Guest Post Autistics Speaking Day Part 4

I'm a bit late to post these today, but they're important. I did not write them, as they clearly state. My friend Shaun did. They've been dealing with massive shit as a result of activisming while autistic and now you all get to read about it. If you are a person named here who behaved badly, well, if you wanted people to write warmly of you then you should have behaved accordingly. Content notes for sexual abuse, ableism, racism, antisemitism, a whole wide varieties of behaving badly.

As mentioned in the last post, every member of Seattle Disability Commission leadership (including every appointed person of color) penned a letter outlining major concerns with racism, misogyny, ableism, misogynoir, retaliation, concerns for safety, and a lack of support from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR). We made several asks, one of which is that myself and Meg Bartosovsky would be placed in Council-appointed seats based on our advocacy record.


Advocates and activists aren't known for sitting around waiting on elected leaders, though: at our June meeting, Commissioners nominated and voted me into a Commission-appointed seat, restoring my status as Co-Chair in the process, albeit over the vocal objections of Commissioner Eric Scheir.


I want to pause and address the absence of Meg Bartosovsky from this part of the narrative. Part of the way that Commissioners have been individually stalked and harassed is through the use of Public Disclosure Requests, or PDRs, which we are subject to at public request like actual employees of the city. Unlike employees of the city, we are not paid for the dozens and dozens of hours we've spent on this, nor are we protected from harassment.


Felak demanded Meg Bartosovsky's texts from a time before she'd even applied to be on the Commission: she refused. Marta Idowu insisted that she must turn them over, going as far to go to the City Attorney's office and suggest that Bartsovsky was deleting public records. She conveyed in a public meeting that our texts were subject to PDR and was vague on whether our personal contact information, such as phone numbers and home addresses, would be as well (we asked for this statement in writing and months later have not received it). Meg was unwilling to continue working with a city department that had treated her as OCR had, and also had concerns about her safety should OCR disclose her address. Those concerns turned out to be prescient, as I discovered in October 2018 that OCR had provided Felak with at least my personal cell phone without my knowledge.


Back to Eric Scheir. Scheir is a Mayoral-appointment who has personally harassed and defamed myself and other members of the Commission since Marta Idowu first invited him to a Commission meeting in late 2017. Scheir has stated he is using the Commission as a stepping stone to run for public office, and his appointment seems at least somewhat political: despite not living or working in the city of Seattle, requirements to be appointed to a Commission, the Mayor has appointed him anyway.


Commissioners have noticed a pattern where wealthy white men (without cognitive disabilities) such as Scheir and Lewis get appointed despite not living or working in Seattle. By contrast, no people of color were even considered for the Commission in 2016 or 2017 (ChrisTiana ObeySumner was the only appointed POC at this time). DorianTaylor was finally appointed in Spring 2018--and even then, when Taylor moved almost outside the bounds of the city they were questioned as to whether they could even be on the Commission any longer.


Scheir's naked ambition seems to have driven a lot of his decisions--he signed the letter calling for my removal (and declaring our election invalid) in April 2018. He interpreted our July letter to City Council as being all about him (he's 5 lines of a 6-page letter), and exploded at the August Commission meeting, screaming at the top of his lungs at Co-Chair ObeySumner and physically intimidating them, as well as threatening to sue all of us who sent the letter for libel. He objected to even voting on my reappointment, holding the process up for an hour with his raging outburst.


Scheir seems adept at disrupting meetings: he managed to interrupt every vote at the next two meetings as well as to take issue with everything from the name of the Commission to my continued presence at the Commission. In September, he called for both of us to be removed and replaced as Co-Chairs. During the meeting, ObeySumner proposed sending out a doodle poll over the weekend to find the best date to have our yearly retreat, which would be a mediation. When they did not send it out over the weekend (waiting on OCR to give times the mediator(s) would be available), Scheir immediately sent out a letter of intent to remove ObeySumner for cause. His attacks on us, on ObeySumner's competency, his petulant, childlike insistences he should be able to run as Co-Chair right now have been regular and unceasing.


