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weird-and-unwell · 3 months

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“Autism isn’t a disability”, “it’s just a difference”.

I am of lower support needs. I hold down a (part time) job. I have travelled around my home country. I live alone.

At work they complain about my speech. I’m too quiet, they say, “barely audible” is the words used at my autism assessment. My voice is all monotone, and it needs to be more expressive. I get this complaint every week for a year straight, until my manager gives up. I don’t attend trainings because I forget and find it overwhelming anyways. My coworkers form friendships, and I watch them talk, wondering how they make it look so easy. I get a new manager, I tell her I find the work socials too overwhelming to attend. She tells me I can just say I don’t want to come. I don’t know how to tell her that I desperately want to, to be like the rest of my coworkers, instead of constantly being the one sat on the sidelines.

I come home, and I can hear my neighbours again. The niggling background noise messes with my head, and I meltdown; I throw myself on the floor, I hit my head on the ground repeatedly as I scream and cry, tear out my hair and scratch my arms and face. When I complain, people tell me that I just have to accept that neighbours make noise, that I should just ignore it, or block it out. I am the problem, the one overreacting. I put in earplugs and it hurts and I'm crying again. I wear headphones but I can't handle the noise for that long.

I have reminders set for everything. Every chore, no matter how big or small. My phone beeps at me, reminding me that I need to wash the dishes. If I don't go now, then tick the little box on my phone to say I did it, it won't get done. My home is almost always a mess despite this. It's not just chores either. I won't think to wash, dress myself, brush my teeth or hair, without those reminders. And unless someone actively prompts me to do so, I will do those tasks "wrong". I haven't changed my underwear in a month, and I'm currently aware that's a problem, but within the hour I'm going to forget all over again until I'm next prompted.

I can't sleep without medication - it's not unusual for autistic people to have messed up circadian rhythms. Without my medication it's hard to even tell when I'm awake and when I'm asleep. When I was younger and at school I slept through so many lessons, and when I have my mandatory breaks from my sleep meds I sleep through every alarm I set. I want to work full time some day, and I'm terrified of what my sleep issue will mean for me then.

I don't travel independently. I don't travel anywhere alone, always with someone or to someone. If to someone, I have assistance the whole way. I find it embarrassing sometimes. Yes, I have a job that requires a certain level of intelligence. No, I cannot get on a train by myself. If I am not shown To The Train, To My Seat, I will be unable to travel.

Last time I travelled, I was left alone at the station for ten minutes. I stayed rigid and sobbed the whole time. I was overwhelmed. It was too loud, I didn't know where I was or where I was meant to be going, and until the assistance person came back I couldn't do anything because for some reason I cannot understand it.

I spend a lot of time trying to explain to people that despite my relative competence, I am unable to do many things. Why can I understand high level maths but not how to get on a damn train? No fucking idea.

"Autism isn't a disability" most severely affects those with higher support needs, and this is absolutely not to take away from them. But for fucks sake, autism is disabling.

Maybe you personally are extremely lucky and just find you're a little "socially awkward", or just find some textures painful or nauseating. Maybe you would be fine with just a couple of adjustments.

But for a lot of us, even lower support needs autistics, it doesn't work like that. I will never sleep properly without medication. I still have the self-harming type of meltdowns as an adult, over things that are deemed as being "just part of life". I live alone but have daily visits from family - if I'm left fully alone I forget all the little daily things one is "meant" to do. I had speech therapy as a child to get me to the "barely audible" "mostly correct" speech. I don't mask, I'm not really sure how I would to begin with.

I'm not unhappy with being autistic. It's just who I am. Life would be easier if I were neurotypical, but I also wouldn't be me. I just wish those luckier than me could...stop saying it's all chill and not at all a disability.

Because yes, socially, I am "awkward". I obviously don't make eye contact - I stare down and to the side of whoever I speak to. People think it's weird or creepy or a sign of disinterest. My autism assessor wrote down about how I often use words and phrases that don't make sense to others, even though they make perfect sense to me. In my daily life this means I'm frequently misunderstood, and have to try explain what I mean, when what I mean is exactly what I said, and the true issue is that what I mean just doesn't make sense to others. I gesture, at times, but again, my gestures apparently don't make sense in relation to what I'm saying. I take things literally, I have almost no filter, and I can't explain how I go from topic to topic.

And yes, I do have sensory problems. Sometimes people, including others with sensory problems, tell me that "sometimes sensory issues have to be tolerated", and I wonder what they think of as being sensory issues. I'm sure they do struggle, but if I say I can't handle a touch, I mean you will need to forcefully hold it against me for me to touch it more than a second and it will make me meltdown. If I say "I can't eat that", I mean that I am unable to swallow it, that I will gag and choke and inevitably spit it back out, as much as I try. If I say I can't handle a noise, I mean I'm so close to a meltdown and my meltdowns are a problem for everyone around me.

But yes. Autism. Not a disability. Just a fun quirky difference.

#actually autistic #autistic #long post #autism

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cy-cyborg · 7 months

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Writing disability: The Super-Crip Trope, and how to avoid falling into it's harmful elements

The "Magical disabled person" or as it's often called in disability circles, the "Super-Crip" is the name of a trope in which a disabled character has some kind of magic or special abilities, which is used to mitigate or erase the impact of their disability. While not a mandatory part of the trope, many super-crip characters are also stronger than their peers, specifically because of their disability's impact on their powers. So why is this trope so unpopular among many disabled people? There's a few reasons. The main one is because more often than not, Super-crips who are written by non-disabled people are often treated as an easy way out of actually having to deal with a character's disability, and a shortcut out of having to do the research into how a disabled character would deal with certain situations. When these writers encounter something they think their disabled character can't do, instead of actually talking to people with the same disability as their character and doing research, they just write that its not a problem because "magic powers go!"

In some cases, but not all, their powers all but erase their disability completely, at least from the perspective of it's relevance to the story. While, to my knowledge, this was never in the comics or movies, A good example of this is a "fan-theory" I've seen among non-disabled X-men fans who claim professor X could use his telepathy to walk, functionally bypassing his spinal injury (Or his leg injury, if we're going off some of the comics' timelines). This would functionally erase his disability, making it an example of both the super-crip trope and the miracle-cure trope.

ID: An image of Professor X from X-men, a white bald man wearing a suit, sitting in a silver wheelchair, and another unknown man in a suit standing beside him, framed by a circular doorway, both their faces are partially obscured by shadow. /end ID]

Another reason this trope is disliked is because writer's often have good intentions when using this trope, but they actually end up undermining the points they were trying to make. Often, super-crips are portrayed as badasses in an attempt to show that "you can still be a hero/useful to the plot and be disabled", but the way they portray it usually implies that disabled people, as they exist in real life, aren't useful unless they have something that compensates for their disability or have impossible powers.

