaking in that it allowed a great many more students to benefit from a public education. But reading this story got me thinking about a very sad truth: this child had to petition the nation’s highest court for her literal right to pee. Let that sink in for a moment. I shudder to think that if the Court had ruled differently, Tatro and many others may have been denied practical access to a public education over access to assistance with a basic body function.

While the ruling is really about a broader category of health services in the educational setting, I can’t get it out of my head that this case was about pee and the larger battle disabled folks face to have our bodies accommodated and our health maintained. So let’s talk about pee. There I said it. But not in the “ha ha! You said pee!” way… (OK. I admit it. pee jokes are funny). I mean, let’s talk about pee as a framework for a conversation about care, about access, and about what the lack of either says about the value we place on disabled bodies.

I have quadriplegic cerebral palsy and use a power wheelchair. If we’re talking pee, it means that I need assistance every single time nature calls. Someone has to shimmy my pants down, transfer me to the toilet, wipe my butt, and pull the pants back up. In that time, I have to hope whoever is helping remembers to wipe from front to back (for the love of God, not back to front, unless you’re on a mission to give me a fiery “weep on the toilet” style UTI) and often, I have to make awkward chat to pass the time. I’m used to this, and in the presence of a caring assistant, it’s not terrible to need help. But even when the most wonderful assistant/caregiver/parent on the planet is present, my relationship with fluid is strained and often disordered. 

I can’t nonchalantly excuse myself to pee whenever the urge hits. I have to make sure someone is around to help me. That the bathroom is big enough to turn. That the door will shut. That the bathroom is a single occupancy room should I have an opposite sex caregiver. Something as simple as peeing while disabled is a game. It affects how we hang out with friends. How we work. How we go to school. How we choose restaurants and bars and shops. How we choose houses and apartments, if there are any to choose from at all. How we date and have sex, or if we’re afraid to do either because inevitably, the fact of peeing will come up. And perhaps most significantly, how we budget our state-bestowed independence. 

You see, home-based services for activities of daily living such as toileting and showering are covered by Medicaid, but only as a presumably solo-peeing government bureaucrat sees fit. Medicaid provides a limited number of hours to get one’s daily tasks done, by way of a wonky formula that will never affect those who created it. In the course of the day, like all humans, we disabled Americans must put on clothes, shower, clean our houses, cook, and oh, maybe work, go to school, or have some fun. And yes, somewhere in there, we must use the bathroom. 

In a patchwork system that seemingly does not value our kidneys, disabled folks often get 3-8 hours to do it all, and that number varies highly by state and by “functional abilities.” But when one needs assistance doing many tasks, as I do, those hours go fast. And if one lacks unpaid support to cover the rest, it’s “speak now or forever hold your pee” when the assistant is ready to leave. That my friends, is fucked up. But in pursuit of our hard-won independence, our hard-won right to exist outside of a nursing home (that ruling didn't come until 1999), we make do. We get good at strange calculations, what one visionary whose name is unknown to me calls “pee math”.  

We get good at making our needs small, hardly noticeable even. We say “no thank you” to water and hope no one notices we’ve said “no thank you” all day. We leave social outings before our bladders fill. And even if we can pee on our own, a labyrinth of inaccessible bathrooms makes it more practical to drink as little as possible. When those of us who need hours of assistance have them, finding someone to work them is hit or miss. Getting a reliable personal assistant (PA) is like winning a weird game show, or having a lucky day on a peculiar app, where one can “wipe right” if this PA seems like a keeper. For too many of us, a not-so-great PA is our first brush with abuse, even if we once didn’t recognize it as such. For me, a high school based string of unreliable and unkind “health aides” and ultimately, a psychologically abusive “caregiver” at school were my introduction. Being entitled to “related services” like those Amber won is one thing. Getting good ones is another.  

In seventh grade, I began to measure in my head how I could drink as little as possible and get through the school day. I knew there were 8.75 fluid ounces in the juice boxes I brought to school. Even if I wanted them, I sometimes threw the juice boxes out. Other times, I just wet my lips. By ninth grade, the less thirsty I felt, the prouder I was. It was a perverse victory if I didn’t feel thirsty at all. Doing this to myself felt easier than dealing with people who didn’t think I deserved to pee. On bad days, I didn’t think I deserved to pee either. It’s unbelievable how quickly abusers get into your head. By tenth grade, a change (and a major improvement) in my school caregiving situation broke the cycle of dehydration. Slowly, I got to know water again, the substance that makes up about 60% of my being, and yet, had come to frighten me. I have a healthier relationship with fluid today and my high school days are far behind me. Still, I wouldn’t call my fluid-intake healthy. I will never completely be free of the pain that psychological abuse planted in me and by virtue of being disabled, I will always have to chase away the fear that I am a burden. 

