Motherhood

Mother's day has come and gone and I dropped the ball. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to take a few moments to talk about mothering and parenting. Consider these questions. While they might be hypothetical to your or my life, there are people out there where they are very real. Think of this next time you take your mom, or your children, out to lunch:

* When I had children, did I have to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that I would be a good parent before they let me take my children home from the hospital? If I am infertile, would they allow me to adopt? Could I demonstrate my fitness to a social worker?

* If I have a physical or mental disability, will this be used as evidence to doubt that I am, or would be, a fit parent? Would this be used against me to deny my right to adopt a child or in a case to take my children away? If I ever divorced my spouse, could my disability be used against me in a custody dispute?

* If I had a psychiatric disability, would I ever have to worry that seeking treatment could put my children at risk of being taken away from me?

* If I am transsexual or genderqueer, will that be seen as a moral failing or otherwise creating an unfit environment for my children? What if I am gay or lesbian? How about if my partner and I are into kink or I have a history of sex work? Could these things be used to deny me adoption or have my children taken away? Could these things be used against me in a custody hearing?

* If I am transsexual, will I ever have to make the choice between being open about my history with my younger children and keeping that information from them out of fear that they would naturally disclose it to others? Would I be willing to live with the consequences of this decision: likely being outed and loosing social standing and possibly my family's livelihood or having to live with hiding such a huge thing from someone so close to me and the possible ramifications to my children's well being should they ever find out?

* If I am a sex worker and a single mother can I ensure that my children are cared for and safe at the odd hours which I might have to work? If I am already marginalized though disability, reproductive ability, gender identity ect... and I am in a position where I might need to engage in sex work to support my family, would I be in a position where I would be able to make that choice without loosing my children? If I am not in a position to do so and my children go hungry, could I loose my children anyway? Am I allowed to do what I need to do to support my family?

* If I am fertile and pregnant, will I ever have to deal with doctors telling me that because of my, or my child's father's, disability I should abort and that to bring the baby to term would be irresponsible? If I did bring the baby to term and the child was disabled, would I be prepared to handle society's condemnation? If I live under a guardianship or conservatorship, would I find myself in the position of having my own reproductive choices taken away from me? Could I be forced to have the child or forced to abort my baby because of the decisions of my guardian or conservator?

* If I am disabled will I be able to make enough money to support my children? Will the system of institutionalized poverty set up by the welfare disability system allow me to parent? Will my extended family help me raise my children or contribute financially to their well being? Would have they done so otherwise if I were otherwise able bodied or normative? Will finances be used as a means to try and force me to surrender custody of my children?

* Will my partner ever be accused of sexual predation simply because society deems me as so undesirable, because I am disabled or transsexual, that it can not comprehend anyone wanting to be with me for other than nefarious purposes? Because of this, will I ever doubt my partner's intentions? How will this impact the stability of my family?

* Will the person I am in love with ever be considered or charged with rape simply because I might have a guardianship or conservatorship?

* If my body is marginalized such as through disability will I have to worry about my parenthood being recognized and respected even when I have legal custody of my children?

* When people consider parenthood, will they ever consider parents such as myself? Will I ever see parents like myself, outside of token representations, in media and popular culture? When groups of parents come together, will my needs be considered important when they are different from the mainstream? Will my needs as a parent be considered at all? Will I simply be invisible?

* If I am disabled and require a caregiver to take care of myself, will I be seen as a fit parent? Will my children me taken away from me? If I need a caregiver or another person to help me raise my children in my own home, will this call into question whether or not I am the "real" parent?

* Will the lack of attention to my needs as a parent be justified by the fact that society considers the fact that I could be a parent so undesirable and abhorrent that I shouldn't be a parent anyways?

* Will my motherhood be seen as beautiful and celebrated or will it be seen as at best undesirable or tragic? Will my love for my children be reduced to simply better than the alternative?

So, I ask you, dear readers, in the comments: What other questions regarding parenting as a person with a marginalized body don't get asked enough in our society?

Jerry Springer on a Bus: Redux

It never ceases to amaze me how prejudice intersects. Take, for example, ableism and racism: I was on the bus coming home from a party tonight and a young Latino man was stimming (or what could easily have been stimming) by lightly drumming his fingers on the back of the chair. So, this old white guy decides that he can't tolerate people who are different than him or acting strangely in any way on *his* city bus so he turns around and glares right at this young man, right in the eyes.

I mean he curled his lips down, furrowed his brow, leaned forward, and stared this poor young man right in the eyes. Here's what went down:

Latino Man: "Hey man, why are you looking at me like that?"

White Guy: "You know goddamn well why!"

Latino Man: *what?*

White Guy: "Oh?!?!"

Latino Man: *acts out drumming fingers* "But I just..."

White Guy: "Oh! So you're one of *those* brown people!"