So should super-crips be avoided entirely? Some folks in the community think so, but personally, I don't agree. Despite all of what I've said so far, I think there are ways to write characters who technically fit the definition of a super-crip, without it being harmful. There's an argument to be made that "super-crip" specifically refers to harmful version of the trope, so not everyone will consider characters who aren't part of it, but I do, and I think it's important to discuss both the harm this trope can bring, and how this trope can be used in non-harmful ways. Humans (and creatures with human-level intelligence) are adaptable creatures, and in a world where magic exists and especially in worlds where its common, disabled people will find ways to use it to help themselves. but help is the key word there. So let's talk about some ways you can write super-crips, without it crossing the line into becoming harmful. The following are some things for you to consider about your character's disability, how their magic/powers interacts with it, how they interact with the world (and vice versa) and more:

Are your character's powers an aid or a cure?

The first, and one of the most important things to consider, is if your character's powers function like an aid or piece of assistive tech, or a cure? If you boil it down, is the magic helping them or "fixing" them? This can be a cure in the literal sense, as in giving an amputee the ability to shape-shift to get their limb back, or a functional cure, meaning the power essentially by-passes the disability, like the above mentioned professor-X fan-theory. It's not literally curing him, but it might as well be. In a world where this magic or super-powers exist, it's perfectly natural that a character might use the magic to lessen the impact of their disability, but it shouldn't erase it entirely. Give the magic a trade off, make it imperfect. You character can cummon a magic prosthetic, but there's a time limit on how long it lasts for, or their magic needs to recharge it. A wheelchair using mage might be able to engrave magic runes on their chair that allow them to pass over rough terrain, but only to a certain extent. It might allow them to go up-stairs, but it can only be used so many times per day (and make sure you show the times where they need to get up the stairs, but have run out of uses!) Things like that.

Is the power directly tied to their disability?

Is the power you're giving the character directly tied to their disability? There's 2 ways you could read this, and both should be considered. 1. The power is something you, as the author, gave to them specifically because it would help mitigate their disability (e.g. giving a character without arms telepathy so they can still pick things up/hold things because you couldn't figure out how they would be a badass swordsman without it) or 2. Does this character, in universe, have their power specifically because of their disability? e.g. Did our arm amputee develop telepathy through sheer-force of will because they really wanted to be a swordsman, and their determination manifested as telepathy/A god gave them the powers because they felt bad for them/a wizard taught them how to do it because they were inspired by the person's perseverance? If the answer to the first one was yes, perhaps reconsider and do more research. If the answer to the second one is yes, proceed with a lot of caution. Generally, if the powers originate from someone feeling sorry for your character, being inspired by them or anything to do with their determination and perseverance, I'd recommend changing that. However, if the powers came from your character having to adapt something to to their disability, that is really a case-by-case basis thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. your success with it will depend on the character, the setting and the specifics of how.

Is this power common, or is this character the only person in the cast/only person we see with this ability?

Is the power you're giving your disabled character rare, or even unique? It's fine to give your disabled characters powers that are common within the world, but if they're one of the only people who has that ability (or similar abilities), ESPECIALLY if it directly helps mitigate their disability, you might want to reconsider that choice. In a world where everyone can fly, it would be weird if your wheelchair user couldn't without an explanation. But if no one else in the story can fly except your wheelchair user, it starts looking more like you just gave them that power so you don't have to think about accessibility in your world. If you really must give your disabled character the rare/unique power, consider making another character with a similar disability but no/more common powers so you aren't just avoiding the issue, or making the power not related to/impact their disability directly (e.g. giving your leg amputee super-hearing.)

Does this power solve a wider access issue in your world, or does it just make it easier for your character alone?

As a general rule of thumb, if you are writing a story where you don't want accessibility issues to be a thing (e.g. a story set in a utopia), focus on fixing the environment, not the characters. Instead of giving your wheelchair user the ability to fly upstairs, give the buildings ramps and lifts. That way, its a solution for everyone with that disability, no matter their access to things like magic or technology. When talking about super-crips, this is especially important, doubly so if your character's power is rare! I made a (mostly joking) post ages ago about an idea for an earth-bender character in the Avatar universe, who gets fed up with republic city being inaccessible and starts earth-bending all the stairs into ramps. This solves the accessibility issue for them, but also makes their environment more accessible for others without bending to get around. Of course, not every disabled character will want to help/care to help others, but often when non-disabled people write disabled characters with powers, they kind of forget that their character won't be the only disabled person in this world. It often feels like they honestly think fixing things for their character means there's no problem anymore, and that's not the case.

Avoid, "I may have [insert disability here] but I can still do stuff because of my power!"

By this, I mean give your character other ways to address issues relating to their disability than just their powers. One funny example I remember reading in a writing group I was a part of was this author who was bragging about how their paralysed character could still drive a car because they had electrokinisis (the ability to telepathically control electronics). Aside from the fact that wouldn't work on all cars - including the one their character drove, since not all cars have electronic components controlling their acceleration and brakes, the way they described it was extremely complex, and overall not worth the effort when the real-life solution, hand controls, was much, much easier and the setting allowed for easy access to that kind of tech. When I pointed this out to them, they said they had no idea hand controls were a thing, and they had no idea that real disabled people could drive. They thankfully changed it, but there's 2 things to take from this: 1, double check that disabled people can do the things you assume they can't, your magic solution might very well not be needed, and 2. variety is important regardless. No one device, or in this case, magic power, should act as a one-size-fits-all solution. IRL disabled people have lots of tools to help us, I have 2 sets of prosthetics for different tasks, a wheelchair, a grabby claw (for reaching things on high shelves when using my short legs and wheelchair) and hand controls in my car (or at least I used to but we won't get into that lol). My prosthetics won't "fix" all my problems, I need other tools too. keep this in mind when it comes to magic too - it shouldn't be the only thing at your character's disposal.

There's nothing to compensate for.

Remember, don't treat your character's disability as something they need to make up for (especially if they "make up for it" using their powers). Your disabled character is allowed to make mistakes, they're allowed to have flaws both related and unrelated to their disability, they're allowed to not be good at some things, and they don't always have to be the best at whatever their roll in the plot is. In most stories, they should be on par with the other characters, or at least in the same ball-park, but as I mentioned before, a lot of stories don't let disabled characters fail. In order to justify them even being present, they are often made out to be the undeniable best, almost to mary-sue levels of perfection and super-crips especially fall into this issue a lot. They can be good at things, but balance it out, like with any other character.

