I’m just curious about this. As someone with a chronic illness, I pretty much never hear anyone talk about things related to the sorts of difficulties and discrimination I and others might face within society. I’m not aware of companies or governments doing anything special to bring awareness on the same scale of say, pride month for instance. In fact certain aspects of accessibility were only normalized during the pandemic when healthy people needed them and now they’re being gradually rescinded now that they don’t. It’s annoying for those who’ve come to prefer those accommodations. It’s cruel for those who rely on them.
And just to be clear, I’m not suggesting this is an either or sort of thing. I’m just wondering why it’s not a that and this sort of thing. It’s possible I’m not considering the whole picture here, and I don’t mean for this to be controversial.
LGBT and chronically ill checking in. So, the biggest reason (in the US) is because the chronically ill haven’t had their civil rights movement. I think a lot of history books gloss over just how many riots there were pre 2000s to gain basic human rights. Pride parades are not just a big party - they’re a commemoration of the stonewall riots. Protests were held annually for years, and cities began sponsoring the marches so they’d become peaceful protests. Now we have parades. It was a constant uphill battle with people fighting against their very existence being illegal. For being jailed, tortured, or murdered for showing their sexuality. For being blamed because someone who’s repressed or in the closet considers someone who’s out to be “temptation”.
LGBT rights are much closer to black and womens rights than they are to chronic illnesses. We don’t see people being jailed for needing a wheelchair, or murdered for having an auto immune disease. If you can get a large number of people to riot for the right to work from home, you might get results. Until then we’ll have to wait until things change through the legal system.
It’s hard to have your movement when you’re disabled. I think we chronically ill will need allies more than other groups have.
That all makes a lot of sense, but I would point out that people with disabilities and illness have been murdered for their conditions even in our recent past. It was actually a story about a German politician wanting to remove kids with disabilities from schools which got me thinking about this. It feels like we’re one or two bad ideas away from persecution of the sick and disabled becoming a very present concern again.
And personally speaking, it is true what you say that I’m not jailed for my condition, but as far societies willingness to extend accommodations to make life more livable for myself and others like me, it’s as if I’ve been largely under house arrest for over a decade. The isolation and anxiety that people experienced for a brief period during the pandemic has been my everyday life for years and years.