Care about disabled people? Help protect the ACA!

Pages to follow for reliable action alerts and news updates

Healthcare Rights Coalition: https://www.facebook.com/healthcarerightscoalition/

Families USA: https://www.facebook.com/FamiliesUSA/

ASAN: https://www.facebook.com/AutisticAdvocacy/

New York Times: https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/

Sarah Kliff (Vox): https://www.facebook.com/sarahkliff/  

Affordable Care Act 101

Self-Advocates Guide to the ACA:

Detailed, yet digestible, information on the Affordable Care Act and healthcare reform

Dispelling ACA Myths:

Top 10 Obamacare Facts – including plain English explanations  

Citizen lobbying resources

The Affordable Care Act: what can I do?

Steps for patients wishing to advocate for affordable healthcare, including scripts, phone numbers, and tips.

Countable App: 

“Countable makes it quick and easy to understand the laws Congress is considering. We also streamline the process of contacting your lawmaker, so you can tell them how you want them to vote on bills under consideration.”

Shy Person’s Guide to Calling Your Representatives:

“We’re His Problem Now” (action alerts, scripts, and contact information):

Further reading

How proposed medicaid reforms would harm disabled folks: 

A comparison of replacement proposals: 

How the ACA works now- and how that could change (with charts!): 

Six surprising healthcare items that could disappear with ACA reform: 

A study outlining the consequences of repeal, including more than 10 million uninsured, and thousands of deaths per year:

Masterpost of #SavetheACA resources:

Full ACA toolkit:

Helpful information on healthcare from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network  

I really struggle to articulate this properly but I feel like a lot of abled people can recognise the idea of disabled people in theory but not in practice? And I feel this heavily affects accessibility

So for instance with disabled parking spaces they see them and know that they are for the elusive ‘disabled people’ but also they think “hey no one will need this right now” and so will use it because the idea of disabled people actually existing and interacting with a public space just doesn;t add up and fully form in their minds

And I think a major cause of this is the fact that a lot of disabled people have not been or continue to not be allowed in public spaces. Through ‘ugly laws’, institutionalisation, inaccessibility, abuse, imprisonment and other violence, disabled people have been forced from or never allowed into the public sphere and so the idea of us being there, existing in communities, in society is so abstract to abled folks and I feel like that really affects and informs a lot of attitudes that people have especially wrt to using things meant for disabled people

This is important.

Dark skin model of the week

Model Philomena Kwao 

Born Deptford, London, UK in 1990

Happy excessive-but-hopefully-still-heartfelt shopping season! In the spirit of supporting our communities while you buy things for your loved ones, Autostraddle has compiled a massive list of LGBTQ-owned businesses to support while you shop. More info about how they were chosen:

Click the link above to see the list, and happy shopping! 

Not sorry, my outfit was poppin just as much at my confidence

Hey friends, our holiday SALE is happening now!! 

use coupon code “HAPPYHOLIDAYS2016” to save 20% off of your entire purchase!

www.etsy.com/shop/thepaperpoppystore 

For shipping before Christmas ORDER BY: International- December 5th Domestic (US)- December 15th

Order with priority shipping if you want to give your gifts an even better chance of timely arrival :)

As always, every purchase supports a disabled/autistic/queer couple! 👍🏻

#DisabilityTooWhite is a hashtag created by Vilissa Thompson on Twitter in order to bring attention to the lack of racial diversity in disability representation. #DisabilityTooWhite does not intend to erase the struggles and the ableism that white disabled folks experience, it is merely addressing the issue that the intersection of race and disability is not often addressed and not often represented. #DisabilityTooWhite is a conversation that highlights how as minuscule as disability representation is already, disabled PoC (among other identities, disabled women, disabled LGBT folk, etc), their representation is microscopic!

-Confronting the Whitewashing of Disability -#DisabilityTooWhite Calls Out Media -#DisabilityTooWhite On Twitter 

Sources: -Disabled People of Color Survey -Disability Visibility Project -Intersection of Disability, Diversity, and Violence  -PoC with Disabilities and Violence -Only 12% of Paralympic Tickets Sold -Rio Chiefs fear Paralympics Could Fall Flat As Seats Remain Empty -Does Hollywood Ignore the Disabled? -GLAAD Media Diversity

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my dorm is up a really steep hill and i got here on my own today so my arms r dead but i can still take selfies

Me as Birth of Venus by Botticelli Redefining Renaissance beauty standards 😋

Marshalling for Belfast Pride on Saturday

Why Dyscalculia awareness is so important

I’d like to take a second to list all the people I wish had known more about dyscalculia growing up:

My first grade teacher, who noticed when on a verbal counting test that I went from 99 to 100 to 200 and told my parents I just needed a little practice

My third grade teacher, who couldn’t understand why I would turn in a timed multiplication table test with absolutely nothing written on it, or burst into tears when asked to bring it home and have it signed by my parents

My school corporation, who placed me in advanced mathematics for two excruciating years based on aptitude tests, apparently unaware that aptitude and ability are not one and the same

My fifth grade teacher, who privately admonished me for “laziness” because I couldn’t stop making “silly mistakes”—like switching multiplication and addition, or flipping numbers like three and eight, or failing to follow every step of a math problem

My sixth grade math teacher, who publicly called me out for writing the formula for the Pythagorean Theorem on my hand, claiming I didn’t study, though I had spent five hours the night before preparing

My parents, who grounded me every time my report card came out, trying their best to discipline what they thought was laziness

My family doctor, who, once told about my math troubles, prescribed me ADD medication without any running any kind of diagnostic

My Algebra teacher senior year after I was diagnosed, who claimed that giving me extra time on my test would be “unfair to the other students”

Every teacher who ever laughed and pointed at the clock when I asked them what time it was

The boy in my band class that said I was the “stupidest smart person he’d ever met”

My former boss, who when I told I had dyscalculia told me “I probably have it too, I am always mixing things up!” (she was an accounting major and ran the accounting portion of that place of business)

But you know who would have really benefited from knowing about dyscalculia? Me. I wish I had known. I wish I could go back and tell my ten year old self that it wasn’t my fault, that I am extraordinary in the best way. I wish someone, somewhere along the way could have seen what was really going on.

That’s why dyscalculia awareness is so important.

This local hoe wants you to vote for Bernie🇺🇸

So I found this and for the most part- I really like the way it shows just how many things go into how ‘bad’ someone’s PTSD/trauma symptoms might be. That it isn’t always about the type of trauma (Something we hear a lot about in the inbox ‘it was only ___________’)

How being blamed and how social support (or lack of it) can play a big role.

How things like freezing at the time can make it worse. (We also get a lot of ‘but I didn’t fight back, how can I call it trauma…. well, because freezing is a response to trauma- that’s why.)  Or memory loss.

I dislike the ‘Will’ one- I understand what they’re talking about but it could definitely be worded better. ( Some people have a fear of getting better because they don’t know what that’s like, or they’re super suspicious of the idea of getting better. That isn’t quite the same thing as ‘wanting to stay sick’ and too many outsiders try and say that of survivors who aren’t healing on their time line.)

Gay pride weekend day 1! Happy pride everyone 🌈💖