You don't have to use all of these points, but they are still worth at least considering. For example, Toph fails all of these points except the first three. Despite that, she's still one of my favorite disabled characters in media, even if she's not perfect, and I'm not alone in thinking that. I've seen lots of other disabled people say the same about her. Which of these points you should use will depend on your story, character, setting and tone. As I've mentioned a few times now, the key is striking a balance. At the end of the day though, these are only general pieces of advice and a lot more factors go into making a character like this work. only disabled people will be able to tell you if you've pulled it off, and that's where beta-readers and disabled sensitivity readers come in!

Also, remember, these kinds of tropes don't just apply to the more common/well-known disabilities like amputations and wheelchair users, that's just what I have experience with! Be sure to research any disabilities your character has to ensure you are not falling into these tropes.

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lakesbian · 6 months

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okay so 2.8. overall thoughts on rachel's introduction.

rachel not wanting a fifth person to join the team is ostensibly about the money she would lose from it, but it's more importantly about the fact that, as a disabled girl deeply unwanted by society, she has absolutely no trust in people. she can tolerate brian, lisa, and alec for the sake of the security and stability, but she doesn't trust them beyond the bare minimum. a strange person being brought into her house is deeply scary. she's used to every single new person she meets being a threat, someone with motives she can't read expecting her to operate based on arbitrary rules she can't understand. and because she has been taught that the only way to keep herself safe is to hurt people before they can hurt her (everyone will always want to hurt her), her immediate reaction to taylor Being There is to sic her dogs on taylor with hopes of scaring her off & securing her environment again. rachel autism lindt <3

brian is the second person we see breaking out the not-so-repressed violence and anger in this scene. he clocks rachel in the face, he says

“I fucking hate it,” Brian growled at the girl, putting emphasis on the swear, “When you make me do that.”

and he does some yelling about God Fucking Dammit. i think the crux of brian is that he consciously fervently does not want to be like his abusive stepfather, but the only alternative he's been taught was by his father...who is, unbeknownst to brian, also abusive. he's been taught that masculinity = good + mandatory and strength = masculine. his vision for himself as a Good Man who Takes The Lead and Cares For People involves stifling his 'weak' emotions and running himself ragged. he's not even very good at repressing himself compared to the other undersiders, so he's prone to outbursts like this sometimes--where, regardless of whether or not the violence he's engaging in is rationally justifiable, it's immensely charged w/ undertones of reminding him of exactly who he wants to avoid being.

it is Fully Understandable why, as a 17yo w/ zero training in conflict deescalation, the only way he can think to solve the matter of rachel violently siccing her dogs on someone is socking her. but "i fucking hate it when you make me do that" is still eerily reminiscent of some things his abusive stepfather has likely said to him before. he doesn't Want to be like that, but he doesn't know how to let himself be anything other than that.

(this situation w/ rachel and taylor sucks for him, ftr. he was so genuinely elated that he'd Acted Normal Enough to snap up this cool addition to the team, a girl with a good power who actively thinks along the exact same rational lines as him. which is important, because he needs the undersiders to succeed so that he can care for aisha like he feels he needs to. and then rachel busts in ruins what he's viewing as this great success by attacking taylor to drive her off. brian laborns bad day. rachel lindts bad day. tayor heberts bad day. lisa wilbourns deeply stressful day. alec vasils depression slump day.)

AND we get to watch taylor be violent and angry as well. that one is very simple there's not much to say about it. she's full of violent repressed anger (it's why she imagines beating the shit out of emma & co when she's being bullied in the halls prior to meeting the undersiders again), she usually holds it back because she recognizes that it would just cause the system to fuck her over more in the long-run, and here she realizes that there's no consequence of fighting back and proceeds to whale on rachel.

(i think that the reason she's primarily violent with her own human body here instead of w/ the bugs is because her usage of the bugs is frequently a form of dissociation--and here, rather than having to dissociate her way thru a violent situation, she's finally allowed to confront it head on and fight back w/ hands and feet As Herself. sucks and traumatizing to be attacked by dogs, but cathartic to be able to fight back.)

meanwhile: lisa is presumably vividly imagining slamming her own head into a brick wall and alec (badly depressed, seen far worse) doesnt even care with all the shit he's got going on

#wormtime 2 #wormtime 2 arc 2 #parahumans #wormblr #this is NOT a coherent post but thats how liveblogs work!

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olderthannetfic · 10 months

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I hate "own voices" stuff so much. As a reader, I don't care about the author's sexual orientation, medical history, ethnicity, etc. I care if they wrote an interesting or realistic or sympathetic character. Anyone is capable of writing good [insert identity here] representation, as long as they do their research.

And as an author myself, like hell am I telling you what's in my pants. I've been on the internet for far too long to just blithely go telling everyone I'm transexual. If my writing is good, then my writing is good and people should enjoy it on its own merits. If I screwed up and bungled a touchy cultural topic, I hope someone will politely let me know. Whether or not I have a dick has absolutely nothing to do with my ability as an author, and I know from decades of experience that saying one way or the other will only ever invite trolls into my inbox.

The trouble is that it keeps getting generalized to everything.

I don't think anyone should be restricted from writing anything in particular, but if I were looking for that type of just-shy-of-autobiographical general fiction about The Immigrant Experience or something, I'd be most likely to opt for one by someone from the group they're depicting.

If I'm buying a mystery novel, even one about social issues, I do not give a fuck.

I think it also matters which type of identity we're talking about. Are we saying a person isn't [ethnicity] enough because they're only half or are we saying they didn't grow up with the culture they're depicting? Are we saying someone wasn't part of the particular queer community in a particular place and time they're presenting themself as an expert on, or are we saying that people are supposed to only write about queer identities that precisely match their own? Are we saying that a disabled person doesn't understand the social side of disability and how people are treated just because they have a slightly different disability than their character?

It's fine when it's a positive label that gives some works an extra selling point in addition to their blurb and all the other reasons you'd buy them.

But people have come to use it like it's mandatory, like it's the main selling point, and like it's relevant even to writing fantasy novels with an at-best tenuous relationship to the real world.

It's turning into yet another vector for "Am I appropriating if I appreciate other cultures???" garbage.

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titleknown · 6 months

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So, a new anti-AI-art post is making the rounds because of course it is, and while I have not breached the paywall to read the paper, I do think the summarized version of it the author provides has some holes worth poking.

Past the break, because this gets long.

Anyhoo, their core argument is that AI art people are just capitalists who see art as a profitable object and do not exhibit those four fundamental values of But like... this is just casual observation, but I have seen a lot of those values in the AI art community amongst itself.