Post-secondary schools bear no responsibility to provide an assistant; thus, past a certain age, peeing or any number of mundane care tasks can dictate not only how, but if we continue our education. In school or anywhere, disabled people have to worry about how many hours Medicaid has declared necessary to live our lives, regardless of if that number is enough for us to be as independent as possible. And so, I return to Amber, and I pump a fist in the air for what she accomplished. But I also remind anyone who reads this that the “right to pee” or to do anything in a disabled body is hardly guaranteed. Think about that next time you flush.

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Farewell, Stephen Hawking. Take Your Chair With You!

The death of Stephen Hawking is a great loss for the scientific community, the disability community, and the whole world…or the whole universe, if we are thinking like Professor Hawking. As is usual when a disabled person dies, there has been a lot of chatter about how Hawking is now “free” from his body, his wheelchair, and his communication device. The trite, stereotyped cartoons circulating show him striding away from the power chair into the waiting stars, and it is implied that a mind “trapped” in a limited body has been released to achieve true greatness. But what if I told you when I picture Hawking floating freely through the cosmos, I picture him zooming by in his chair, in a place where it truly doesn’t matter what you use to get around, because everything is 100% accessible?

As someone who has grown up using a power wheelchair, the cartoons depicting Hawking sauntering into the cosmos in a suddenly ambulatory body make me uncomfortable in ways that are difficult to articulate. But after reflecting over the past day, I can say that some of my discomfort can be summarized like this: Why does society assume that true peace and freedom can’t exist in a body like mine? Of course, if there is an afterlife, which I believe there is, we may well have no bodies at all. However, whenever the great beyond is depicted, disabled bodies are erased. Essentially, I am erased, because existing like me has been deemed incompatible with the joy of a Heavenly reward. Ouch.

Stephen Hawking was one of the greatest thinkers the world has ever known. His talent is ordinarily contrasted with his disabled body. The world saw his thoughts as brilliant, his body as broken. But the disabled body (and the disabled mind, for the matter), is not without its own magic. Those of us with disabled bodyminds live in bodies and minds that must adapt and innovate and grow every day around both medical realities and deep social prejudices that we ourselves must unlearn. The very act of taking up space on the planet without apology is one of resistance. That, to me, is pretty damn brilliant. Thus, Hawking’s talent and his disabled body need not be seen as a contradiction. Hawking made his mark not in spite of a disabled body, but in harmony with it, and when we erase that, we feed into the lie that disability and greatness cannot coexist. That lie has tragic consequences that seep into every aspect of society.

That said, “greatness” need not look like a scientific genius. Our world, especially in these challenging times, demands that we recognize greatness in all of its forms and acknowledge that greatness manifests itself as much in a man who uncovers the secrets of the galaxy as it does in the person who shares a kind word with a stranger. When I contributed to a video this summer explaining the importance of Medicaid in my life as a woman with cerebral palsy, an Internet troll challenged my very right to exist because I need help. She asked “in what way I was useful” since I need physical help “just to do basic stuff.” When another person called out her ableism, the troll replied that “unless you’re Stephen Hawking,” she just wasn’t seeing my usefulness.  While Stephen Hawking is one of the standard answers nearly anyone can give when asked to name a disabled person, remember that for every Hawking there are millions of other disabled folks who may never become world renowned professors or famous writers or movie stars…and they shouldn’t have to in order to be treated as people of value.

That troll revealed an ugly sentiment that bubbles beneath the polite veneer of society: too many nondisabled people still believe that disabled folks need to earn the right to exist. The truth is, whether one has unlocked the galaxies or merely spent the day eating a bag of chips, disabled folks deserve life and a world that makes room for us simply because we are human beings.


Don’t celebrate Hawking as an example of what humankind can do when we “overcome disability.” Celebrate him as a testament to what we can do when each and every bodymind in the universe is accommodated and supported. Stephen Hawking did not find true greatness when he “broke free” of his disabled body. He was true greatness in a disabled body. That shouldn’t be so hard for the universe to believe.

