Girls Using Walking Sticks

For me, the big difference is how difficult it can be to get diagnosed as disabled and how skeptical even many doctors are about disability, esp for girls and women. E.g., I have Tourette's. I did not seek this diagnosis: a doctor noticed my tics and referred me to a specialist, who happened to be one of the leading Tourette's doctors. I haven't gained anything from the diagnosis since I was already collecting disability. But I've had other docs, including neurologists, assume I was faking. One neurologist even repeatedly yelled at me to stop ticcing, as if I was doing it to annoy him. I've known many other women who struggled to get a diagnosis for their medical problems. So I am very wary of those who question disabilities. It makes it more difficult for everyone with an invisible disability bc it adds to the narrative that people, esp women who we all know are hysterical attention seekers, are faking their disability and that the general public can know who is and is not disabled.

I think some people malinger. They need a different kind of help. But I've known many more people who are afraid to use a mobility aid when it would help them. (I don't care if they are fully disabled, if a walking stick makes walking or standing safer or more comfortable, I hope people will use them.) I think when more people use mobility aids, they become more accepted so are more likely to be used by those who need them.

I think you're absolutely right about invisible disabilities.

I am also concerned about the issue of people who fake illnesses making themselves sick in the process.

Given what we know about the demographics of the girls who are enthralled with gender ID, their wide ranging vulnerabilities, an uptick in them using sticks is concerning.

Maybe they genuinely need them and always have and the uptick is a growth in confidence. If so great. But maybe that uptick is a result of an increase in underlying cause, which needs looking into.

Or maybe they don't need the sticks and are identifying into disability. If this is the issue, then as you say, it's a mental health concern. Given the extreme lengths this group has already demonstrated that they will go to, it worries me where this might lead.

You’re talking about people with a very serious mental health issue, which is also a protected disability in its own right. These people need help - not judgement.

Because we're having a conversation/discussion and you have mentioned that you have a health condition. I tend to be interested in lots of things, especially if we're talking about them.

Can I ask why you are interested @Shortshriftandlethal ?

I have had it since my late teens. No, no trigger, but there are a lot of auto -.immune conditions in my family which would indicate a genetic link.

An auto-immune condition.

Out of interest was it triggered by anything in particular.....by covid or similar, for example? Have you always lived with it?

But your children's biological mum I assume had Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Which is also an illness, so whilst they are a very small amount of people faking illnesses or using mobility aids - that makes them ill. If someone is really going to lengths to do so (they often make themselves actually sick in the process). I'm not saying I support faking an illness (I don't) but many PPs in this thread have engaged in ideas of what disabled people look like and thus believe that many young women are faking illnesses or using mobility aids when they don't need them. When in reality some if those posts failed to acknowledge invisible disabilities and thus they think they're protecting the 'real' disabled people. When many of those people are likely disabled.

Also I wasn't just addressing your comments but also the comments of many across the thread which were along similar lines - so I just wanted to address them in one post.

Diagnostic rates of severe ADHD, as Kendra had, are actually quite stable. But those with severe ADHD are now vastly outnumbered by those with mild ADHD. As with autism, there have been staggering increases in the number of people diagnosed with ADHD in the last 30 years, but that growth is almost all at the milder end of the spectrum.
...
But ADHD is slowly being incorporated into the identities of many young people. Some support groups discourage the attempt to overcome ADHD traits. People are told to unmask and to share their ADHD selves with others. But learning to control our moods, behaviour and impulses is part of growing up, whether one has ADHD or not. We all become more socially competent, gain focus and are better able to cope through practice. Encouraging young people to do otherwise may be well-intentioned but potentially sets them up for non-recovery. The rise in subtler ADHD presentations in adults may also undermine a young person’s expectation that their difficulties will disappear in time. A growing population of adults have incorporated ADHD into their self-concept. When a medical problem is part of a person’s identity, it becomes inescapable.

I think that's very suggestive, especially when it comes to a subset of young people who have (a) a certain personal identity forged in online circles and (b) multiple comorbid conditions which are often not formally diagnosed.

It's not that difficult to encounter the Extremely Online Girl who, after giving you her pronouns, rattles off a list of up to a dozen conditions she says she has, from autism to lactose intolerance.

I'm not trying to do that. But I am entitled to call out anyone who claims you can look at someone and "know" whether or not they are disabled. Because I am absolutely entitled to educate people about invisible disability and how it presents and about my disability in particular

Myasthenia Gravis. Yes. Diagnosed by a neurologist and by antibody tests and SFEMG (not that it is anyone's business but mine and my neurologists)

From the Guardian a few months ago.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/01/the-number-of-people-with-chronic-conditions-is-soaring-are-we-less-healthy-than-we-used-to-be-or-overdiagnosing-illness

Do you have a formal diagnosis? If so, what is it?

Well you kind of do have to accept it in a way
mine are all invisible, so it’s either accept it or ask me to produce medical paperwork

a lot of women with endometriosis use mobility aids too which affects younger women

In fact I would say our argument is far more analogous with the argument that biological sex just "is", it's not how we present to the world, it's how we actually are that determines whether or not we are disabled.