They share models and tips on how they use the tool! I rarely see them doing it for lucre! I see creators who've used AI art to integrate into other mediums they've worked with! I've seen people with major motor disabilities welcomed. I have seen authenticity in garbage AI art; in aggregate from singular creators.

There is a reason I say that to make good AI art, you need to approach it like an artist.

And like, AI art has genuine logistical issues that make it uniquely difficult to integrate into communities, the "flooding" that turbofucked Deviantart and the harassment problem that is "spite models,"

But beyond that I think it is not just, as they blithely dismiss, "AI art can be used for good" but I think it is even possible to integrate AI artists into communities that share those values. Because I have seen those values at work in AI art communities.

There are simple things that can be done, like normalizing charging as much for AI art commissions as traditional ones, or normalizing showing one's prompts when possible or observing DNP (Do not prompt) lists and so on!

But there's a desire to put up a wall there, specifically because of the fear of original sin, because of the unique nature of the process and the dubious origins of the programs; even if you didn't pay a dime to use them.

Which like... even if the privacy issues side of things is relevant and one I see validity in, in terms of the issue of "they didn't get permission," as friend of the blog @o-hybridity pointed out when we were discussing this, the assumption of the need for permission to adapt (Which is also what annoyed me in this post) is basically a cargo cult for how IP law treats art, attempting to integrate the framework of IP law into a system of communal production that IP law is more or less designed to kill.

Like, the idea that permission is required for derivative works (A notion also in this post I am very annoyed by) resembles none of how art has actually worked in-practice for all but the tiniest sliver of our species' existence, it's tunnel visioned in a way that ignores; say; the history of things like the blues, or jazz, or sampling, or folklore, or hell even fanfic.

Most art has historically been built on top of other art, without permission, because requiring a contract for every derivative work (Especially those "orphan works" without known originators) would make it unworkable.

IP rights becoming essentially inherent to art at the moment of creation and making those contracts almost entirely mandatory have basically killed a lot of models of how art is made within the commons via that sort of unauthorized-adaptation, and IDK about you, but this is an abomination, and the loss of those modes of production wouldn't be fixed by making it a tier system as the article proposes.

The notion of eternal tiered permission ignores that history of art by way of trying to shove the means of communal production into an ideological framework it can't exist in, due to the collective failure to produce better ways of helping creators make a living.

I would also say the idea of tiers system obfuscates the real issue; which is power not permission; and the need for collective organization of labor-power as well; by way of trying to hybridize it with that folk politics system of contracts that dilutes it, but that's its own digression.

But beyond that very long digression, inherent in that fear of the powerful working without permission, I feel there's a conflation of "small-scale creators shitposting or integrating AI art into their work" and "megacorps that want to replace you with an intern on Fiverr and a copy of Stablediffusion," which I think is best evidenced by the insistence on calling all AI art supporters techbros, conflating the small-scale users of the technology with the makers even though we don't do that with; say; artists who use fucking Adobe and the way they normalized walled gardens in their field.

I am not saying the techbro assholes don't exist or even that they aren't prominent, I probably don't run into them because I hate Twitter, but I am saying there are AI art communities and users that are not Like That, and that it is possible for AI art to exist within those norms.

It is not No True Scotsman because, even if it is not the norm (Which I am doubtful on) it is simply a demonstration that is possible and; with some effort and outreach akin to groups like @are-we-art-yet, doable.

But there's a further problem, that their argument heavily relies on the idea of moral rights, as evidenced by their image morally quantifying re-using art. But moral rights are not usually how we enforce most of these issues in a legal sense, in the US they do not even exist in a legal sense.

So their communal rules, drawing from moral rights, have no real material power. At least, aside from strikes, but the small online artisan community is not protected by them in a lot of ways I think are a part of the problem, but that's its own tangent so moving on.

Their argument on operating procedure, if it were to be truly materially effective by legal means, would be implemented by the mechanisms of copyright, which would be merrily smash those communal rules with a hammer, because those rules are scrublord shit in the world of raw power.

And if they don't... well, a wall can only hold for so long, and I think keeping workers within AI art away from the solidarity that is extremely doable is going to bite people in the long run. For an example of that, see how CGI's disrespect as an artform lead to it being wildly undercosted and used to drive out the union-run practical effects folks.

And they have no tools against it because, again, power does not give a shit about your communal rules, and conflating small creators with the assholes in power isn't helping.

Like, you're making the same argument artisans in things like the Arts and Crafts movement or the Luddites made back during the rise of factories, while forgetting that they fucking lost.

And Karl Marx had some ideas why wrt how mechanization uses raw power to make the displacement of individual artisans inevitable, even if I think the way people use them in response to this issue is... wildly unhelpful and cruel.

Like, it's still shitty to say "You're destined to lose your livelihood unless the revolution (Which we are bad at convincing you will happen) happens, no we won't help lol," as I've seen from those in my community.

I think the solution to traditional/digital art surviving if AI art is the existential threat it says it is (Which I have my doubts about) is unite or die, which dovetails into my ideas on the Creative Commons in a way I need to write on further one of these days.

But like... what I'm trying to say is, in all my experience, the way they describe the values of the art community are fundametally not opposed to the practice of AI art, not the people I have seen, and I think the efforts to treat that as untrue is unhelpful at best.

#art #ai art #philosophy of art #long post #rambling #shut up titleknown

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rhube · 2 months

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I did it. I wrote my very angry letter to my MP.

Today I had to deal with my lettings agent emailing to say she refuses to wear a mask when she enters my house, even though I'm medically vulnerable, and then an email from Action for ME that triggered me for other reasons.

I decided to use my distress today for good.

I do not expect anything to come of it, but it is the ONLY thing I can do, so I did it.

Please consider writing to your representatives to ask for protections for the disabled and chronically ill in this ongoing mass-disabling event. At the very least in healthcare settings and when people enter our homes we should have the right to ask them to mask.

In the UK, you can use WriteToThem to find your representatives:

I wrote a long letter, but even a short note to say you think medically vulnerable people need more protections in the on-going pandemic, would make a huge difference.

I shared some pretty personal info, so I'm not putting my text up online, but here are a few things you can draw on.

I quoted this article in the Scientific American, which contains a transcript of an interview with Maria Van Kerkhove, interim director of the WHO’s Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention:

Specifically, these bits:

Although the WHO declared an end to the COVID public health emergency in May 2023, the organization has emphasized that the pandemic isn’t over…

If we look at wastewater estimates, the actual circulation [of SARS-CoV-2] is somewhere between two and 20 times higher than what’s actually being reported by countries. The virus is rampant. We’re still in a pandemic. There’s a lot of complacency at the individual level, and more concerning to me is that at the government level… The misinformation and disinformation that’s out there is hampering the ability to mount an effective response…

The COVID pandemic was not normal. This amount of death is not normal. It didn’t have to be this way.

