Thread by @YemiteYowls, "this has a biological cause" does not in any way say "this [...]

"this has a biological cause" does not in any way say "this thing needs to be cured" or "this thing is inferior" or "this thing is bad"

it literally just says "this thing has a biological cause"

saying that adhd is often genetic & that it is connected to dopamine isn't saying that having adhd makes someone inferior, that they should be treated like shit, that we should be eradicated. it just means that those are two things we know about the likely biological cause.

saying that bipolar has a genetic component isnt demonizing people with bipolar, saying we should be criminalized, or anything like that. it just means that those of us who have a family history of bipolar are more likely to develop it ourselves.

i have crohn's disease. so did my paternal grandfather who died bc he refused to get treatment for it. i have it bc i have the hereditary trait & had a physiological trigger, likely excess ibuprofen in my case. that doesn't me i should be treated like shit for it (pun intended).

i use a wheelchair because i have ME/CFS & hEDS. ME/CFS is set off by an infectious disease of some kind though the exact cause is unknown. hEDS is genetic, sometimes inherited, sometimes a result of mutation.

i should absolutely be accommodated as a wheelchair user & all the other accommodations i need. but even in a world without ableism i would still consider myself disabled, what with the brain fog & my bones trying to leave my body & struggling to eat & many other symptoms.

not all of my symptoms can be accommodated enough that they'll no longer be a problem for me. i will still have limitations even with every amount of accommodation possible. treatment to alleviate symptoms is often just as critical as accommodation.

the biological roots of something aren't a statement on anything other than the biological roots of it. bipolar, adhd, heds, etc, would exist with or without the diagnosis, but having the diagnosis makes treatment far more possible. it can also lead to more effective treatment.

take things like bipolar & adhd that are influenced by chemicals in the brain & how different people's brains process those chemicals. creating effective medication requires understanding of how those things work with a particular condition.

better understanding of causes leads to better treatment (speaking ideally here, obviously it's far more complicated for that due to a large number of factors)

if you dismiss biological causes & accept only societal ones, how are you going to be able to develop needed treatment?

this is one of the reasons why i can't accept a strictly social model view of disability. build an ideal society, give me all the accommodations i could ask for with zero resistance & judgment, and my life as a disabled person will be infinitely better.

i'll still be disabled.

no one ive ever encountered who talks about disability from a strictly social model point of view has been able to account for that. asking about it is usually met with resistance, even hostility.

i get it. the medical system has failed again & again. the medical model is often used to justify awful treatment & too often views disability as something that's inherently wrong & needs to be fixed.

im not at all saying social model bad, medical model good. if i was forced to pick one to strictly adhere to in all things id pick social model, no question.

but why should i have to?

why is it so often presented as a strict division? why is it assumed all disability must follow one model? why is it assumed everyone with the same condition must see the condition strictly within the confines of a singular discrete model with no experiences falling outside that?

both models fail me in some way or another. both models account for only some of my experiences as a disabled person. restricting disabled people to one & only one acceptable model serves to silence people & erase any experiences outside of that.

to me this is similar to my experiences a queer person who can't fit in the accepted boxes. sometime id like to expand on the parallels there more, but i don't have the brain power right now. just wanted to add that on since it's a big part of what prompted this thread.

the other big thing that prompted it was thinking yet again about how it's incredibly important for the hEDS gene to be isolated and how i want that to happen but also don't want that to lead to a cure in our current society due to the implications of curing a genetic condition…

…in a eugenicist world. but of course even just isolating the gene for something can also be used for eugenics via prenatal testing. but so can diagnosis of a genetic disorder in the first place. but also gene isolation would ease many barriers to dx & treatment.

point is i have a lot of thoughts around things like biological vs social causes of disability, the positives & negatives of various models, the benefits & dangers of research, etc.

they felt contradictory at first but the more i think about it the more i think it's not contradiction but rather just not having a sufficient framework at present. it was thinking about queer identities & experiences that made me realize that.

also: while im very open to talking about this im only comfortable talking about it with mutuals at present since my paranoia levels are high after earlier. this is nothing against anyone else, i just need to be cautious.

also: i intentionally left out any mention of autism

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