MN HQ Really needs to do something about disablist threads on here!

[PipinwasAuntieMabelsdog]

As a disabled person, this site makes me despair at times!

Can't park in parent and child spaces.

How is that ableist?

I'm destroying the environment because wipes and heating. See also idling car.

Wipes and idling cars do destroy the environment. What does that have to do with disabilities or ableism?

One now deleted thread where I was told just to be a bit less disabled and react like an NT person would.

Wait. I think I recognise you, and I think I know the thread. It was a mocking thread. Another poster said they had autism and that some are more affected than it by others. At no stage were you ever told to "be less disabled" or to "react like an NT person would". You are twisting what was said to you.

There are loads of disabilist threads with abelist posters on mumsnet. It is a foul place at times.

I've seen plenty. If a post on a thread turns the subject to an ablist slant it soon descends into nasty, spiteful replies, add in any benefits and it's off the scale.

Promptly deleting threads which are eported for being ableist would help. In a couple of cases recently MNHQ has sat on their hands for a while before deleting.

Reported not eported 🙄

Again, many people with autism (such as myself) display certain traits. That does not mean they are actually all being told that people with autism are arseholes or behave a certain way. Bringing up that a person may be showing traits of autism is in no way ableist.

Promptly deleting threads which are eported for being ableist would help. In a couple of cases recently MNHQ has sat on their hands for a while before deleting.

Maybe there needs to be a drop down for the reason we're reporting (like Facebook) then they can prioritise certain types of report

Agreed. People very often think I'm an arsehole - currently having trouble with my letting agent who don't seem to have heard of the concept of "24 hours notice", and clearly think I'm an arsehole for not letting in random workmen who turn up with no notice.

So, my autism is making me an arsehole, because I can't cope with unexpected workmen, and thus politely insist on my legal rights. It does happen, and I'm not going to apologise for it. I'm an autistic arsehole, and this is how I cope.

One of the points made by the sensible posters on the deleted thread was that it absolutely is not the responsibility of this site's users to educate posters who are disablist.
@JennyNotFromTheBlock you missed a doozy yesterday. A disablist cunt starting a thread about how every other kid these days is labelled autistic to get them excused from bad behaviour.
Yes, it was deleted, and quickly, and quite rightly.
But to say you've never seen disablist threads on MN (implying people are making things up) is like me never having seen a crocodile so asserting that means crocodiles don't exist.

This is what I've seen too

Bringing up that a person may be showing traits of autism is in no way ableist.

It's not just "traits of autism" though; it's any old arseholery and rudeness that prompts "maybe they're autistic?"

Which pisses me off because autistic ≠ arsehole.

I see it this way. Not all arseholes are autistic, but some are. And some undiagnosed autistics have become arseholes because the world was so nasty to them, that that's genuinely how they learnt to behave.

As everything with humans, it's unfortunately complicated.

In a similar vein, I saw this morning, someone claim that blaming reactions on your hormones is devaluing women.

But the day before my period, I'm irrational, and cry at the drop of a hat. It's not a choice, and it's very hard to detect from inside my head, until the next day when I cringe at how I behaved. So if I'm not allowed to blame my hormones for that, what am I allowed to say caused it?

Actually there are many, many people who have concerns that autism is over/wrongly diagnosed, many of these people have ASD themselves. So I, as a person with ASD, see that as a fair topic for a thread, and genuinely don't see it as ableist. I feel quite concerned that even discussing the prospect, especially since a recent thread actually had examples of parents standing by while, in one case, a child smashed up shelves in a pharmacy, and the mother stood by and said 'they can't help it they are autistic', and watched and said nothing, did nothing, offered no help, no recompense, nothing, except proffer that as an excuse; well it is a fair point for a discussion and people like me who have ASD feel mothers like that make it harder for us. It was a salient point and the thread should have been left. It's certainly a topic of discussion in my ASD group I meet with in real life. It is not ableist. And we need to stop writing off everything as 'ableist' because the topics are too uncomfortable for reflection. People like myself, are suffering backlash as a consequence.

I'm destroying the environment because wipes and heating.

Can you link to the thread or tell us, word for word, what was actually said?

I mean, did someone actually say "You disabled people are destroying the environment" or something or that kind, or was it a general comment about "people overuse heating and it's bad for the environment" which you took personally because they didn't actually spell out "Yes, I Know That Some People Have Disabilities And Therefore Find It Harder To Have the Heating Low."

@JennyNotFromTheBlock leave that aside if you have a different view.

What about the buggy vs wheelchair threads? The disabled people in parent parking? The suggestions I'm destroying the environment because I have disabilities that make me cold? That make it difficult for me some days and I use personal and cleaning wipes?

This.

@JennyNotFromTheBlock I know we display certain traits. I'm one of us. I still don't like the immediate assumption many thread contributers make that any gittish behaviour shows possible autism.

The thread was deleted.

I was told - more than once - that I needed to consider the environment more and try harder.

The suggestion was that I set up a cloths station over my bath with an over bath drying rack and just use that. There was no need for me to be using wipes if I just tried harder.

Good point. This is why blindly lashing out and accusing even sensible and reasoned discussion as 'ableist' or 'sexist' or whatever when it ever so clearly isn't, (hence why my gut feeling on this lead me to ask the OP to define ableism and what they saw as ableist) renders the actual word meaningless. The word has been rendered meaningless on this site so much that common sense and logic and reasonable concerns, such as overdiagnosis, is now labelled ableist. The word has completely lost all meaning now, and it is people like myself and fellow people of disabilities that suffer because of the discussion (or "No Debate" around these topics).

Are there other forms of isms you enjoy minimising or just this one?

@JennyNotFromTheBlock nice minimising there.

Is it just the disabled you like to upset or does your purview extend to other -isms as well?

I haven't noticed. I'd hate to think I was doing anything disableist (I thought the term was ableist?) but accept I may well say things unmeaningly, or get accepted terms wrong, like the casual sexism we're now becoming more aware of.

I like MN because it can set these things straight and would prefer to see posters doing that than posts deleted.

Or are people being deliberately offensive?

I'm not the one doing the minimising here. Others such as yourself are.

It is ableist to tell a disabled person they can't park in parent spaces as it's a reasonable adjustment for someone with a disability to use the spaces if they need to and either the blue badge spaces are full or they don't have a blue badge.

Is that clear enough?