If you can, talk about how it's impacted you (again, not necessary if you don't have spoons/it would be triggering). Amongst other things, I talked about:

my dentist angrily refusing to mask in a situation where I can't mask

my lettings' agent refusing to mask when entering my home

that I am not recovered from COVID 4 years on

that I had to stop working where previously I worked full-time despite my chronic illness

how traumatic it is applying for PIP

how traumatic it was to listen to eugenics daily from colleagues, friends, and family, because of government misinformation (see the WHO article for support on governments being to blame for this)

how I haven't been eligible for vaccines for years, despite having a condition that compromises my immune system

that we're in the middle of a mass-disabling event

I asked for, and recommend that you ask for:

mandatory masking in healthcare settings

mandatory masking for people entering the homes of medically vulnerable people as part of their jobs (where the vulnerable person cannot refuse)*

free vaccines for everyone on the NHS

I don't expect to get these things - Labour won't do anything the Tories won't do, and the Tories will never do this. But we have to ask. And we have to ask for what we want - if we don't get all of it, we may get some. Just the right to ask that medical staff mask would be huge.

*if possible, emphasise that you can be vulnerable without being extremely vulnerable, and this group of people has been wholly unprotected.

#covid #covid-19 #long-covid #mecfs #uk politics #write to them

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dykethang · 5 months

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oh man i just realised a big ole cultural intersection thing i have. i do not, and have never identified as big D Deaf despite considering myself deaf, because for very specific reasons i was [mostly intentionally] isolated from /any/ sort of dDeaf community growing up, whether Deaf or straight up just other deaf or HoH people in general.

it also took me a while to comfortably identify myself as Māori *first* and pākehā/white second, because although i grew up decently culturally connected when i was quite young and although i was lucky enough that every school i went to from 2007-2016 had either mandatory te reo Māori classes and/or even their own marae, as i got older my participation in that petered out to nothing at all, primarily because of my view of myself as an "encroaching" white guy despite always knowing my whakapapa.

anyway, there's some interesting parallels here i think, and i've made significant efforts as an adult to connect with my local Māori community in ways that are fulfilling to me (primarily a group for young, queer Māori folk, primarily chock full of neurodivergent and/or disabled/chronically ill people).

i'm not sure if there's any ways to do this with the Deaf community because some of my past interactions kinda scared me a bit LOL but it would be cool to parallel both cultural experiences here, i suppose

#cat meows #anyway. neat parallels. i Will actually tag this if anyone has input #Deaf #Māori

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nite-puff · 8 months

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Ooo, fascinating! Two outta three sibling pairs,, now I’ve GOTTA hear about the third 👀

Oh, that’s Fangs and Ivy! Surely, I didn’t make it too obvious…

I don’t know how the other sibling pairs are gonna work in terms of ages. The Jupiter/Wind Chime and Hurricane/Aviator pairs were a year apart originally, but then how could they be in the same grade level if being held back/skipping a grade didn’t occur? I’m trying to figure that out. But Fangs and Ivy are twins! They were always twins. I love them being twins.

They were estranged twins for a while. Actually, the killing game was sort of their reunion after half a decade of not seeing each other.

Without getting too deep into it, they were born in a sort of secluded community. A religious community, I guess you could say. Their mother is out of the picture and their father is the sort of patriarch of their town. They don’t communicate with outsiders often and most of their education and labor revolves around their religion…

It’s a cult. They were born into a cult.

I don’t really want to get too caught up in that aspect of it, but that plays a big factor into their character’s and backstories, especially Ivy.

But the reason they’re estranged is because Fangs managed to escape and live in the real world for a while. It took some getting used to, but she now feels like a full-fledged member of society. And her one goal since then was to get her brother out of that situation as well. So she got to investigating and researching her old home. And she may have solved some other related cases along the way, which got her a whole lot of attention. That’s why she got scouted. She’s in that sort of Ultimate Detective field. And she’d be lying if she said she welcomed the attention. In reality, it just takes time away from what she’s trying to do.

Ivy, on the other hand, is like the mandatory “heir” ultimate of the cast. He’s (reluctantly) working to be his father’s successor and take leadership of the community when he’s of age. He’s already idolized by the population there because of his blindness. (If I didn’t mention it or make it clear, he’s blind). They think that his blindness gives him some sort of heightened supernatural abilities from their god (like he was chosen or something), and believe that their god would reward him for serving them by granting him his sight when he becomes leader.

But that’s very far from the truth. He’s actually just disabled and is having a lot of trouble trying to communicate that. Growing up with these people has lead him to having a sort of fucked up soft spot for them. But it can only go so far because of what he’s endured.

But maybe things can change when they reunite in the killing game.

#tw for religious trauma???? and general culty stuff #I think their backstories get a little too real… but that’s why I wanted to make up some non specific religious cult and not relate #to some real world religion #and while the other sibling dynamics get a little iffy when it comes to them liking each other #I want to make it so clear that these two love and care about each other so much #absence makes the heart grow fonder I guess #also fun fact: the mlp version of Ivy was a woman. he’s the only one who’s undergone the genderswap #fanganronpa #danganronpa ocs #dr:o #ramblepuff #askpuff

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lilietsblog · 4 months

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anyway the reason I was thinking about Krapivin is because his books are for children and about children - protagonists and target audience from preschool to older teens, centering around the tween age

and they are very good

and they always, with very few particularly fairy tale exceptions, feature Bad Things That Happen To Children. like... in the real world. like a lot of them have supernatural elements but there are plenty that just straight up have none and these books talk about

bullying

abusive school staff

abusive parents and stepparents

illness and death

being caught in a war zone

disability and chronic illness

poverty

the fear of living in a totalitarian state

random abusive authorities

not having agency in your own life

any and all of the above happening to your parents, neighbours, friends, siblings

when the supernatural elements show up, they tend to give the kids MORE agency than the mundane world does. maybe there are monsters, but the kids can actually fight them (which presents a nice difference from -). maybe there are dangers, but the kids can actually actively do something about them. theres actually a unique 'real world' danger that shows up in the supernatural stories - government experimentation - but its still usually because the kids CAN do something.

