Yes I am very open, bold, and outspoken and assertive though try to be kind about advocacy. I have done a lot of advocacy locally in certain places and have done some representing. There’s no way I can hide my disability even if I wanted to. I am totally blind and stick out and must use a cane. I don’t wish to hide it anyway. And I am very tactile so I stick out.

I had a friend tell me she had a black friend who admitted being blind gave her much more trouble then being black.

But I wrote a post about this on facebook.... here you go.

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Racial justice is interesting. Okay but when will we have ability justice? If you’ve seen the type of things I’ve seen you’d ask that too. We claim we care about people and social justice in this nation and that we really want to move forward. We claim we care about civil rights of people. So where is the ability justice? I ask you? If people go out and hold up signs that says Black Lives Matter everyone flocks to it and cares. But what if I went out there and held up signs that said disabled lives matters? No one would care. There’s a population of people that is currently being oppressed and I mean it literally. I have had a few eye opening experiences and connecting the dots to all I’ve heard and seen. I’ve been a unofficial leader in this community and served in a handful of leadership position in this community. I’ve served in service or more voluntary roles to help a specific individual as well. I have had ample experiences and have seen much in this community. When you have caretakers and families even care homes and nurses abusing these people with lower ability and cognition. I’ve sadly also seen people with physical disabilities treated as such as well. It’s as if these people were pets, that’s the best metaphore that I’ve ever seen. No wonder so many are sheltered and a bit inept. It is also no wonder why people with no cognitive disability whatsoever seem like they have an impairment. There’s always this factor of negligence or abuse. It’s like they don’t value this child or offspring as much. They get sat somewhere or contained in their rooms given something to do and three meals and told to have a good and contented life that way. See we provided for them isn’t everyone happy now? We’re keeping them safe, we are protecting them. We’re doing a great job. Great job at what? Sheltering and trapping and oppressing these people? A lot of disabled people are seen as less then or half a human. The sad reality is that millions of these people are left behind. They may be protected but their potential go nowhere. They have no future, what job. They’re expected not to seriously hold a job. Are these people suppose to be given dignity for being human, I fear not, no potential you’re our pet forever a ward of society or family. Those of us who are strong do things and fights for our rights those who don’t understand and not taught or don’t innately know how to do this suffers. There is potential there but not valued or tapped or utilized, so the human forms waste away, if you will. There is no expectation of growth for them or intellectual stimulation. They are not expected to grow in education or come out and be competent or sit at the table and have a conversation like everyone else, talk about current events, work or whatever. They may have a nitch obsession but even children can have this. They are given no responsibilities and don’t know how to be responsible or to understand pragmatic considerations and mannerisms. What dignity as humans is there. Where is the equality here I ask you? I am not saying these people would ever work the same as you and I. If they have a physical disability then yes it’s possible. Even those there’s a lot of this going on so therefore such abilities is not cultivated and they are also helpless and stunted and are cognitively impaired because they have been done this injustice. However for the ones who have issues with cognition they may not perform at 100 percent but it’s important to, have them, give them the true human dignity to perform at their 100%. This is what we need to do if we really cared about people and civil rights.

I think coming out or being openly out is much less scary than disclosing disability status because, to some degree, of media representation. We are getting to a point where lots of shows and movies have openly LGBT+ characters portrayed as normal people who just happen to be LGBT+ but we are no where near that for VI/blind folks. People still really don’t understand what being blind/VI means so they react entirely based off of uninformed assumptions and usually negative stereotypes. However, because they see LGBT+ people in all sorts of arenas these days, they know more about what that means and how that looks so they operate under fewer assumptions and, hopefully, fewer negative stereotypes.

Obviously context matters in all of this and this argument is most true, I think, in western countries that have generally more positive views of LGBT+ people. Still, there’s lots of variability there too. Coming out in a liberal large city in a generally liberal state is much different than coming out in a small town in a more rural conservative state in the U.S. so keep that in mind.

I agree with you and other commenters. Outside of specific contexts, people really don’t seem to understand disability too much which sucks.

I get it. I also don't "look disabled" except when I'm using my cane. I'm also legally blind. I've had some people be incredibly mean and hateful because they thought I was faking or using it an excuse when I couldn't do something. It makes it really unnerving to bring it up sometimes when you get that kind of reception and then there are people who act like those with disabilities are lesser people or just refuse to help. It can be unnerving.

I used to be like that, but at some point realized that there's a lot more benefit in fully disclosing disabilities and weaknesses and hiding strengths instead, because that lowers people's expectations a lot, so anything I do ends up impressing them.

Wow are we the same person haha. Same story, also can manage to not look like I’m struggling in front of other people and I also feel safer coming out as gay than disabled. Weird. Activism for disabled people does exist but it’s quite scarce! I follow this youtuber I like on twitter @howcaseyseesit and she RT blind activism stuff sometimes. That might help you feel better to see other people fighting for their and our rights. Watching videos talking about blindness in a casual manner kind of helped me accept myself too so I def recommend looking into that!

That’s so interesting. I definitely think disability is something that can be still hushed up and not talked about especially in activist spaces.
As far as doing something to show people you’re blind you could try caring and I D cane if you’re comfortable.

Edit I’m gay too and I know that it can be weird about having multiple identities that sometimes seem to conflict.

I think this is a topic that’s definitely been discussed more in the last year than it has before, so hopefully things are getting better.

I think I actually feel most invisible within the LGBT community, as there can be quite a few access issues and a lot of people might expect you to be into the scene and that’s it.
I just tried to live my life and do all the things I want to do, or at least give them a good try.


At least that way hopefully I’m happier and more people see me out and about and maybe think a bit more the next time they encounter a vision impaired person.

Very much so, and I think it's because we're too quiet. We don't protest (at least in the UK), there's no pressure on politicians and business leaders, there's no massive legal organisation that pushes discrimination lawsuits. Outside of reddit where I'm nice and anonymous (my initials are not JE and I wasn't born in 1997) there are 5 people who know I'm autistic, if it was possible to hide my blindness I would do that as well. Everybody knows I'm gay and knows I'm a pagan, because there's quite rightfully no shame for these things anymore. It's insane that the only things I can't tell anybody about without being judged negatively are two things that actually have a negative impact on my life, being disabled and being a rape victim.

I hear what you're saying and it makes a lot of sense. I've been legally blind my whole life (35M) and you're speaking to the weird grey area where the partially sighted live. While of course I'd rather have some sight, I have some envy for completely blind folks because there's no ambiguity. By way of the cane or seeing eye dog, everyone knows the deal right away.

I don't have any easy answers to offer but wanted to say I understand what you're going through. I do think a cane can be a tool to help identify yourself as disabled, even if you don't really need it to get around. I've started using mine whenever I'm going to an unfamiliar place or know I'll be meeting new people or dealing with strangers. Yes, there is the issue where people assume you can't see at all, but that can be corrected easily enough with a quick "I can actually see a bit, just using the cane for safety" or something.