Girls Using Walking Sticks

Nope- it's about people concluding people are identifying as having disabilities with very limited evidence beyond the fact they aren't visibly disabled.

No the thread isn't about disabilities.

It's about girls identifying as having disabilities .

Just because you think that points are relevant doesn't mean you aren't missing the point.

Hell yeah! Let’s hope cool shower stools will be the next big thing for edgy teens. Extra demand massively encourages stores and manufacturers to create and sell this stuff, so the more mainstream it goes, the better.

The issue here so far is the unevidenced assumption that young women with mobility aids are “identifying into” disability as opposed to experiencing disability.

The thread title is “Girls with walking sticks” so it’s not unreasonable for female Mners who know about this topic to join the conversation.

And you don’t get to chase us all off because you’d rather be using this as yet another excuse for pearl clutching about trans people.

Disability affects women disproportionately and has a lot of impact on the amount of misogyny and sex discrimination they face. We’ve as much right to be here on FWR as you do.

And I am so glad there is such a good range of sticks available.
If I have to have a lifelong condition I don't see why that means I should be limited to NHS greige for all mobility aids.

In fact, I need to start a campaign for shower stools in colours other than grey as all the ones I have seen so far are pretty bleak looking

This is a thread about disabilities and anyone who wishes to can contribute as they wish. It's a discussion thread not an echo chamber

There have been lots of relevant points made. If you don't see them as a relevant that's fine, it doesn't make them any less relevant

So this thread is now completely hijacked by people talking (informatively) about people with disabilities.

It is a great conversation but completely misses the point.

This is the FWR sex and gender board.

You, of course, and clearly know huge amounts about disabilities invisible and otherwise.

But that is not the point. The issue here is young, vulnerable girls identifying into disability and the potential issues with this.

Exactly, yes! You can tell really quickly when a shop or service has experience of using mobility aids because they accommodate it without being asked.

I’m all for more young people brandishing sticks or crutches and asking for seats. For a very long time I’ve struggled being the weirdo non elderly person needing a seat, and frankly I’d love some company and the extra noisy advocacy to get more seating made available.

Yes this too.

My daughter has a favourite shop and I didn't used to be able to take her shopping before I got my wheelchair because I got ill so swiftly. I love taking her shopping there particularly since the shop keeper noticed my struggles to get round it and rearranged the layout to make it much more accessible.

In a similar way, my children have allergies and I am so grateful to all the people who are gluten free /vegan as a lifestyle choice as it has massively increased the number of food options available to my children.

Yes, this. And the availability of less obviously medicalised mobility aids has made a huge difference for young people particularly.

There’s a world of difference between an ugly grey NHS “elderly” walking stick vs a glittery red version.

Mobility aids reinvented as fashionable accessories is not a new thing - and its most welcomed as giving more choice and style for those who have to use them.

It’s not disimilar to the rise of fashion frames for glasses. Young women wear plain lenses in those frames in order to get the look of a visual aid, even though they don’t need them.

See also plasters for kids with pictures of superheroes on them. Kids who liked to wear them just because does not devalue the fact they’re nice for those who needed them as an option.

Thinking of the social contagion thing more.
I mentioned my neck fan earlier. I had wanted one for a while. Heat has a massive effect on me as it means my nerves really struggle to get messages through to my muscles (I mentioned previously one widely used test for Myasthenia is to put an ice pack on the ptosis and see if the eyelid springs back up).

I wanted one, but I felt nervous about how I would feel about using one in public. So I held off, even though they had been widely recommended on my Facebook groups for Myasthenia

Then I saw a mum at sports day using one. And that gave me the confidence to order and buy something that I knew would help but was worried I would feel self conscious to use.

Theres a positive social contagion at play

But you’re completely missing the point here.

Where there are more people using mobility aids and making a noise about it, that typically leads to more provision being put in place to accommodate disability.

I for one would absolutely LOVE every person to have to be on cutches, or to use a wheelchair, for, say, one week every year, so they would have some tiny idea of how vulnerable, annoying and time consuming it is to have to deal with life through that lens.

Bring on this army of young blue haired stick waving women. I’m here for it!

A significant change in behaviour of a vulnerable group, particularly one heavily influenced by online behaviour, is always worth flagging up. Safeguarding is important.

It may be something or (hopefully) may not. But raising concerns is the right thing to do.

I think you thunked wrong on this one.

Disabled people have plenty enough issues from the general population, culture and physical environment making their lives difficult.

Policing other people’s claim on disability just isn’t a thing, much as you’d like it to be.

I’m not sure why you’re going after Cassandra like this, but it’s coming over as bullying now.

You asked an intrusive question, got an answer, then bristled on when asked why you wanted to know.

Calling them hypersensitive etc is just rudeness. And now you’re chasing them and those who agree with them off the thread.

Nothing about us without us.