Some of the books have adult protagonists who just interact with children (generally to have their life changed by them) (generally its a middle-aged writer having a midlife crisis, Krapivin doesn't bother obscuring shit, the kids are the real main characters anyway)

(...and when I say kids, it's usually boys. There are girls too, but they tend to be secondary characters. I can only think of one book right off the bat that straight up has a girl as the main POV protagonist. Still, it does exist and it's actually damn good. It's a personal experience bias, not downright bigotry)

these books are fucking terrifying. they are very much about what it's like to be a very small person in a big world full of people most of whom don't give a shit about you. it's about what it's like when adults get mad at you for correcting them when they make a mistake. it's about what it's like when your parents are not around because they're too busy taking care of you by earning money for you to live on. it's about what it's like when everyone thinks your preferences and relationships and attachments don't matter. (but it's not everyone. it's never really everyone)

and these books are also really good at portraying, just... life in the soviet union and in post-soviet russia. from the point of view of children growing up in the middle of it, and from the point of view of the occasional adult who is trying to stay kind and keep their integrity while assaulted by all of that on all sides. i think they are mandatory reading for all self-proclaimed tumblr communists. go learn russian just for them and then read them and then come back with your brilliant ideas and then ill talk to you

#krapivin #vladislav krapivin #childrens books #literature #writing #communism

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whoneedssexed · 1 year

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Is it true that homeschooling in the U.S. is typically done for religious reasons, that's it's not regulated at all and that the children are at a disadvantage, or that they can be abused more easily? I hear about it but when looking it up all I see is stuff for COVID homeschooling reasons.

That it's typically for religious reasons? Not sure about that, especially depending on how one might define as "religious". Some people may talk about how the Christian g-d is their reasoning for pulling their kids out, but nothing they teach has anything to do with Christianity and more to do with conspiracy theories.

That it's not regulated? Unfortunately, this one is true. There are very few regulations, nobody's required to teach their children accurate information, or any information at all. There are a few regulations that basically make it so that the children/families aren't defying any compulsory education laws and the kids are accounted for, but each state is different in how this mandatory reporting works.

This is of course very dependent on what each state wants, but for the most part in the country there's very few defined rules. Here's a link that quickly goes over some of the legalities in homeschooling, and which states actually put effort towards educating children in the home.

That they are at a disadvantage? It can be true, yes, especially for the many parents who choose to "unschool" or otherwise remove schooling from their children entirely. While some have a much more structured approach on this, a lot of people have taken this to mean not even trying to educate their children. You can partly thank the internet for this, in my opinion, as it allows these types of knuckleheads to spread nonsense like that (think facebook mom type of groups).

There's also arguments made that homeschooling limits a child's social development, as they are around a lot less people and peers their age, and don't experience the typical interactions of the world.

This isn't always the case, however, as some homeschooling is done through actual programs offered by education experts, and classes kids can attend at their leisure. This allows them more socialization and to stay up to date, while also giving them the space and freedom to get what they need out of it.

So when it comes to disadvantages, it is heavily case by case.

That they are more likely to be abused? Well, it really depends on how you define abuse in this sense.

Of course, some people absolutely can and will argue that refusing to teach things like basic math or reading skills is abusive, or that forcing kids to believe your theories of the world is abusive, let alone that "withholding socialization" from them can be seen as abusive as well.

But some families abuse in ways that there are no gray areas about, such as families that intentionally leave their girls in the dark because they do not believe women have rights, or that use their older children to enforce punishment and be free babysitters under the guise of "homeschooling". These are pretty clearly abusive.

There was an uptick in abuse cases when children had to stay home as a result of the pandemic. The problem with these stats is that there are so many factors going into them that it's hard to say for certain any specific thing that makes the abuse more likely. Particularly big contributors include the stress of trying to juggle everything added with the fact that just being around someone more often increases the likelihood of abuse. These are two things that homeschooling can fall prey to.

So again, it's really a case-by-case thing.

The major problem is there isn't, and never was, a one-size-fits-all solution on education. That's why a lot of parents choose to homeschool - because their children are not succeeding in a formal public classroom as a result of needing something different than what is being presented to them. This is what a lot of parents with kids who have disabilities have to wrestle and contend with. In the same vein the lack of regulation of education can allow all the negative aspects to flourish. We see the same thing in public schools.

I'm not sure how things are run in other countries, maybe they have figured out something we haven't (which is very likely, considering the amount of things we are so far behind in).

But for the most part, what you've heard is true, it's just not always true for all homeschooled kids.

mod BP

#homeschooling #school #education #student rights #family #teaching #familial abuse #parental abuse #parenting #parents #schooling

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sysmedsaresexist · 1 year

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Maybe its bad on my part but im native, trans, bi, afab and disabled... Ill never get an actual diagnosis just because of one of those but all 5? No way and tbh... I dont think it'll do me any good other than give me another hurdle when it comes to getting gender affirming care or adopting or even getting treated like an adult. Me and my system are ok and i dont experience distress from my system enough to think i need psychological help.

Idk if i can handle some white ass cishet abled doctor walking up and saying i dont have it and gaslighting me.

I hope this dosent conceded cause thats not my intention but even though im anti-endo, i get their distrust in the medical system and why diagnosis is something many wont persue. 1 because many of them know the doctor will diagnosis them correctly(as having trauma or having something different) and 2 because american doctors are not a safe place like... Ever. If your not a cishet abled white man.

So, a lot to cover here.

I'm white, afab, trans, bi, with multiple partners. I was diagnosed at about 21, and I've been in and out of therapy ever since. I'm also Canadian. Getting diagnosed was the best thing to ever happen for me, and I have several friends with the same experience.

And several who had bad experiences.

My experience will not be everyone's.

I am not pushing for anyone to get diagnosed. Doing so is a personal choice, and a decision that should be made by you, and your therapist if you have one. There are many reasons someone might get diagnosed (access to resources and specific care, financial support, etc) and just as many reasons someone might not want to get diagnosed. You also don't need a diagnosis to get the help you need.

What I DO want to people to hear is: whatever decision you make, do it with the REAL facts.

If you're going to choose not to get diagnosed, don't do it based on bullshit you see or hear on the internet. I made a post several months ago about someone going around saying that a diagnosis will stop you from getting housing, a job, and being able to buy alcohol, of all things, as if you have to present your mental papers to the cashier.

None of those are true. Gender affirming care also can be still be given and received, with an added step of a psychiatric evaluation (which is mandatory in Canada anyways for everyone, regardless of mental health, so if you think about it, you're not really losing anything). You can still adopt and have a family. You can own a home and have a job.

If you take anything away from my blog, it should be this:

Know your rights, and know how to exercise them

There are assholes everywhere, I'm not denying that. There are people who will bend rules and laws and who will use personal information (like diagnoses) against you. I'm not blaming anyone who has had this happen to them, either, as if they should have preemptively known better. No, that's not it at all.

