Last week, RL!Sian was interviewed by a qualitative researcher about her activism. She’s a central part of a volunteer organisation that advocates and supplies housing for disabled and multiply marginalised people. It wasn’t necessarily the intention that nearly everyone they had on the books was queer, but disability, housing precarity and queerness are honestly more of a trifecta than anyone really knows.
Anyway, Sian mentioned to the interviewer, a young postgrad, how the disability support system in the UK is designed to criminalise and marginalise disabled people, that the base assumption of the system is that disabled people are by default lying about their disability, and that reconsiderations and appeal tribunals aren’t for when the system goes wrong, they are assumed to be a de facto part of the process.
RL!Sian described in brief terms how she had to fight for the right to call herself “severely impaired” in front of a tribunal, and explained that the constant administrative violence of this was part of the inspiration for her group’s work.
The researcher responded with shock that this was even a thing. They didn’t know. But then why would you? If you’re not at the mercy of the grinding mechanisms of slow, institutional murder, you just think that people who are “actually” disabled get help and support, that there is a safety net. The shock of a person who didn’t know the truth who suddenly becomes disabled and then finds they’re on their own is well known in our circles. Our circles are round and perfectly formed. They’re bubbles, in fact, in their own way. When everyone you know exists in that horror, you forget that people don’t know. It’s the definition of a bubble.
Yesterday (at the time of writing) RL!Sian met with someone in disability support who is supposed to help her get into paying work with accommodations — RL!Sian’s freelance work has largely tanked because AI is a thing now. Sian had to remind the person that any place of work she has doesn’t just need to have accommodations, it now needs a bathroom she is allowed to use, which is no longer necessarily the case in the UK. At the same time she stressed the urgency and difficulty of her plight in a social framework that is increasingly working towards doing her active harm. The disability support person was taken aback and said, “I was under the impression that things were becoming more inclusive. But it sounds like you’re telling me that this isn’t the case.”
We don’t know who was the more shocked.
Is this what everyday people outside the bubble are like? Is the majority opinion so blind that they’ll all happily march us to our deaths and think nothing is wrong? We often characterise the bubble as a barrier that keeps the world from getting in, but what if it’s in fact the membrane that keeps the truth from getting out? In which direction is the membrane really filtering?
Sian’s more complete self only recently got a bubble. Here she is in Hangars Liquides, seeing what life is like, from time to time, outside of it.
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PROMAGIC Dulhan Earrings (Essential Inventory Premium Gift, July)
DIRAM BELLA Jacket and Bra – Nude; STELLA Shoulder Coat – Beige
Cornered Squish Belt
UTOPIA@Design “LILYTH” boots
ALASKAMETRO<3 “Capricorn” eyeshadow (variants 1 and 2, layered);”Aquarius” lipstick (variant 6)
Voguel Azura Skin ICY
ToxicTreats Tummy Zipper Piercing
Moon Rabbit Bubbly (Essential Inventory gift)