Scheir and the other members of Steve Lewis' former clique, as well as Felak, testified against my approval at the City Council's subcommittee meeting in September. You can view their comments starting 15:03; my comments start at 1:03:45. Aside from the fact most of their comments don't connect with reality (all of the documents referring to these individuals are public record and have been linked in these posts), they are hyperfocused on accusations of racism, and on attributing those comments to me. In his comment Eric Scheir says that I have called him white supremacist--but the only reference to "white supremacist" in our letter to OCR is the action of attributing the decisions of the Commission's people of color (ObeySumner and Taylor) to me, something which Scheir ironically does in his testimony, while claiming that these accusations are attacks on his "disability, religion, and sexual orientation."


We've had two recent mediations, during which Scheir aggressively misgendered a trans Commissioner over twenty times, repeatedly centered himself as a victim, and alluded to suing us all again. In the meantime, half of the individuals who signed that letter have quit and the rest of us are at our wit's end: it doesn't look like this level of harassment is ever going to abate.


A few things have changed. As per our request, Marta Idowu is no longer the Commission's support staff from OCR. After I discovered OCR has sent my number to my stalker, I discussed it with the Co-Chairs of all five civil rights Commissions, and OCR has a new policy to inform us first and give us 2 weeks to file a legal challenge before disclosing our information. And of course OCR is investing in these mediations themselves.


But participation in the Commission remains an environment of regular stress, refreshed by weekly waves of retaliation and harassment. Even with all I've written, there are things I don't feel safe talking about. And I know many people will simply see an array of white, wealthier, allistic, more acceptably disabled, older individuals commenting about how horrible I am and simply assume I must be the cause of the division. I don't know what the future holds for me, or if I will experience more professional retaliation when I've had to fight so hard to even have a job as an autistic person.


But I'm not ready to give up yet, nor to cede the world I live in to eugenicists and narcissists hungry for power for power's sake.

Autistics speaking day guest post part 3

I'm a bit late to post these today, but they're important. I did not write them, as they clearly state. My friend Shaun did. They've been dealing with massive shit as a result of activisming while autistic and now you all get to read about it. If you are a person named here who behaved badly, well, if you wanted people to write warmly of you then you should have behaved accordingly. Content notes for sexual abuse, ableism, racism, antisemitism, a whole wide varieties of behaving badly.

I've given an overview of some of the stalking and harassment I've experienced, from one person in particular. The waters go much deeper than that, though.

Steve Lewis is the Board Chair of the Alliance of People with disAbilities, the federally-funded Center for Independent Living (CIL) for King County. Is--he remains in this position despite his public racist and eugenic comments. What is particularly troubling is, during his whole eugenic tirade and removal from the Commission, I actually worked at the Alliance.

Knowing the position of power he had puts him screaming at me, or remarking that if I were a dog I'd be put down, into a whole new light. It certainly created an unsafe work environment, and directly put my job at risk once I denounced him publicly.

Not content to simply create an unsafe work environment, though, after his removal Lewis began circulating a letter, trying to get every current and past Commissioner to sign it calling for my removal, chiefly on the grounds of "cyberbullying" him (in a final act of chauvinism, Lewis is insistent that I, as a white masculine person, must have controlled the women and non-binary POC who signed the letter against him). This included one of my co-workers, who he used his position to corner and pressure, and my direct supervisor--he actually showed up at her home. To their credit, both of these individuals refused to sign his letter.

I'm not going to outline who did sign, because at least one person has refuted it in writing and claims his signature was used without his consent, and another person (who has a cognitive disability) claims to have been manipulated and coerced into signing, and for the most part I think these individuals' later actions speak for themselves.

Lewis' letter wasn't taken too seriously, particularly since he immediately escalated to City Council instead of trying to address his issues with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR). In the meantime, the Commission still had an atmosphere and culture of racism, misogyny, and ableism that many, many Commissioners had complained about in some combination. ChrisTiana ObeySumner and I, as the new co-Chairs, tried to address these issues, including having a 2-hour failed mediation with one individual over his remarks and behavior toward women and people of color.

Despite nearly a year of working with the Office of Civil Rights, and escalating some of the safety issues to City Council, nothing happened. Meanwhile, ObeySumner and I did our jobs as advocates--one of the issues that I highlighted in particular was the city's ableist plastic straw ban, instituted without any input from disabled people and over our continued objections (the ableism in the city's implementation could have its own article, but it's outside the scope of this narrative).

