la_vie_noire | (no subject)

This can be extremely triggering and I'm sure will be painful to read, but cis able-bodied people have to do it. Read it.

is a dream a lie if it don’t come true / or is it something worse

A little while ago, Melissa was crossing the street in front of her apartment with her roommate, bringing home groceries late at night from the store right across the way. They were struck by a car in the crosswalk in what appears to have been an innocent, freak accident. Melissa’s roommate was killed instantly. She, because there was an ambulance less than a block away at the time, made it to the hospital with a shattered leg, head injuries, and Gods know what else, comatose.

I didn’t know, when I heard Melissa’s roommate was killed on the morning news, because the news said she’d been with a man, and my first thought was oh, God, is Melissa okay, does she know what happened, she must be so worried. I left a couple of voice messages, but couldn’t get through, and it was only once I saw a report with Melissa’s old name on it that it hit me: there was not a man hit in that accident. She was comatose, with friends there, and family on the way. The prognosis was very, very bad, like “we don’t think she’ll make it till morning” bad.

She made it till morning. And the next night. And the next. We all started passing around updates of how she was doing and taking time to mourn the schoolmate who hadn’t made it. Family arrived, connected with each other, and everyone took a few deep breaths. Melissa started improving, against expectations–eyes opening, snapping fingers when asked, responding in small ways to the people present though she was semiconscious at best and could not move. They made plans to fix her leg and skull and there was talk of moving her to a specialist facility closer to home, one with real support for people recovering from comas, and against all odds she was fighting. It should have been no surprise: she was always a fighter. She was going to be okay.

[...]

They had ultimate power over her–her body, her brain, everything. She was disabled, and couldn’t speak for herself, and couldn’t express her own preferences, and they were next of kin, and they knew best, and the authority for medical decisions was in their hands. They loved her more than anyone, and had her best interests in mind, and were just looking to her recovery, just listening to the doctors.

And if she woke up as from a deep sleep, she’d wake up into a world where her best friend was dead, where her body had been forcibly edited back to its pre-transition state and given a few more years of the influence of testosterone to boot, where her memory and self were hazy and confusing and nobody was calling her by the right name and pronouns, they were in fact pretending four years of her life, the four years she finally got to be honest and true to herself, those had never happened, and shh, she’s just confused, shhhh, calm down, let’s work on fixing your memory some more.

If she was–as many people deemed unconscious, or low-functioning, or unaware by medical professionals, as many many people with disabilities who can’t communicate the “right way” are–aware in any way of what was going on, laying there helpless and voiceless while her body and life and mind were edited and mutilated by loving people, wise professional people in complete control…I actually can’t finish that sentence, because I am shuddering too hard, because I have a hard time imagining a real scenario closer to Hell.

This is not an unusual scenario. It happens all the time, and in worse, far worse, forms. This is still practically standard in the history of how people with disabilities are get violated, and the intersection with trans status only magnifies it. If I got into a car accident tomorrow and fell into a coma, it could happen to me–I can’t marry legally, and my parents who are not part of my life could walk into the hospital and have my partner removed and do pretty much whatever they please with me, a possibility that gives me dry-heaving panic attacks.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

omg that's horrifying. this sounds counter, but thanks for linking.

Those of us with childhood issues and parents we don't quite trust (no matter the state of our current relationship) have had to think about this for a long time. I admit though, that since my ex I haven't drawn up another medical power of attorney.

Mostly because I felt as if I didn't have anyone to put in that spot.

But I have my Dad now. And I guess I can ask the friends I'm currently closest with what they'd be willing to bear.

But I can still remember how frantic I was to get it done in 2000.

The saddest thing though? Is that depending on where you are, it might not make a lick of difference. Like that poor mother who died in Miami separated from her partner and children because apparently 'they weren't real kin' according to Miami's anti-gay laws; power of attorney be damned.

Substitutes for law are still only substitutes.

Yeah, you are very right. The saddest thing is that even if you are cis and straight, if you are a disabled adult who are abused by their parents or whoever "takes care of you," chances are that law will favor them and not you.

Oh my fucking god.

Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my GOD.

I am filled with so much horror right now. I can't stop shaking.