Friday, March 2, 2018

Disability Day of Mourning 2018: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Yesterday at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, we commemorated Disability Day of Mourning to honor people with disabilities murdered by caregivers and parents. We sent the message that disabled lives are valuable and worthy. We remembered and we challenged media coverage that justifies violence against people with disabilities. 

For more information on how to talk about the murder of disabled folks by parents or caregivers (filicide), see this toolkit by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network: ASAN Anti Filicide Toolkit

You can also see a copy of a report by David M. Perry and the Ruderman Family Foundation speaking out against the violence: Ruderman Family Foundation Report

Below are my remarks, delivered March 1, 2018 at the University of Illinois:


My name is Kathleen Downes and I’m an MSW student working with the Social Justice and Leadership Education Office in University Housing. I am also a disabled woman, sitting before you to speak words I wish weren’t necessary. But sadly, they are. Hundreds of people with disabilities have been snatched from the world by family members and caregivers who murdered them. We’re here tonight to remember the lost and to tell the world we will not stand for such violence. Too often, the media frames violence against us as justifiable, understandable, and even merciful. Doing so devalues disabled lives and promotes the dangerous idea that we don’t matter.  

I’m thinking of Tracy Latimer, a 12-year-old girl with cerebral palsy murdered when her father filled the car with carbon monoxide. Newspapers focused on the medical aspects of her life and called for “compassion” towards her father, based on the ableist assumption that her life had no quality. But where is the compassion for Tracy? At the end of her life, she was reduced to a burden, her personhood overshadowed by assumptions and preconceived notions. Let’s not forget that Tracy was a human being. I wonder what her favorite food was. What songs did she like? Did she love the smell of rain, like me?  In this moment, let’s remember Tracy and instead, have compassion for a child whose life was stolen under the false cloak of mercy.

I’m thinking of Olivia, Max, and Ben Clarence, three children with spinal muscular atrophy murdered by their mother. Three human beings with disabilities not so different than mine. Three human beings with gifts to give and dreams to pursue. Dreams they will never reach, because they, too, were stolen. If given the opportunity, they may have gone to college and experienced the joy of zipping around a lively campus. They may have had first dates. They may have had children of their own. They may have had so many things, had the one trusted to care for them not chosen to rob them of a chance. I can’t help but think that they each deserved to find a place in the vibrant disabled community, a community that every day provides solidarity and strength for me. A community that has taught me that I have the right to be here, despite the inaccessible buildings, cruel cyber comments, and discriminatory attitudes that try to argue otherwise. Most of all, I can’t help but think that Olivia, Max, and Ben could have been my friends.

It is terrifying as a young disabled person to consider that easily, quickly in another circumstance, I could become a name on that list. It’s terrifying that when you’re disabled, growing up includes learning that you are more likely than others to experience violence simply because you exist. I was reminded just how real and dangerous ableism is last summer when I was featured in a short video speaking about the services that help me bathe, dress, eat, and use the bathroom. Hundreds of people attacked my very right to “be” in the world. One commenter said, “I’d want them to give me a lethal injection if I were ‘wheelchair bound.’” Another said that because I require physical assistance, I have need but no contributions. A third asked in what way I was useful, if I need physical help to do basic stuff. It’s attitudes like these that perpetuate the cycle of violence and cause us to be treated as disposable in a system that supposedly promises justice for all. We can change the story, but it will take all of us to say loudly and clearly, “No more names.”


I’ll close by speaking directly to Tracy, to Max, Ben, Olivia, Alex, Julie, Hayden, London, Justin, Fletcher, and the hundreds of others whose memories we hold in our hearts… I’ve said before that I do not know each of your faces, yet I do. Because they look just like me and just like so many of the wonderful people who make the world a better, more beautiful place. You were worthy of life. You mattered and you always will. I love you so.

[End of remarks]

You can also see a copy of the slideshow tribute to the victims (contains alt text for screenreaders): DDOM Slideshow

"Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist. Keep loving, keep fighting."
-Dalia Shevin


           [Image: Kathleen seated in a wheelchair speaking into microphone
wearing a black shirt with a stylized power fist that has a wheelchair symbol rising above it, designed by Cole Anderson. Behind her is a slide that honors "Those Whose Names We Do Not Know" with an image of colored, stylized candles.]

[Image: Kathleen with Lauren Bryant, smiling, both in wheelchairs. Taylor Morefield stands on pink crutches between them, smiling. All were speakers at Disability Day of Mourning]