Being aware that it happens, though, know that you have rights-- you're protected by employment, privacy, and human rights laws (yes, even in America, I debunk more American myths than Canadian). You do not need to disclose for work, except for positions in the military, certain healthcare positions, and when working with vulnerable sectors, and even in those cases, not always, and it can't affect their decision to hire you. You don't need to disclose for housing. You don't need to tell anyone anything, and you shouldn't, unless you need reasonable accommodations, and once they have that information, it can't be used against you. Don't let them. Easier said than done, I know, I've let things slide myself that, looking back, I wish I hadn't. Sometimes it's just easier, even if it's not right.

Point is, when in doubt, question everything. Do your own research, find your own answers, look for sources, question facts you see that aren't cited.

When you make decisions for yourself, be certain you're making it for the right reasons, and with the right information.

#syscourse

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kakkollumination · 10 months

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i think that now that twitter is blowding itself da fuch up because elon musk can't stop making terrible decisions, now would be a GREAT time to start sharing anecdotes about how working at Tesla just solidified what a stupid asshole he was for me

anyways

at some point during my onboarding at the company, every new employee had a mandatory day of "yay you get to sit in The Car for 30 minutes while it drives itself around" day. so My day came, and the guy showed us to the car and proceeded to sit in the driver's seat and have the car drive us around the parking lot. The rationale was since I was working on the Autopilot team [working as an image analyst to curate data for the engineers to feed into the software] that I should a.) be familiar with how the autopilot works, b.) be aware of what it currently could do, and c.) be familiar with what it /can't/ do, so that I'd have a clear picture in my head of why the work I was doing was necessary yadda yadda etc.

So this guy is doing his spiel as the car is going along - explaining the display, the touch screen, the controls, and all sorts of things about how the development of the Autopilot is going along. At some point, he points out where on the car the brake pedal on the car is. Brimming with the optimism unique to people who think Teslas are gods' gift to humanity, he states, "but the goal for the future is at some point that we'll be able to build these cars without a brake pedal because that will be part of the controls on the panel"

Now, I can only assume that the typical response he was used to upon hearing this news from people was a mixture of, "wow!" or "oohh", or even, "amazing!". However, because I'm /me/, the first thing out of my mouth out of hearing that particular factoid was, "are you guys planning on changing the law?"

Naturally, he was confused. "What do you mean?"

"You can't legally operate cars in the state of California if they do not come equipped with a gas or brake pedal. you cannot BUILD cars in the state of California without a gas or brake pedal. It's a basic manufacturing safety issue, and even if a person has a disability assistance device in their car to brake or hit the gas, it still has to actually operate off of the car's built-in brake and gas pedal. you cannot simply /remove/ them." I knew this, because I myself have a mobility assistance device in my car which I use to help me push the gas pedal, as I legally cannot drive with my right foot. I have a secondary gas pedal installed in my car for my left foot, but it basically just installs a bar that pushes the actual gas pedal from the other side of the driver's seat.

He /really/ didn't know what to say to that. He said something about "I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there" or something, clearly still invested in the idea that Tesla cars, for some reason, should be exempt from the Basic Safety Requirement that all other cars on the road need to follow and should be allowed to just not have gas or brake pedals. Needless to say, it just seemed odd to me that someone who clearly was in a position higher than me didn't know something that a person who works on making cars fit for the road should actually know about, and CARE about. And seeing as how the cars are now infamous for blowing up "for reasons unknown", I can only guess that the people in charge were making Titan Submersible -level headass dumbfuck decisions when deciding how the cars should be put together and not connecting the dots when shit blowed up.

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missbaphomet · 1 year

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I have complex feelings about From Software games.

Pros:

Cool monster design (faves include Dancer, the deer things from Elden Ring, Curse-Rotted Greatwood, Mergo's Wet Nurse, Executioner's Chariot)

Sometimes the armor looks cool

Reading player-left messages is a lot of fun

It is satisfying to beat a boss

Cons:

Game just. Assumes you know how to play. EXTREMELY hard to pick up as a first time player, especially if you are neurodivergent in ways that affect memory or attention span, or disabilities involving fine motor control of the hands or delayed reaction times.

Playing on controller is damn near mandatory. They do have keyboard controls, but they fucking suck.

You aren't given much direction, just tossed into the world and left on your own to figure it out. I've only played DS3 and ER so far, but at least DS3 has a linear path to follow. ER elects to drop you pretty much directly in the open world and the only direction you are given is a trail of sparkles leading in the direction of where you should go from the resting sites.

People who play souls games, in my experience, get really pissy if you play poorly for whatever reason. For me, it's mostly because I'm stuck on keyboard and trying to remember all the controls is rough, and sometimes to reach some of the more common auxiliary buttons you have to remove your hand from primary control. A controller would definitely help, but that's not something I can manage rn.

The storytelling sometimes feels very tell-don't-show and is often left intentionally vague, which just isn't a style of storytelling I like. I'm cool with some ambiguity and room for speculation, but it sometimes feels like they left it up to me to write the story.

I think the player characters/character creation is ugly as fuck. It did get better with ER, but like. Dark Souls was released two months before Skyrim and look at this

I suppose that's pretty petty for a game that heavily encourages you to wear a helmet most of the time, but I like the process of character creation. It's part of my ritual as a gamer to create a character to my specifications to connect with them. I do something similar with my dnd characters too.

#obviously these are my personal gripes but :/#baph bleats #baph's bad at games #from software #fromsoft games #souls games #elden ring

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psykoz · 1 year

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ok so some things that have happened at my job

- coworker said the r slur in front of me, a few others, and one of the front end managers. manager says nothing to stop it and in fact jusf laughs and agree w the overall statement (halloween costumes looked [r-slur]ed). this is significantly worse as not only am i (not openly at work for fear but pretty obviously) autistic, but the field we are working in is specifically with seniors with a specific type of mental and intellectual disability

- person who hired and trained me and is an assistant, also higher position not a manager technically but on the management team, learns i dont celebrate xmas thru an email i willingly send, totally fine. but days later, unprompted and unrelated, she str8 up asks why i dont celebrate and i feel the need to reveal some inkling of religious beliefs which i really do not want to do

- literally wont tell me half of the things i need to do/not do until after i fucked up anr get reprimanded. they never told me what the callout policy was, until after i recieved a write up for breaking it. they didnt tell me a security feature for someone had been updated, until i almost messed up SECURITY and a coworker had to tell me it had been changed. theres more but pointing out every time would get tedious and repetitive

- already blamed me once for having "too many missed calls" despite every one of those missed calls having been before my start time or after i am meant to clock out, some even having come past midnight or before 6am when im still hours away from even needing to be getting ready to clock in, outright admitting that it was more likely because their phone system isnt patching back to the after hour line, or after hours people are just not picking up the phone. and still called me in for a full 8 hour "training" shift where i spent well over 75% of the day sitting, not working OR training and thinking abt how much shit i needed to get done in my personal life and how wasteful this was, because of something out of MY control when im not even fucking clocked in.