I couldn't really overhear much else of what was going on, the bus was pretty loud and I was in the middle of a Tourettic fit, which makes it very hard to listen to much of anything and pushes lipreading out of the question...

~~~~~~~~~~

On the positive side of everything related to disability, when I was having the fit and thrashing about people tried to help me thinking I was having a seizure. It's kind of nice seeing a couple people on a crowded bus actually care enough about the people around them to actually offer assistance to someone who actually DOES look like she's having a seizure. Rather interesting how it happened, however:

*I bark and start uncontrollably trashing about*

People are surprised and start making comments "is that a dog?" "no, it's that woman!" "is she okay?" ect... and a fair amount of speculation about what might be "wrong" with me ensues. A couple of women are talking to themselves wondering if I'm okay for a minute or so.

Woman 1: "oh! Excuse me, miss, are you having a seizure? are you okay?"

Me: *looks back at them, smile, and shake my head*

Woman 1: "Oh, okay..."

Woman 2: "And here we were talking about her whether she was okay... I wonder what's wrong."

Kudos on the women for being good citizens and actually offering me a hand. I remember a psychology study on attractiveness where they made up a woman to look less attractive and pretend to have a seizure on a crowded bus; many, many times nobody lifted a finger to help her and sometimes people even stepped over her body to get off the bus.

But beyond that, I want to say kudos to the women on the bus for not pressing the issue once I said that I was okay and didn't need help. A lot of people, when they see a visibly disabled person having any kind of trouble, want to force their help on that person whether the person wants it or not.

Also, not peppering me with questions about my medical history was nice, too.

~~~~~~~~~~

Finally on the disability note: I was riding the bus home from a Deaf get-together. It was my first opportunity to really use sign in a real-world setting, outside of the classroom (my video phone is designed for hearing people and doesn't transmit clearly enough to sign to my signing out-of-state friends). I rather surprised myself in that my fluency, while not anywhere near perfect, was actually quite at a functioning level. I got by just fine, made a bunch of new friends, exchanged some numbers, and had a blast.

Cool Beans!

Bita Ghaedi

Please take just a moment to read about the plight of Bita Ghaedi, an Iranian refugee who fled to the United Kingdom for her life because her own family wanted her dead after she fled an abusive marriage. She was beaten and battered. She escaped. If she were returned, she would most likely never survive. She would be killed.

The United Kingdom has decided that saving her life is not worth the trouble, not worth the monumental outlay that accepting one, lone individual into the country would entail. But no, this is not true, this is not a question of saving her life: She has already saved her own life, she escaped from her abusers and her would-be and now likely murderers. This is a question of whether or not she is to be condemned to death, to be murdered. And apparently it's okay.

Today, May 5th, she is to be forced onto an airplane and returned to Iran and her abusers.

This is happening right now.

Way to go, Western civilization...

h/t Questioning Transphobia

Update (5/10/2010): Bita Ghaedi's airplane was delayed by weather and the British court has granted her a second application attempt for asylum. Also, the EU has placed a ban on her deportation. I suppose this restores a bit of my hope for society, but many more people who are not as fortunate to have their stories recognized like hers still have to contend with these horrors.

RIP: Here Be Dragons

It's done. Kowalski, the owner of Here Be Dragons has closed her doors. She's stopped blogging. She's no longer going to be taking a stand against neurobigotry on the Internet. She's gone.

Why?

Because some people, who were ostensibly part of the autistic community, saw fit to bully threaten and sexually harass her to a point where she was no longer able to tolerate the abuse. When this behavior was brought to the attention of people who could have done something about it, namely Autism Hub and ASAN, her complaints were ignored and the abuser was protected.

I'm deeply saddened. I'm saddened by the fact that we, as a community, have lost a great and important voice in our struggle for equality. Yet moreover, I am saddened that we, as a community, could allow such evil to cause such hurt to a fellow human being, especially someone in such a vulnerable situation as her.

Finally, I am saddened that we, as a community, could allow something like this to happen at all. That the fabric of who we are is so weak that we don't seem to care about the well being of, not just others, but of our own, that could allow this kind of abuse to happen.

Families who hurt each other are not families. Friends who bully are not friends. Communities who's members seek out and destroy each other are nothing more than groups of people with similar goals.

I will continue to blog and advocate for the rights of autistic people if for no other reason than I am looking out for my own best interest. There are many autistic people out there who are good, decent, caring people and these people I feel proud to call my allies and my friends. But as a whole, our movement and our community have ceased to be; maybe not today, or yesterday, or even last year. Yet, it was sick and dying and until we can learn to stand together and, as a community, learn to not tolerate this kind of behavior, we will remain sick and dying.

If nothing else, we can not truly be strong so long as we are such divided.

... and that makes me very, very sad.