For what it’s worth, this pattern (intrusive question followed by insults if you dare to challenge on why they’re asking) is a big part of why many disabled people are reluctant to be seen with mobility aids, or choose to get brightly coloured in your face versions to try and stave off this sort of bullshittery.

Well, you might think so.

It would have been seen as 'wildly hypothetical ' only a decade ago re the number of trans kids.

The number of girls starving themselves to death due to anorexia is equally not 'wildly hypothetical '.

I don't think anything I have said is at the expense of disabled people. Far from it.

The discussion is about an ideology that has this far convinced vast swathes of the population that individual harm is beneficial. To attain an aim that is unattainable.

Why do you think that it is wild thinking that a group that would harm themselves to attain the impossible (change sex) would not harm themselves to attain the completely possible (become disabled)?

I think that's a reasonable discussion to have. But it has to start with a recognition that we cannot see who is more disabled than someone else. A lot of the bad parts of invisible disability are managed in private,.and the good moments or days are the public moments.

By way of an example: If I can't walk easily, I don't go into the office. And if my legs get bad when I am in the office I am allowed to go home before they get worse. (Same if it's my vision or speech that are affected ). Therefore my colleagues only see me on the days and in the moments when my walking/vision/speech is ok.

I think you are extrapolating into the realms of the wildly hypothetical at the expense of the very real lives of actual disabled people

And yet the only people I know with bright coloured hair have genuine diagnosed disabilities (arthritis; hip condition that has required multiple operations). So it's quite possible for the "social contagion" to work the other way too and as people become disabled they reach out to other disabled people and embrace a culture where coloured hair is much more acceptable/desirable. They might also share music tastes with each other.

So possibly there are multiple trends going on here e

That's OK. 🙂 I thought you'd confused me with another poster - although I didn't think their comment was particularly that rude either.

I don't think I begrudge disabled people anything, and having worked for over 25 years in a NHS trust providing mental health and learning disability services I think I have a reasonable understanding of invisible disabilities, but I think it would be naive to believe that everybody who identifies as disabled is necessarily disabled, or is disabled in any meaningful way. (See my previous posts regarding the ONS Family Resources Survey ).

I think perhaps you and some other posters might be confusing what I think is a legitimate question - "what is a disability?" - with a denial that disability exists at all. That isn't my position.

I tend to agree with the earlier post from @AmateurNoun that if the concept of "disabilty" becomes appropriated by people who are not genuinely disabled, then that must inevitably have an adverse effect on the disabled community.

Back in March Radio 4 serialised parts of "The Age of Diagnosis" by Suzanne O'Sullivan and one of the areas she looked at was the rise in the diagnosis of autism. She looked at how much of the discourse around autism was now dominated by relatively high-functioning mild cases of autism and how those with more severe and debilitating manifestations of the condition were being neglected or overlooked as "too difficult". Now whether that's true with regard to autism I don't know, but I am a bit concerned that if the disabilty net gets wider then those with real disabilities will suffer in a similar way.

The Age of Diagnosis by Suzanne O'Sullivan - 3: Autism - BBC Sounds

And in the goth example - what if the trend was that lots of deaf people were drawn to the goth culture due to their deaf communities they had formed with other deaf people. Or found the goth culture in some way comforting or reassuring in a world that they found isolating. It's one thing to notice a pattern, it's another to assume what is cause and what is effect

It would be a possible explanation but a) it wouldn't explain why there was such a sharp and sudden increase in young people needing hearing aids and b) Occam's razor suggests that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. The simplest explanation in my view is that there has been a fad of claiming trans and non-binary identities, and there seems to be an new fad amongst the same group of identifying as disabled.

Honestly cane usage amongst young people is something that I have seen very shapely rise at gigs that I attend literally over the last year or 2 only. It used to be that you would see one or two at a gig and now it's in the tens or twenties. You can say that it's due to canes being normalised, in the same way that people have said that the explosion of people saying that they are trans and have gender dysphoria is due to that being more accepted, but everything I have seen points to social contagion.

Absolutely. You could well be right.

But this is about identity as an ideology. If this ideology moves across from trans to disability, what issues might arise from that?

This is a group convinced that it is possible to change sex and that this can be achieved by medication and surgery which has high risks of bodily harm and sterilisation.

If this group then turns to disability as an identity choice, will they stick to something akin to gender non conformity or something much more harmful?

I have a normal gait. But sometimes my legs suddenly start to "go". So the stick helps me stay safe. I also can't stand for any length of time at all and a stick helps me then too

And in the goth example - what if the trend was that lots of deaf people were drawn to the goth culture due to their deaf communities they had formed with other deaf people. Or found the goth culture in some way comforting or reassuring in a world that they found isolating. It's one thing to notice a pattern, it's another to assume what is cause and what is effect

There have been a lot of posts by disabled people on this thread explaining that they are drawn to colour, that the disability came before the assumption of the colourful style. But those posts dont seem to have got much attention.