- my bosses have all been on at least one vacation in the 3 months ive been here. despite being called, verbatim, "the last line of defense" and being in charge of peoples lives, having to potentially de escalate an angry senior if i tell them they arent allowed outside, and having to be around people that are dying at least one person every week or 2, i get no benefits and no chance to even accrue vacation or sick time. i would have never accepted a job with not benefits or sick or leave if they had explained to me the full scope of the stressors i have dealt with. i know for a fact my ptsd has gotten more severe after this job and i went thru a traumatic experience that i wont talk abt bc it was out of the hands of my job tbf, they couldnt have stopped it from happening, but i have still been exposed to multiple deaths and one event ive been unable to stop thinking about and fearing. they have never suggested grief counseling is available to any employee

- sometimes they put up fliers for mandatory meetings/trainings without sending any text/email about it. this sucks for so many reasons. i just may not see them, i have multiple disorders that give me memory issues so having a reminder on my phone would be helpful, qnd the worst of all: they have put up fliers on a day i wasnt working for a mandatory meeting, on a day i wasnt working, and i did not have another shift until 2 days AFTER the meeting that i didnt even know happened bc they didnt bother to let me know despite me being physically unable to see fliers if im NOT THERE.

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mariacallous · 2 years

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As the report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) delivers its findings, seven years in the making, the numbers alone are incredibly hard to confront: 79% of the thousands of victims and survivors who gave testimony were under 11 when the sexual abuse started. Children with disabilities and those who were already neglected were exploited disproportionately – a chilling insight into predatory behaviour: how it takes the very quality of vulnerability that should engender empathy and protection, and opportunistically exploits it instead.

Yet it is in hearing the voices of these victims and survivors that you begin to understand the vast and pressing duty this inquiry creates, a duty of root and branch change in how children are perceived, cared for and protected, and alongside that a duty of collective as well as institutional atonement.

The depths of cruelty described are fathomless: children passing out in pain, humiliated, violated, uncomprehending, suffocating under the weight of an abuser, frozen silent in fear. Testimonials to the Truth Project come from every generation, the oldest participants are in their 80s. What they said, and what they said they wanted now, spoke volumes. For 9% of them, this was the first time they’d spoken about their abuse, and they gave their reasons for this bravery very clearly. More than half said they wanted to prevent abuse happening to others; a fifth wanted to be heard. “These monsters have taken enough from me,” one man said. “Today,” he said, he was “going to speak”.

Twenty-one per cent of the Truth Project participants said they sought the opportunity to tell someone in authority about their experiences; 15% just wanted their account to be believed. For some, this was because they had previously not been listened to or taken seriously when they disclosed that they had been sexually abused. Barbara said, “I want my voice heard, I want it on record … I am not the child in the police station.” Another survivor recalled, “There’s so many moments where I was genuinely crying out to people and there was nothing, no one to listen to me.”

These crimes didn’t stop at the perpetrators, but were cloaked and underpinned by surrounding agencies and institutions who dressed up their cowardice as incredulousness. The analogies people use are heartrending. Phoebe, forced at gunpoint into sex work, was “like a little fish in a shark tank”; Adrienne felt “like a ghost – you are the last thing anyone thinks of”.

Prof Alexis Jay, the chair of the inquiry, touches starkly and soberly on the changing attitudes to abuse over the decades: from the 1950s, when people still had a notion of the “seductive child”; through the 1960s and 70s, when allegations would be stonewalled simply because the accused was by definition more powerful than the accuser; the 1980s, when it was yet to be resolved whether a child could or could not consent to sex; the 1990s, when alarm bells were written off as “over-zealous” and “moral panic”; and into this century, when even as the approach became more child-focused the terrain has still been marked by observable “differences in the treatment of wealthy and well-connected individuals, as opposed to those who were poorer, more deprived and without access to networks of influence”.

Certainly, our understanding of child sexual abuse has changed, in the sense that it is an unmitigated moral wrong, none would defend it; and this has tracked our better understanding of trauma, the near limitless harm it can wreak across a lifetime. Yet Jay’s analysis insists that, even though abuse may be better understood, systems to prevent it are still failing.

Of the 20 recommendations, three form the centrepiece: the first, a statutory requirement of mandatory reporting, which could ultimately make it a criminal offence not to report allegations. This is seismic: consider, for instance, last year’s report by Lambeth council into 40 years of failure of the children in its care. By 2020, the council was aware of 705 children’s home residents making complaints of sexual abuse. “Nobody in relevant positions of authority during that time could truthfully have said they did not know about the abuse of children,” it concludes. The second is a scheme for national monetary redress for victims. The third is the creation of a child protection authority, one in England, one in Wales, with the powers to inspect any institution associated with children.

Half of the victims and survivors were abused by family members, the rest in institutions ranging from the Catholic church to boarding schools, from young offender institutions to children’s homes. This careful, granular study reveals so much about the nature of predatory behaviour, and the culpability of the organisations that surround it. Abusers don’t just need their organisations to cover up their behaviour after an allegation, they need the structure of a church or boarding school or children’s home to legitimise their place in a child’s life to begin with. This creates in those bodies with loco parentis responsibility an overwhelming duty not to wait for an allegation and investigate it fairly, but to be constantly vigilant. This duty has often been ignored, and for decades, with effects that will continue to be felt for many more decades still.

This inquiry was always opposed by the Conservatives, Boris Johnson saying that police money spent investigating historic cases of child sexual abuse was being “spaffed up a wall”, in what sounded just like a characteristically vulgar lack of empathy. Perhaps, though, the government foresaw that this would have political implications that would have to be acted upon.

While child sexual abuse knows no class barriers, and can happen at Ampleforth, one of the world’s foremost Catholic boarding schools, as readily as in a children’s home, money still matters. When children are placed in care hundreds of miles from their homes, because private providers have found cheaper rents in Rochdale; when London and the south-east have precisely no secure children’s homes that accept criminal justice children, despite safeguarding being far better in a secure children’s home than in a young offender institution: these decisions create the ideal conditions for abuse to flourish.

The state cannot hold itself above responsibility when all actors, state and non-state, are called upon to regain the trust of the children who were failed and failed so comprehensively. So many are still having, as adults, to live with those failures.

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