Girls Using Walking Sticks

I have POTS, as diagnosed by a cardiologist. I have never used or needed a stick.

I think the correct answer is: whichever one puts you in the wrong.

I try to avoid threads like this, because they always end up the same way.

Me: let me tell you what pisses me off about spoonies
Poster1: Excuse me! I heard you mention spoonies. I have a diagnosed chronic illness and I would like to have a polite conversation about what a hateful bigot you are.
Me: I wasn't talking about you, I'm sorry if you thought I was
Poster2: Excuse me! My child is seriously disabled. Why do you hate my child and want them to die?
Me: I wasn't talking about you either, I don't know your dc or have anything against them. I was talking about spoonies
Poster3: Excuse me! I would like to have a polite conversation with you about your ableism, so you will see why you should apologise to all the disabled people you've been injuring with your hatey hate.
Me: well fuck the lot of you if that's your attitude

(limps away on my stick)

This actually made my teen and I laugh - and she is blind and navigates using a long cane. This trend is no worse than the totally able-bodied ‘I’ll only be five minutes in the Blue Badge space’ crew.

Has anyone read Lionel Shriver’s novel Mania? The behaviour of some posters on this thread puts me in mind of that.

To paraphrase...
"I disagree politely"
"You have a temper tantrum"

Perhaps I'm missing something but are you saying that disabled people aren't pissed off at non-disabled people appropriating disability, but rather that they welcome it, or that they just don't care either way?

Or are you saying it never happens in the first place?

Do you have this kind of temper tantrum every time someone disagrees with you politely? You must be an absolute nightmare to live with.

God forbid disabled people form a community to help each other. That’s some kind of identity politics! Nothing to do with humans helping humans who understand each other in ways other humans can’t.

Or maybe no one should be judging others as making up their disability. People’s ignorance make it more difficult for others with disability. If you see someone you think is faking - mind your business and treat them as you would any human being, disabled or otherwise.

It’s not hard. At all. As a disabled person, who has been disabled my entire life, who had been a wheelchair user for years and who went to a school exclusively for other disabled people I can tell you right now: the thing harming disabled people is YOUR ATTITUDE.

We should not have to justify ourselves or the legitimacy of our struggles OR our medical history in order to get basic respect and amenities.

My new neck fan has arrived. I got it after reading about it on one of those dreadful social media groups where I <gasp> discuss my condition with other people who have it and we share tips.

I am hoping it will help me a little when out and about as it starts to feel quite unsafe when I lose my speech control and swallow control when my face and neck get too hot.

However, I have just realised that I ordered it in a beautiful purple colour and not something suitably beige /grey. Shall I return it or shall I just accept that some people are going to see me as a fake disabled PIP claimant with gender identity issues.....

But presumably, unlike some on this thread, you do think it is fine for those of us with disabilities to identify as disabled?

Well said. This thread is a bloody disgrace in parts.

I'm not attempting to deny this trend exists - I haven't noticed it myself but it appears others have - but some of the prejudices this thread is giving rise to are all too yawn-makingly familiar. As far as I am concerned some people who present a certain way may indeed behave a certain way, but that doesn't mean they all do, and making any assumptions around disability and how a person appears/identifies is a slippery slope to blind prejudice. In this sense some of the more clueless on this thread have been behaving in exactly the same way as the 'where's your wheelchair, then?' types that tend to hijack disability threads to bash: using reductive generalisations about the few in order to bash the many.

If you don't want disability discussed on FWR, don't discuss disability on FWR. It's hardly rocket science.

My children and DH are amazing, but although to the untrained eye my condition is invisible, they can now see the ptosis worsen and of course they hear my speech get slurred or see me choke on my food or drink or saliva when I do too much. So weirdly although i call it an invisible condition it's visible to my family and neurologist

It's horrible having people imply you are lazy when in fact my experience is that you are probably the opposite and put on a brave face and cope with a lot

@SilverSnaffles totally agree. This is not a trans board and nothing in the OP mentioned trans at all. So no idea why some people are claiming this thread is about trans people and sticks……it isn’t. It’s about women and sticks.

You’re starting to sound a bit silly now.

It’s not normal to have a condition or ailment, no. And if someone does have a diagnosed condition or ailment which limits them again that’s not normal.

some people without a diagnosed condition I guess may struggle with physical activity but that would either be due to age in which case they’ve had their time being fitter and more active and slowing down with age is normal. Or they’re unfit and can do something to improve that gradually. An option that someone who is disabled by a diagnosed condition does not have.

theres a massive difference.

i do get it’s hard for someone who isn’t affected to understand. Even dh will struggle to understand and make quips about me being lazy. It’s really annoying.

