Girls Using Walking Sticks

In all seriousness though @BlibBlabBlob , I think you raise some interesting points.
If you wade through the thread, it does give pause for thought, such as your brightly coloured clothes point.

Do we have any genuine evidence here that young women are 'identifying into disability' rather than, y'know, actually HAVING one or more disabilities?

They've got blue hair, duh! Course they must be treated with suspicion, dodgy as hell from the off.

<disclaimer> sarcasm

Do we have any genuine evidence here that young women are 'identifying into disability' rather than, y'know, actually HAVING one or more disabilities?

If young women using canes is more commonly seen then it is indeed a trend that can be observed. I would be extremely wary of labelling it as some sort of fashion trend, that is being consciously and deliberately adopted.

Being autistic is known to increase the chances of also having e.g. EDS or some form of joint hypermobility, which would make the use of a cane potentially quite helpful in getting out and about.

Autistic people tend to have more problems with sensory sensitivities and fewer problems in breaking social convention in the name of 'looking normal', so are more likely to choose comfortable clothing. (Hello, dungarees).

Being autistic massively increases the chances of also having ADHD.

ADHDers tend to embrace the wearing of colourful clothing for dopamine hit purposes. (Hello, brightly coloured/patterned dungarees and maybe brightly-coloured hair as well.)

Being drawn to bright colours, and with the likelihood of mobility issues that are helped by the use of a cane, is it any wonder that young AuDHDers (people who are both autistic and ADHD) decide to purchase and use the sort of mobility aids produced and sold by companies like NeoWalk? Especially when (via social media) they see others, like themselves, using these products and feel less embarrassed at the thought of using a mobility aid than young women like them would have done 10, 20 or 30 years ago when the only option was a 'granny' style walking stick or an NHS greige crutch.

I'd bet good money that NeoWalk themselves have had a major part in the increase in young, disabled women using sticks. Because it's rubbish to need a walking stick when you're still a teenager, but if you can collect them in a range of beautiful colours and see others proudly using them then it can turn something very negative into something positive for them.

And I'm all in favour of that.

(From a middle-aged autistic woman, who loves colourful dungarees for the comfort and dopamine hit. And also thinks it would be kind of cool to have colourful hair, just as a big Fuck You to the societal assumption that I should now become entirely invisible to society as my reproductive ability winds up. But actually doesn't dye her hair at all, because it's far too much effort and because sitting in the hairdressers making small talk is not her idea of fun.)

I'll say one thing, the spoonie community can be fucking energetic when the mood takes them.

What a load of claptrap. And she could at least get her grammar right (‘my cane and I’ 🙄🙄🙄🙄)
There are plenty of people who make an exaggerated or faux disability their entire identity. It’s not a huge stretch to see it in real life.

Real Munchausen's or Munchausen's by proxy is very rare. It's not the same as being a hypochondriac or malingering.

I just think its "funny" how Mumsnetters will see young women with walking sticks and immediately diagnose them with Munchausen's without considering that maybe, just maybe they could simply have a disability.

This is what my (disabled) husband also says.

Prior to his stroke, when he still did on-call psychiatry crises assessment shifts, he said he saw plenty. Often also non-binary identities, clutching an emotional support soft toy, etc.

Clearly no one does that for fun, it is a cry for help, a way of presenting trauma and struggling to navigate the poorly funded primary care, CAHMS, and later on GAP systems. But it sure clogs up the systems even further.

There is a subset of women like this. Usually but not always young, quirky, alternative, make a diagnosis their personality, walking aid/joint splints (but only to make a TikTok or go to an appointment) it seems to be a way of getting attention/PIP and being argumentative under the guise of fighting for the cause. The women I’ve met who fit this description, have history of childhood trauma, tend to be quick to annger and have a desperate need for a community to fit into. Loners turned quirky disabled.

It’s eroding the meaning of the word, as a PP mentioned, which makes it dangerous. They clog up an already groaning system and use resources meant for actual disabled people. Not to mention, they’re giving disabled people a bad reputation.

Worse still, if they have children, they mould them into little disabled people and pass on their victim mentality to them too. It’s a ticking time bomb, not a harmless trend. It’s quite obviously a facet of deep seated mental illness.

Maybe you need to get to know more people.

Actually I'm referring to a specific set of people I know of IRL.

Many people did not survive polio in the past. For those who did, a condition called post polio syndrome became apparent

Mary Berry and Arthur C Clarke have lived with the lifelong results of the illness they survived.

I wonder if long COVID may similarly become post COVID syndrome, with lifelong consequences - and that we might be seeing early signs now?

I hope this phenomenon is fairly limited and will disappear quietly, no doubt to be replaced by something else.

However, there is no question in my mind that there is a clear parallel between the loss of meaning/boundaries for the words woman and sex and now possibly disabled. When terms are pushed and redifined to the point that they become meaningless in language and eventually need to be clarified by the Supreme Court...

Problems I and disabled people I know have faced (since forever!) from the general public being arseholes about disability: numerous beyond counting

Problems I and disabled people I know have faced from young women using disability aids: zero

Just to be very clear, I don't think anyone has suggested that young women who are using sticks that they do not need will be rude/aggressive etc. to disabled people etc. - the issue is that they will try the patience and raise skepticism in the general public, so the current problems from the general public will become much worse.

And this is going to make things even worse for people with hidden disabilities who already have to rely on the general public to trust that they are telling the truth when they ask them for a seat/assistance etc.

As you and I know, there are quite a few of us on FWR who have disabilities ourselves and/or have loved ones with disabilities.

This never seems to occur to our visitors who make glib assumptions about you people before telling us we're all disgusting bigots.