Then, in July, I was informed by OCR's liaison to the Commission, Marta Idowu, that the Mayor would not be reappointing me to the Commission. When I asked why, I was told it was because of my criticism of the city's straw ban and because I was "talking about lighting people on fire on the internet" (hilariously, the screenshots I was eventually sent were of someone in California complaining I used the word gaslight, which Idowu misinterpreted as a threat to light someone on fire).

Then, within 15 minutes, I was removed from the Commission's mail list, Facebook page, and website, as was Meg Bartosovsky, the other Commissioner-in-limbo. The connection between us was our posting of the straw ban on the Commission's Facebook page; removing us removed every Commissioner with Facebook access and immediately shut down the Commission's end of the dialogue in the critical first month of the city's ban.

I had a lot of questions about this. What were the reasons I was being removed, really (I would never be told)? Why did Steve Lewis get a month after spouting a racial slur in public, get a meeting and an opportunity to walk his comments back, and then get the courtesy of being told by the Mayor's office directly, while I wasn't even personally addressed or talked with. Could the Mayor's office hate mild criticism more than racism?

What made this retaliation even shittier was the fact that I've done a lot more than a typical Commissioner. I advocated for the first city ban of subminimum wage in the country, for which (and for my general commitment to addressing bias on the Commission) I was awarded as 2018 Advocate of the Year by Disability Rights Washington. The Mayor's office loves to take credit for this work--even though the Mayor didn't bother mentioning me or the Commission when she held a press conference on it--but not enough to keep around the disabled people who actually did the work.

I also Chair several committees and the Commission itself, successfully advocated against the expansion of involuntary sterilization, and organized an event amplifying disabled women of color. So given all that, why remove me? Why so fast? Why was Meg also removed?

The answer I got was that I wasn't removed, the Mayor merely declined to reappoint me. The Mayor's Boards and Commissions liaison, Evan Philip, claimed not to know why I wasn't being reappointed (and if he ever found out, he never bothered to tell me). But this raised its own questions:

If I was simply not being reappointed, why the fastest removal from everything in Commission history? Why not let me finish out my month and transition new leadership? Why not give the Commission a chance to put me in one of the Commission-appointed seats? In fact, the Commission had voted if the Mayor didn't want Meg Bartosovsky we would put her in a Commission-appointed seat; this action by OCR countermanded that (to my knowledge to date, Ms. Bartosovsky has never even been contacted to inform her she was removed from the Commission and why).

Fortunately, leadership of the Commission organized to keep me and Meg Bartosovsky involved. The leadership of the Commission was already writing a letter to Council about the lack of support from OCR; our sudden, undemocratic removal was folded into the issues we wanted to address with Councilmember Herbold, issues which were numerous and included concerns for our safety.

Autistics speaking day guest post part 2

I'm a bit late to post these today, but they're important. I did not write them, as they clearly state. My friend Shaun did. They've been dealing with massive shit as a result of activisming while autistic and now you all get to read about it. If you are a person named here who behaved badly, well, if you wanted people to write warmly of you then you should have behaved accordingly. Content notes for sexual abuse, ableism, racism, antisemitism, a whole wide varieties of behaving badly.

I think a lot of my friends wonder why I continue to bother with the Seattle Disability Commission considering what a hellish experience it's been. I bother because it's allowed me and others a platform to make some truly incredible change (and because I don't get to opt out of ableism anywhere). One of those changes was leading Seattle to become the first city government in the country to ban the payment of subminimum wages to disabled workers.

But this landmark came at a price.

To give a timeline, I presented to the Disability Commission from February-June 2017 about the issue. In June, we voted unanimously to advise the City to end the practice--based also on the unanimous community comment in support, and the lack of opposition from the individuals, families, and companies using legal subminimum wage programs in Seattle (one additional organization, the Northwest Center, declined to comment. They had several employees paid subminimum wage without authorization from the city, believing themselves to be exempt from city labor laws. It didn't go so well for them).

The city's Office of Labor Standards opened the rule up for public comment, ultimately issuing a rule change prohibiting new certificates in September 2017 (the two existing certificates expired December 31, 2017; CM Teresa Mosqueda would push through a law enshrining equal pay regardless of ability in April 2018).

My first unfortunate interaction with Cheryl Felak occurred in August of 2017. Felak is an abled parent of a developmentally disabled adult child; she is pro-institution (specifically affiliated with the Friends of Fircrest, one of Washington's 4 state-run large scale institutions), pro-segregation, pro-subminimum wage, and just about every other comically evil disability villain stereotype you can think of.

