Speech by Queerhandicap e.V. on the assosiation’s presentation
Speech on the experiences of a queer disabled person
Speech by the FAU Heidelberg on exploitation in workshops for the disabled
Speech by the Red Help Heidelberg/ Mannheim on ableist police violence
Speech by Luisa l’Audace on the ableist murders in Potsdam
Speech by Akut + C/IL on a feminist perspective of disability
Speech by Queerhandicap e.V. on the assosiation’s presentation
Hello,
I am in a wheelchair due to a muscle disease and I am gay. I am pleased to be able to speak here both as an individual and as a board member of the nationwide association “queerhandicap registered society.”
People in wheelchairs are often denied their sexuality altogether. It was only in the queer scene that people started to be more thoughtful. But unfortunately I also had to experience exclusion in the queer scene. Offers for gay youth were not set up for people with disabilities. Many places in the scene in Heidelberg and Mannheim are not accessible without barriers. I have also experienced people whispering behind my back about what I wanted in the queer scene.
It was only at the association “queerhandicap” that I got to know people who feel the same way I do. “queerhandicap” wants to contribute to people with visible and invisible disabilities, impairments and chronic illnesses being able to openly express their sexual orientation and gender identity in all areas of their lives without discrimination. The association gives them their own voice.
Only those who have a visible or invisible disability, impairment or chronic illness have the right to vote.
queerhandicap makes visible, audible, tangible and courageous!
The association offers a digital café once a month and a face-to-face meeting at least once a year. Soon there will also be a meeting in the Rhine-Neckar area by and for people with disabilities, impairments and chronic illnesses in cooperation with the Queer Centre Mannheim. “queerhandicap” seeks cooperation with all groups, associations, initiatives, projects and individuals who share its concerns. There are good contacts to a number of nationwide associations and initiatives. The association has joined some of them as a member.
I would like to call on all people, especially all queer people with visible and invisible disabilities, impairments, chronic illnesses to support us in our cause. Let us join forces. Let us raise our voices together. Let’s fight together for an inclusive and barrier-free society. And for an accessible Queer Centre Heidelberg.
Thank you
Speech on the experiences of a queer disabled person
I am speaking here today as an individual from a queer and disabled, white and academic perspective. Queerness has been an important part of my life for many years, disability was invisible to myself for a long time and I became formally severely disabled only last year. The places I encountered community differed: queers I met at parties, the CSD, on dates, and on social media. My peer encounters with disabled people took place primarily in therapeutic and educational settings, in clinics, hospitals, and waiting rooms. All the better that I can be here today, speaking and meeting new people.
“Out of the closet, into the streets” is a motto that can definitely apply to both movements.
Both communities share many experiences, starting with being denied equality, insulted, antagonized and marginalized. We share some difficulties, although for partly different reasons: some of us have problems with public toilets or changing rooms, others have more difficult conditions when looking for housing and jobs, we are often the only “non-normals” (from the point of view of the dominant society) in our families of origin. We search in vain for good representations in movies and books, live according to different schedules. We know the feeling of being invisible or looked at, sometimes spat at, and increasingly, being victims of violence.
Both movements took words with which they were insulted to self-identify, as an expression of their identity and pride. Queer, also translatable as different or perverted, is no longer even palpable to my generation as a swear word. Crip is a word that is only hesitantly establishing itself, especially in the German-speaking world, as a word for their own identity; at the same time, however, it is only a comeback in a new guise; the crip movement is already half a century old. Both queer and crip also exist as a verb. To queer or crip something can mean to turn it on its head, to ask what notions of normality are inherent in something, what bodies and abilities are assumed, and how capitalism and patriarchy shape our notions of an able, reproductive body. From these perspectives, we can ask, for example:
Why should it be normal to work 40 hours plus a week?
Is the nuclear family really the nucleus of society?
In times of global crises, do we want to continue to see ourselves as independent, sovereign individuals capable of acting alone?
Should a person’s value really be measured by his or her performance?
For whom is the idea of only two sexes desiring each other a benefit?
Am I the problem or is it society?
Let’s work together for a more accessible world for ALL and learn from the worlds of the different movements. Let’s listen to each other, watch and turn to each other emphatically, with solidarity in our struggles also for a more inclusive Heidelberg. We have acquired an incredible amount of knowledge as minorities in this society. We understand so much from our perspective and we often know what it would take. We have gained experience in families of choice, in relationships of assistance, in therapy, hospitals and at public offices, in surviving and rising again in a society that is not yet inclusive. We need spaces in this city that are safe and accessible. In this sense, I hope for common encounters in a barrier-free, queer center in Heidelberg.