If I'm out with my stick, people are usually pretty good about offering a seat. I'm not naive enough to imagine this will be improved by lots of young women using sticks when they don't need them.

Maybe listen for a minute instead of using disabled people as your latest oh-so-concerned pity fest to drum up hostility towards young people who choose to present themselves in ways you don’t like.

I have a disability myself. Maybe you should try listening instead of assuming you are the voice of everyone.

This is a brilliant post.

A physiotherapist suggested (counter intuitively to me) tjat I not be too quick to discard using a walking stick even if I felt it was not needed - but specifically to help in crowded situations (after a knee replacement).

(eg in the Big Tesco, people had been crowding, jostling or walking directly at me expecting me to be able to move (when I was stuck on the spot, the limb was not yet able to suddenly move or change direction except slowly). It worked well as a visual aid and felt safer just to be given a small bit extra space around people.

Well, I think it’s incredibly stupid to believe lots of young women are faking disability simply because they are living young vibrant lives in which they happen to use a stability / mobility aid in the shape of a stick.

And I also think it’s incredibly prejudiced to use this perceived and totally unevidenced “trend” as another stick to beat trans people with.

The false narrative that people fake disability in significant numbers is demonstrably harmful to disabled people. Please stop inflating it.

For the record:

Problems I and disabled people I know have faced (since forever!) from the general public being arseholes about disability: numerous beyond counting

Problems I and disabled people I know have faced from young women using disability aids: zero

Young women carrying sticks will not make the general public any more arseholey than that already are about disability. Trust me - public arseholery is already a huuuuuge and very real problem.

Maybe listen for a minute instead of using disabled people as your latest oh-so-concerned pity fest to drum up hostility towards young people who choose to present themselves in ways you don’t like.

As I said earlier, I have Tourette's (among other disabilities). There has been a large increase in people claiming to have Tourette's. It has not negatively affected me. Not bc people believe I have it but bc they either thought I was faking before or they didn't really care but found my tics very annoying and were pissed that I was ticcing.

How much worse can it get than having a neurologist standing over me with his face a few inches from mine yelling at me to stop ticcing? That's what it was like before young people started claiming to have Tourette's. (BTW, if you are a health care provider, this is a very bad way to get someone to stop ticcing since stress increases both the likelihood of ticcing and the severity of tics. He probably knew that so I can only assume he wanted to punish me for my tics.) People were suspicious then, they're suspicious now. I don't see any difference at all.

Maybe you should not talk on behalf of all disabled people.

I talked to my disabled husband, who is hemiplegic following a severe stroke, about this thread.

He's seen this phenomenon, through his work (in the field of mental health in the NHS) and socially. He certainly feels the inevitable dilution and fuzziness around definition of disability is harming him (and frankly pissing him off).

I think it's incredibly naive to think that having lots of young women appropriating a disability will not have a negative impact.

Maybe in the short-term it will increase physical access in some places, but as the perception grows that people are claiming to have disabilities that they do not have, trust will be lost and able-bodied people will be less tolerant and willing to make adjustments.

I bet some transexuals were happy at first with the increasing number of people identifying as trans, but it's ended up with an inevitable backlash and transwomen losing any rights they had previously been perceived as having to access women's spaces.

“It doesn't adversely affect me but I'd have thought it might adversely affect you.”

Like I said, you thought wrong.

It doesn’t adversely affect disabled people, and it would be really great if the non disabled people would stop speaking on behalf of disabled people who are quite able enough to speak for themselves.

This thread is just fake concern for disabled people so as to have another angle to berate trans people in general and any young person wanting to hold a stick.

And just to add, for the sake of actual facts, even the DWP themselves admit that PIP has the lowest fraud rate of any state benefit, so the posts about fake PIP claims can bog off too.

Just to add I do think there is the potential for harm with those self-diagnosing themselves (and their children) with food intolerances or feeding their children a vegan diet. People who cut out groups of foods long-term without professional support can cause quite serious health problems for themselves or their children.

So it is important to talk about this. I would have no problem with this being discussed on a forum such as this one. You would probably get a few people saying stupid things and being insensitive and ignorant but on the whole I suspect posters would come to the discussion from a place of concern. I suspect that, as with this thread, there would also be a bunch of posters complaining that any discussion was coming from a place of hatred and mockery and is harmful for those afflicted with digestive issues but In my mind harm comes from not discussing these things or making people fearful of discussing them.

I agree, it’s so ableist and disgusting.
So many dismissive and intrusive judgements on other people’s lives. Disabled women have done so much for feminism. Speaking personally we have both genetic and acquired disability affecting some of the young and older women in my family- and this is an extremely common situation in the population. This sneering thread makes me sad to see in FWR. I thought this was a feminist, thinking space.

Really hope none of you judging and condescending posters gives birth to a disabled child, becomes affected by a genetic condition yourself, or has a serious and permanently disabling accident and then has to encounter sneering of the kind you’re doing about other people on here. I’m frightened to think what your kind of attitudes, which I know are widespread, sadly, will be doing to the public services and everyday experience that disabled people have to rely on.

British culture is so hostile to disability. It seems to be getting worse. There are motivated people stoking culture wars about cutting PIP (which has a 0% fraud rate by the government’s own statistics, the lowest of all the benefits) just to save money, not because people don’t need it.

There is assisted dying being introduced, around which you can guarantee the goalposts will be moved in time to include being disabled with a corresponding breakdown in available support to those who rely on it and do want to live.

There’s the breakdown of the SEND education system and government parent-blaming that disabled kids are too expensive to educate, those examples all just off the top of my head. Disabled people are among the most likely to live in poverty in the UK. Disabled women are specifically subject to and vulnerable to domestic violence. All that doesn’t seem to be enough for some people on here.