AIBU to question sunflower lanyards for adults at airports?

It must have been at least 24 hours since we had a thread bitching about people with ND or hidden disabilities.

It's like a timer goes off when there hasn't been one and POP, one appears 🙄

Do people on here using the lanyards or with family members using them do you find they work? Is it better than before the lanyards?

Are they recognised in many countries? I would think that in the airport you have the issue of lots of people from other countries who don’t understand the concept or who actually could benefit from one but don’t have it and get treated differently as a result as people assume that they don’t have any hidden disabilities given lack of lanyards.

I feel like starting a thread about my teen DD who is blind. And her non-existent Guide Dog. Can you imagine the double frothing?

I'm autistic and haven't flown for over 20 years, because I find the noise, crowds, and being crammed in close proximity with other people absolutely intolerable.

I'm not convinced that wearing a lanyard would improve any of those things.

I disagree. I think there will be so many people wearing these lanyards, that they’ll just become meaningless in a way. If people want to label me ableist because of that opinion, so be it. Unfortunately we are in the age of performative, hidden disability.

What condition does your sil have

They do help. I’m also autistic but suspect I tolerate people better. Airports these days, at least UK ones, have quietier areas for this reason. I use mine mainly due to illness.

Why do you care? How does it affect you?

Perhaps, and I’m just suggesting this, airport assistance desks could hand them out.

to people who have booked Assisstance…..

oh, wait,

Isn’t it a good thing that people can have something that alerts staff to a hidden disability? So they can offer support if:when needed?

Most of aibu is stuff that doesn't directly affect people. Its a conversation.

Performative hidden disability.

I wish my blind teen could get new eyeballs that coordinated with her brain.

Yes to that. They should be issued by NHS for a fee if a clinician can diagnose a reason you need one.

I want assistance to go to people who really need it. A lot of people are now very very proud of their autism or ADHD or mental health and it is a big part of their identity and so wear it to make it recognised, rather than because they genuinely need support.

My son uses one on days out because he's 5 and autistic and a flight risk and a risk of hitting out at people. It helps people help me rather than judge. However, I hate putting it on him because it feels like a neon flashing light of telling the world his private business ( I'm also diagnosed with autism and ADHD, High functioning successful female type. No one would guess to look at me, I don't really tell anyone, except to sometimes explain to colleagues my lack of attention to detail. I certainly don't need sunflowers). I also don't come at this from a perspective of abelism but this loud and proud neuroaffirmative tribe are ruining it for people with genuine needs.

I don’t understand the hostility to people wearing lanyards. It signals a hidden disability, but doesn’t convey any ‘preferential’ treatment.

So what if there will be increasing numbers of people using them? That’s just speculation anyway as no one knows if that will happen.

Would it really hurt any of us to show a little consideration for someone who MAY be struggling? We’ll never know 100% either way.

I don’t agree with many of the comments on other threads about Disability Access Passes, but I can understand that more as at least superficially it looks to those with aching feet in a long queue that someone is being allowed to push in, making their waiting time longer. ( even though it’s been explained many times that they don’t work like that).

I use them.

yes, they do work.

they’re recognised pretty much worldwide which is genuinely really helpful.

i can be non verbal sometimes, particularly after a flight because they’re exhausting, and while I do have a lanyard that has cards on in various languages saying various things the sunflower lanyard basically tells the ground staff to get me to Assisstance and it gets sorted from there.

they are genuinely really useful.

i do not understand at all why people feel that either some people having them fraudulently (no disabilities) or inappropriately (not the right sort of disabilities) will make them less useful because the whole point is that they are recognisable without words and worldwide.

i don’t see how more people using them stops this.

They’re used worldwide.

you want the nhs to issue disability passes for the whole world?

350 airports in 70 countries and you want the nhs to check every air traveller in the world?

https://hdsunflower.com/uk/insights/post/airports-around-the-world

Why should autism and ADHD be hidden away?

Who told you we are in the age of "performative, hidden disability"?
Where did you get that from?
I think that says more about what you get shown on SM based on your algorithms, rather than what is happening out in the real world.

But your daughter quite clearly isn’t performing?

Some naive people on this thread.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I think the lanyards are a great idea in principle, but should only be available on medical advice. During covid, our local Tesco had them at the counters, for anyone to pick up for free

Being able to just about tolerate an airport/travelling doesn’t mean that some adjustments would help make that experience actually enjoyable. because god forbid disabled people have a good experience hey?

Ok, so to address the issue which it seems to have come out:

people are saying that the more people who have sunflower lanyards the less support is available.

so:

let us consider a situation like disabled toilets. At any given time there are a fixed amount of disabled toilets. If for some reason lots of able bodied people started using them disabled people would have to wait more, on average.

here, the resource (disabled toilets) is fixed and so if more people try to use them then yes disabled people will have to wait more.

now, let’s consider airport assistance. You have to book it ideally 48 hours in advance. Then, the airport looks at how many disabled people are flying on Tuesday and gets more people on shift if there are lots of disabled people flying.

in the same way if you go through Heathrow on an august bank holiday they’ll have loads of staff and all security scanners working and full tilt. Cold Tuesday mid January hardly any staff.

so does having more people using the sunflower lanyard and requesting assistance dilute it for “real” disabled people?

no. Clearly not.

so we are then left with posters saying well people using it fraudulently means that next time I see someone with a lanyard maybe I won’t help them out (skip the queue, whatever).

ok. Well, the majority of people I see wearing it are visibly obviously disabled. Maybe they’re in a wheelchair, maybe they’ve got a white stick and are blind, whatever.

so, to be clear, you are saying you will deliberately be unhelpful to someone who is likely visibly obviously disabled, and even if you can’t visibly see they are disabled the sunflower lanyard tells you they (probably are).

well, you do you.

i’m sure you’ll have a great glow of righteousness stopping that blind person from getting the help they need.

They were available in supermarkets long before Covid.

People that did not need them only noticed them during Covid and after. Like you.

Anyone can order one off Amazon. They're a worldwide symbol so limiting them to being given out by doctors is never, ever going to happen.