I would like to end with a quote from queer, disabled artist Johanna Hedva: “You don’t need to be fixed, my queens-it’s the world that needs the fixing. I offer this as a call to arms and a testimony of recognition.”
Speech by the FAU Heidelberg on exploitation in workshops for the disabled
Hello all
I am here for the FAU Heidelberg. The FAU is an independent trade union where all wage dependent people can join and participate, no matter what their working situation is. We are organised without bosses and all people work mainly on the things they feel like doing and help each other through difficult situations. Decisions are made collectively, and only if everyone agrees.
A union is about fighting for better working conditions and getting support and backing in labour disputes.
Today we are talking about the workplace where most disabled people work in Germany. Namely a workshop for people with disabilities.
These often belong together with residential, care and leisure facilities, in large complexes, completely separated from the rest of society. Here, work that is not too different in quality from the work of non-disabled people is cynically described as “voluntary occupation”. Work is done there, such as screwing pens together, topping pizzas, or other manufacturing and packaging processes, which are also usually very monotonous. The people there work up to 8 hours a day, without adequate pay, in fact with 2 euros an hour far below minimum wage, without any perspective of ever being allowed to do another job, because they are preferably exploited as cheap labour. They are even legally deprived of the right to unionise because they do not have a regular employment relationship.
Depending on the individual case, this is sometimes worse sometimes less bad, but above all it is neither self-determined nor inclusive.
At the same time, we are fighting for a New Concept of Work and a reality without wage dependency and performance coercion, where disabled people should no longer be made useful to the labour market by being exploited in such workshops. A society where the needs of all are equal and work actually means producing something because it is needed, or simply for pleasure rather than for productivity and profit.
Speech by the Red Help Heidelberg/ Mannheim on ableist police violence
Trigger warning: violence, ableism, murder
Dear comrades, dear friends,
I am happy that we, the Red Help Heidelberg/Mannheim, are allowed to speak here today. As a solidarity organisation, we support left activists who are affected by state repression because of their political commitment. And time and again we receive reports ranging from ableist police behaviour to brutal use of force.
Here is an example. Corax, a disabled climate activist, had to experience a climax of contempt for humanity by the forces on 19 September last year during the blockade of the Jänschwalde coal-fired power plant in Brandenburg. Corax is dependent on an electric wheelchair, a ventilator and a trained assistant around the clock. At his request, his wheelchair was attached to the train track with a bicycle lock during the action to reinforce the blockade. This was also to prevent potentially inexperienced police officers from trying their hand at clearing and endangering Coraxʼ health through ill-considered rash actions instead of waiting for the clearance professionals of the technical unit. But that is exactly what happened, and when the cops later dragged Corax away in his wheelchair over the bumpy track bed, he was extremely shaken up. The police forces ignored the fact that he was in a lot of pain.
At the station, Corax was separated from his assistants, although they were the only ones familiar with his ventilator. The climate activist was held in custody for hours and taunted with ableist comments. Among other things, the officers asked him why he needed an assistant to go to the toilet, how he peed and whether he could do it in the interrogation room.
This contempt for human life was only surpassed by the deliberate endangerment of his life: although the charge level of his e-wheelchair and his ventilator was steadily decreasing and there was no competent assistance on site, the police did not release Corax. Instead, on the advice of the medical officer, he was briefly taken to hospital in unsuitable transport vehicles and back to the station without medical escort, and only released after many hours.
This ableist and inhuman behaviour is unfortunately not an exception. Again and again, disabled activists experience brutal police violence, for example when blockades are cleared. Here, the officers use brutal force against disabled participants, sometimes deliberately and systematically, sometimes negligently, and inflict massive pain on them. The same applies when the police attack left-wing demonstrations. For example, at the Ende Gelände climate protests last summer in Hamburg, the police used pepper spray, which is life-threatening especially for activists who are dependent on artificial respiration. In addition, there was massive use of batons, which demonstrators in wheelchairs are far less able to avoid than other participants. The same applies to the use of water cannons. In all these cases, it is up to us as a left movement and fellow demonstrators in solidarity to think about these situations in advance, to develop inclusive action models, to enable participation without barriers and not to leave our disabled comrades and comrades-in-arms alone in case of attacks by the police.
The ableist state repression also continues in other forms: activists regularly report ableist behaviour, for example at court hearings. This starts with the lack of accessibility of court buildings and extends to discriminatory reporting in the press. Climbing activist and journalist Cécile Lecomte, who is in a wheelchair because of her rheumatism, reported on her recent experience at a trial at the Ahaus district court on 17 April. A non-barrier-free hall had been set for the trial. When she later requested breaks in the proceedings to lie down for a short while because of increasing exhaustion, the court reacted gruffly. Unspeakable were the ableist comments about this in the local press, openly questioning her need for breaks due to her chronic illness.