@Shortshriftandlethal Nothing in the OP, which I didn’t seek out on the Feminism, Sex and Gender board, but clicked on in ‘Trending’ without realising that’s where it was, suggests it has anything to do with trans ideology or gender issues.

”Arran2024 · 08/07/2025 18:57
I saw a post about this on X this morning. Apparently it is a trend.
Anyway, I went into town this afternoon and sure enough, I saw a number of young women with walking sticks. None of them looked like they were leaning hard on their stick, just kind of walking along like it was a big umbrella.
Is anyone else seeing this?”

If anything it suggests suspicion of disability as a chosen identity and asks if this is a thing.

I don’t give a damn how much ownership you feel you have over this ‘cohesive’ section of MN, I will post when I see blatant ableism being dressed up as something else.

It’s not a discussion if you are talking inside your own echo chamber. The opinions and experience of actual disabled individuals, particularly those with a slightly alternative image and who loosely fit the description given in the OP are obviously relevant to the discussion. If indeed you actually do want a discussion at all.

Thank you for your typically ableist insult, but I am not ‘hard of thinking’. I am a fairly sensible, pretty normal, post menopausal woman with three very different dc, two with disabilities, one of which is also LGBT. I have also lived with lifelong disability myself - diagnosed late thanks to endemic misogyny within the medical professions - and have been through a rough time with the menopause. I don’t and have never claimed any benefits, nor have any of my dc. There is so much more to us than our disabilities. Disability is part of, but not all of our identities. If, however, we felt so overwhelmed by disability that it did become our overall identity or we felt safer and more supported with other people who are in the same position, so limited ourselves to their company and as tends to be the way, adopted similar fashion trends etc, no-one has the right to judge that.

I did not post to turn the thread into a ‘support group for chronically ill people’. Quite apart from anything else, the last place I would go for support is MN, let alone this board. I posted because the OP appeared to ask a question which I was interested in and have some experience of and others suggested the very real, diagnosed, genetic conditions my family suffer from are not real, but some sort of alternative lifestyle choice, favoured by grifters who are out to scam a free ride out of the tax payer. My family’s experience of presenting the way the OP mentioned is very relevant to the conversation, but I realise that isn’t actually what this thread is about, so I’m not going to waste any more of my time on it.

Why are you assuming they are adjacent? I am gender critical. I just think it is unacceptable to mock and minimise conditions that can be profoundly disabling.

Can I ask, out of genuine interest , do you think there's a connection between the disability and a preference to bright dyed hair that people are missing here?
Maybe (and I am hypothesising) disabled people might dye their hair to cheer themselves up, or add interest to a life that is quite limited, or perhaps because they end up making connections with other disabled people and that becomes part of their community? Or perhaps because when it's hard due to health to hold down a conventional job it frees you up to look more alternative? I think a mix of all of these perhaps apply to my cousin
Anyway, I love seeing people with bright coloured hair and clothes and sticks. It cheers up a sometimes grey and gloomy world.
I fill my house with flowers and pictures s because I spend a lot of time here
I haven't even dyed my hair a natural colour yet, never mind a bright one. But I am tempted too just to annoy

Great post and yes I love seeing brightly coloured hair and can see the adding interest angle.
Why not?! Anything that brightens up a day is fine by me

There's a difference between normal modulations and having to change your activity level in a way that substantially curtails your life.

It's weird and grotesque to minimalise what that can be like

Can I ask, out of genuine interest , do you think there's a connection between the disability and a preference to bright dyed hair that people are missing here?
Maybe (and I am hypothesising) disabled people might dye their hair to cheer themselves up, or add interest to a life that is quite limited, or perhaps because they end up making connections with other disabled people and that becomes part of their community? Or perhaps because when it's hard due to health to hold down a conventional job it frees you up to look more alternative? I think a mix of all of these perhaps apply to my cousin.

Anyway, I love seeing people with bright coloured hair and clothes and sticks. It cheers up a sometimes grey and gloomy world.

I fill my house with flowers and pictures s because I spend a lot of time here .

I haven't even dyed my hair a natural colour yet, never mind a bright one. But I am tempted too just to annoy the bigots

You do realise we're not all the same, right?!
We don't all experience it the same!
You sailed through enough it to not be too badly affected by it
Yay, go you. Do you want a medal?! 🙄 For doing it so much better than others.

Many people need to modulate their activity throughout the day - in response to various conditions, ailments and so on. It is perfectly normal. We all have our own patterns and physical responses, limits etc.