Every year, hundreds of studies involving disabilities take place in the US, like wide-sweeping lookbacks into cases of autism and research into multiple sclerosis. The majority of these studies, though, focus on viewing disability from a medical perspective, which is not surprising, since they are run by doctors and they occur in a nation which […]
Tag: cure evangelism
Armchair Diagnosis: Just Don’t
Lay people seem to have a growing understanding of medicine, especially psychiatry. At this point, it’s likely we won’t need doctors at all in a few years, because people seem to be so confident that they can perform diagnostics on the basis of looking at someone, interacting for a few minutes, or reading a letter […]
‘Just try harder’: The Health Bootstraps
The rhetoric about good patients and bad patients includes an element of bootstrapping that often goes unexamined; very similar rhetoric is used in conversations about poor people, and it’s telling to see how readily it is accepted and used to keep people in their place. People who don’t complain and try harder are rewarded, says […]
Cure Evangelism, Again
The cure evangelists appear to be riding hot and heavy again, which requires me, once again, to explain what cure evangelism is and why it is oh so very annoying. For those of you already on board, sorry, this post is probably going to be tremendously boring for you. My deepest apologies, and have you […]
Disability’s No Fairytale: Stop Treating Disabled People Like Sleeping Beauty
Life for disabled people is commonly assumed to be a sort of limbo, a search for meaning; if you are disabled, you are waiting around for a cure, hoping that someday, somewhere, someone will figure out how to fix you. Someone will wake up you up with a kiss and suddenly you will be whole […]
On Causes and Cures
As a member of the trans community, I often encounter people who desperately want to know why people are transgender. What happens to ‘make’ people trans. The same root search for a cause also comes up with asexuality, with cognitive disabilities like autism. Huge amounts of money and time are dedicated to asking ‘why,’ and […]
On Cure Evangelism
Cure evangelism is a scourge which seems unlikely to vanish any time soon, so we may as well address it and have a little chat about what it is, why it is problematic, and what you, personally, can do about it. This is not just a problem which affects people with disabilities. Fat folks are […]