Finally, I would like to raise another point that does not concern political activists, but everyday police violence. In recent years, there have been more and more fatal police interventions, and they have not only been directed against migrant-read people – racist police violence is another issue. Many of those killed by the police in recent years were people with mental or psychological disabilities or in extraordinary mental situations. Often, by the way, they are additionally affected by racism. Some cases occur in institutions, such as the shooting of 16-year-old Mouhamed Dramé in Dortmund in August 2022 or a Black man who was so brutally abused by Berlin police in a sheltered housing facility on 14 September 2022 that he died of the consequences three weeks later.
Other cases happen on the street, such as in Mannheim in May 2022: Tuesday was the anniversary of the murderous operation against A. P., after a doctor from the Central Institute for Mental Health had asked for police support in dealing with the man. A. P. was abused and killed in public by officers on the market square in Mannheim, and to this day there is neither an explanation nor consequences.
This is only one case of many in which people with mental and psychological disabilities not only do not receive help and support from the police, but experience brutal violence, often with fatal results.
We demand an end to ableist police violence – be it against left activists, or in everyday life!
Speech by Luisa l’Audace on the ableist murders in Potsdam
Trigger warning: murder, violence, ableism
What do you think of when you hear the word “Potsdam”? Until April 28, 2021, it was simply the name of a city. But since that day, it has also been synonymous with a horrific act that has only made us painfully aware once again that Ableism kills.
On the evening of April 28, 2021, the nurse Ines R. attacked five disabled residents of the Oberlinhaus in Potsdam with a knife and murdered four of them. She had also previously tried to deliberately suffocate or poison residents. Ines R. had already expressed fantasies of violence against disabled people more than ten years earlier. She had the terrible idea of massacring her patients, she told a psychoanalyst.
Ines R. also has a disabled son. She had also imagined murdering him. How could these so explicit violent fantasies not be taken seriously? How could she still casually walk through an institution more than ten years later and put exactly those fantasies into action?
But even after this act, there was no outcry from society as a whole. On the contrary: suddenly there was talk of “redemption” and a nursing crisis. And we still ask ourselves two years later: “What still has to happen? How obvious does the violence against us still have to become before we finally draw our conclusions and change this system?” A system where disabled people experience violence every day and can’t feel safe. I want every single person to know what we mean when we talk about “Potsdam.” Ableism kills and will continue to do so until we understand, name and actively fight it as the cause of these violent acts.
In memory of:
Lucille H.
Andreas K.
Martina W.
Christian S.
Speech by Akut + C/IL on a feminist perspective of disability
Dear people,
We are from Akut+C, the Interventionist Left, and we are here today to break down the ableist barriers in our society together with you. As feminists, we want to talk about the multiple discrimination of disabled and neurodiverse people. But we also need to talk about addressing ableism more intentionally in feminism. Otherwise there is no justice for all.
Although it affects all areas of life, one’s body, one’s psyche and determines our behaviour, we talk too little about it. The underlying value system of what a person should look like is so deeply embedded in us that we see sexist and ableist conditions as normality.
But we need to understand how capitalist ideas determine our societies. For both age, physical condition, health and gender are becoming more and more significant and determine the distribution of resources. Therefore, we want to question the reproduction of these values and barriers.
When we talk about people with “special needs” it should become clear after a short while that we are talking about the basic needs of every human being! Like access to a roof, to work, to education, to privacy, to hygiene, to care, to sex. But to even make decisions about this or to be independent is systematically made more difficult for women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, transgender, agender persons with and without disabilities.
We would like to give some examples.
As a disabled and neurodiverse person, one is not taken seriously in everyday life, at school, in the administration or in the workplace and is pushed to the fringes of society.
The attributed gender also plays a role in this.
FLINTA* has the main social responsibility. They are the ones who are primarily supposed to take care of the emotional and physical health of others. If they then pursue a salaried occupation on top of all this work, they are also paid less. Many FLINTA* with disabilities often also experience desexualisation. This means that they are not perceived as a person with gender. They are deprived of their sexuality and autonomy to decide about their gender. What is particularly severe is that women with learning disabilities who live in institutions are more often sterilised, even if they have little or no sexual contact. It is unclear whether the women always know that they cannot have children as a result of contraceptive practices. However, it is very clear to many of them that their parents do not want them to have children. Nearly half of all sterilised women in facilities reported in a study evaluation that the doctor or caregiver had told them to get sterilised. As a result of these statements, “informed and voluntary consent” may be doubted in many cases.