That's not what we are saying.
We are saying you can't tell from looking at someone whether they are disabled.

My disability doesn't affect my appearance. It doesnt usually affect my gait or movement. There's no pain involved. Just if I do more than a small amount of activity I gradually lose the ability for my nerves to talk to my muscles and get weaker and weaker until I can't even speak or swallow or hold my head up. Most of those symptoms appear in the evening and I tend to feel at my best in the morning

Sorry....you post makes no coherent sense whatsoever. You do seem to have an issue, though, with people talking about the trend for walking sticks; its over-lap with 'queer' identities and with self diagnosed mental health conditions.

I'd have thought that people who were genuinely disabled would be pissed off at at other people appropriating disability. But now apparently if someone says they're disabled, we have to accept that they are disabled, in much the same way that if someone says they are the opposite sex, we have to accept that they are the opposite sex.

All very bizarre. To my mind when you get a large number of people claiming to be disabled when they're not, all that does is make things more difficult for people with genuine disabilities.

Also to all of you saying that your not mocking disabled people just those who pretend to be disabled. The whole point about those who have invisible and hidden disabilities is that you do not know if they aredisabled or not. So what qualifies you to decide. Thus you are playing into tropes that people fake disability and that x condition is not worthy of being a disability.

Also as many have mentioned its so hard to get diagnosed with POTS or MCAS because many doctors are not even trained in them. People spend years looking for a diagnoses especially women, when we know about the women's pain gap. So yes social media has helped, especially women get diagnosed because they've often been suffering for years (in those years you might think they were pretending to be sick or fishing for a diagnoses but newsflash to get diagnosed with something you actually have to have been suffering with it and disabled people are fishing for diagnoses before we get them because we want treatment none of us know that we have incurable conditions).

Social media has helped loads of people justhave the confidence to use mobility aids that they needed but dint because of fear of judgement and abelism. So yes I think it's a good thing that young people and women feel that they can use their mobility aids when needed. It's a good thing that social media is educating women especially on the fact that the medical misogyny and gaslighting they've faced is not okay and has normalisedpain and conditions for women. It's a good thing that it's eecuated women to know that what they've been facing for years isn't normal and help them to better advocate for themselves to doctors. In fact many OBGYNs do this on social medica because they care Dr Fran, Dr Arif etc and they have also educated their colleagues to know more about these conditions.

Also 16 million people in the UK (24% of the population are disabled - 26% are women and 22% men). Disabled people have always been pushed out and alienated and this sort of discourse just furthers that. Why is it a shock to see disabled people out perhaps using mobility aids? Maybe reflect on that, maybe consider how many places are inaccessible (and stop thinking about accessibilityas just a wheelchair ramp, there are so many different disabilities and so little places which are accessible). @Arran2024 Maybe you should have talked about the concerns then and whether or not it's a trend with Youngblood's fan base. Also having disabled children doesn't absolve you of abelism or mean you can't be ableist (that's like when people say to me I have a Black friend so I can't be racist). You're not flying the flag for disabled people by doing this and just focusing on those who you think are 'appropriating disability' because they're likely disabled and you don't know. Maybe challenge structural abelism, maybe challenge the medical misogyny that means women what longer for diagnoses, treatment, pain management etc.

I went down a TikTok rabbit hole last night on the back of this thread. I typed in POTS and autism and one particular returned result was fascinating. There was only a passing reference to POTS as it turned out, but it was a young FTM trans person who had facial hair they were obviously trying to cultivate into a beard and moustache, and recent top surgery which they were thrilled with.

But then, after the 'chest reveal' there was a video of them modelling all the clothes they said they 'could finally wear and look good in, now they've had their surgery' but the clothes were all stereotypically female. So they were twirling for the camera in strappy dresses and girl's crop tops etc with their beard and moustache and no more boobs. WTF is that about? They want to be socially accepted as a man but still go around in girl's clothes?

The same person did an awful lot of talking about their eating disorders and how they'd messed up their digestive system and now have GERD from years of induced vomiting. It was obvious from their videos that their weight was all over the place from obese to very thin, although that could have as much to do with the 'gender affirming' hormone therapy as any disordered eating, I believe.

Then they talked about how their FTM hormone treatment has messed with their health in other ways including exacerbating their GERD.

And then they talked about their MH and their numerous psychotic episodes.

There was a lot to unpack. No idea whether they used a stick to walk, mind.

It’s a shame, obviously only trans people and disability fakers would wear dungarees - burn them all now. And someone alert all the farmers!

Or absolutely ignore the judgemental arseholes who would look and assume someone’s medical history and disability status based purely on their outfit or (gasp) their hair colour. Bet you look cute AF in your dungers hen

This is upsetting to read. I work full time and claim PIP while having rheumatoid arthritis and sometimes wearing dungarees. Horrible to know I'm being judged for limping while wearing dungarees. They're easy for me to wear due to having no buttons or zips.
I have got a stick and a green lanyard for very difficult situations but I'm genuinely apprehensive about using them and it seems I'm right to be so.