FLInTA often experience violence that manifests itself in different forms. This includes verbal abuse as well as physical and sexualised violence. Many people with disabilities experience sexualised violence in their childhood and youth. Discrimination and violence in institutions for people with disabilities are also part of everyday life for many people with disabilities. The organisational structures in the institutions and in our society promote and encourage this violence.
Medicine has also taught us that divergent bodies, unhealthy bodies, need to be healed. One example is prenatal diagnostics, i.e. prenatal examinations of the embryo or foetus. Prenatal examinations are not aimed at recognising and treating diseases. Instead, the main aim is to detect or exclude disabilities in the foetus. This is where the problems begin: Because decisions about prenatal diagnostics are extremely individualised. In this case, the only alternative to carrying the pregnancy to term is an abortion due to the disability. Expecting parents are supposed to decide “freely” and “self-determined”, but can actually only do it wrong: If they decide to terminate the pregnancy because of a prenatally diagnosed disability, they are considered disability-hostile. If they decide against using prenatal diagnostics or knowingly decide to give birth to a child with a disability, they have to justify themselves all the time and are left alone by society.
In society and especially in the health system, there is still an erroneous image of disability. Disability is equated with illness and many people associate a life with disability with suffering and unhappiness. Those who do not achieve anything do not have the right to live – this is a capitalist slogan and we do not want to bow to it!
We also have to fight against rejectionism in spaces that actually stand up for diversity!
This is because feminist discourses often still contain prejudices against people with disabilities. Only in an intersectional feminist society, pregnant people can make free self-determined decisions AGAINST the use of prenatal diagnostics and FOR the birth of a child with disabilities.
The idea that people with disabilities suffer is perpetuated by a lack of or poor representation of disabled people in the media. Instead of looking for the fault in the environment, it is attributed to the disabled person. What is missing from these stories is systemic criticism. We want and need to create a movement that rebels against this. That means knowing terms like Ableism. This will make it easier for us to understand the system behind it and make it visible.
Among other things, we demand
Combining the concepts of reproductive self-determination and anti-ableism.
Checking our privileges and reflecting on our own ableism.
Advocating for an antiableist society in which relations of care are non-hierarchical and equitably distributed.
A queer barrier-free centre in Heidelberg!
Speech on the social reality of a disabled person
I have never been an activist because I grew up in a world that always made me feel grateful and quiet. But above all, I have not actively stood up for my rights out of fear. Out of fear of not being heard, not being taken seriously, and thus “stepping on the toes” of non-disabled people and risking that those I have to count on will no longer support me.
When the Corona crisis started, I had the hope that non-disabled people would finally understand what it is like not to be able to participate in society, because now everyone had to follow certain rules and they could no longer leave the house on a whim, go out partying, or in some cases do their job normally. But unfortunately I had to realize that it was not like that. When I talked to my fellow students about the changed lecture situation, they asked me “How do you cope with just sitting at home?” and I answered without thinking too much about it, that not much has changed for me in my everyday life, except that I can’t go to university anymore. I was stared at questioningly and an uncomfortable silence fell instantly. I think that’s when my fellow students realized that just because we learned in our studies of social pedagogy what inclusion and equality meant for people with disabilities, it doesen’t mean these concepts have arrived in our society. Far from it. That was the first spark that was ignited in me and the desire to change something became for the first time greater than my fear.
Since that day, I speak out about what bothers me and about barriers I see, whether these are fixed in people’s minds or real barriers in everyday life. Of course, I am aware that by doing so I awaken unpleasant feelings in people that are outside of my life reality and the reactions to this are predictable: justification for their ableist[1] actions and the urge to deflect. The conversation is then relatively quickly steered in another direction or an unpleasant pause occurs, because non-disabled people, have no idea how to react. And nevertheless I hope each time that I at least stimulated in one or two persons the impulse to think differently.
That’s what I wish for my future and for the future of all concerned. That we no longer have to fight for the things we are entitled to, that we are no longer reduced to our disability and judged by how efficient we could be, that people finally understand that disability is multifaceted and does not always mean “suffering” for those affected. That our value is recognized.
Footnotes
[1] Ableism describes discrimination against people with disabilities by measuring people against certain abilities – walking, seeing, interacting socially – and reducing them to their impairment. Ableism emphasizes the unequal treatment, boundary violations, and stereotypical attributions people experience because of their disability. There is a normative notion of what people must be able to do or be capable of. Those who deviate from this norm are labeled as disabled and perceived as inferior. Source