At the time, I was unaware of her history of harassment of staff of disability organizations, or her lack of appropriate boundaries with others, so I made the mistake of engaging her like a person and trying to answer her obvious confusion about the advocacy process or human rights in general. When she became abusive, I blocked her and moved on.

In the time since, she has made literally hundreds of blog posts and emails specifically slandering my name. She's contacted my employer multiple times and asked for my removal. She's contacted every city email she could find, and asked for my removal. She's contacted many others, advocates and friends, including my partner, to warn them what a terrible person I am. She has shown up in person at my job to demand my dismissal, as well as at meetings I attend (including the Commission). She's also taped me in private conversation without my knowledge or consent (illegal in WA state) and tried to physically prevent me from exiting the Commission room, probably hoping to entrap me into shoving past her to escape so she could claim to be attacked by the big bad autistic.

Her claims are really vague and move around a lot. The community (meaning paaarents) wasn't informed, she personally wasn't informed. That there is not a single Commissioner with an intellectual or developmental disability, that the Commission hasn't had a quorum since 2017 (both patently easy to disprove). That I've lied, that I've harassed and censored her (by blocking her from contacting me). There's a certain narcissism in seeing literally hundreds of disabled people oppose a practice but being certain you know more than all of them, but Felak's behavior goes well past narcissism and into something frightening. I consider the statistics around people like her who kill their disabled children and I realize people like her are a threat. At least one other disabled person, that I know of, has filed a police report when she threatened their well-being, and she has been banned from multiple online parenting spaces because of her inappropriate disregard for boundaries.

In June of 2018, I sent her a cease and desist letter. Her response was immediate, almost joyous: take legal action.

I did everything I was supposed to. I filed an anti-harassment suit wanting her to stop contacting me, approaching me, and coming to my place of work. Unfortunately, my case ended up before Judge Anne Harper.

In the middle of the proceedings, Felak produced her own bizarre anti-harassment order against me, demanding I keep away from her work and home (which I have never been to) and to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Unfortunately, Judge Harper denied me my due process rights and decided to hear both cases at once, without me even having a chance to read the accusations against me, yet alone have the required 2 weeks to process them.

The hearing turned into a 3-hour ordeal (5 hours total) where I had to explain and re-explain subminimum wage and employment policy, all while my community lawyer racked up fees. Felak also brought discredited white supremacist and eugenicist Steve Lewis, the Commission's former Co-Chair, to testify against me. Felak was actually allowed to read evidence off her phone, over my attorney's objections, without ever producing a paper record of her claims--Judge Harper claimed she wouldn't take into account anything that wasn't a paper record. Lewis was allowed to wax narcissistic about me engaging in "cyberbullying" to get him off the Commission by weaponizing his use of the n-word; Judge Harper allowed it as it "went to my character."

Ultimately, Judge Harper dismissed both cases by claiming that there was equal wrong on both sides--me, for censoring Felak on the Commission's Facebook page (I am neither that page's Admin nor do I work for the city; this is one of many in/actions by the Commission or City Felak attributes solely to me) and for failing to show Lewis respect by addressing him as "Dr. Lewis" (he didn't call me Commissioner Bickley or even Mr. Bickley; respecting Lewis' authority also has nothing to do with Felak's prolonged stalking).

Unfortunately, Judge Harper is unopposed for election next week. Run for public office if you have that privilege.

Harper did refer us to mediation over my disinterest, something Felak jumped on. I declined--there is no middle ground between "don't contact me" and "I want to contact you as much as I want," and I don't want to encourage her that disabled people's boundaries are negotiable anymore than she's been encouraged.

Felak continues to post about me regularly, encouraging others to contact my employer as she has. She's posted my personal phone number (something she acquired through a public records request I was not informed of; the city has not yet told me if they have given her my home address). Recently Felak learned I identify as non-binary (something I have never bothered communicating to her or correcting) and has made a series of bizarre posts calling me dogmatic and delusional for it.

I have some concerns about feeding the troll. Felak obviously loves the attention, and loves the sense of power harassment and stalking gives her over disabled people. But... Felak is a nurse at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. She is going to continue to interact with disabled people, including queer and non-binary people she finds "delusional." She is a guardian of a vulnerable adult. And she is going to continue to stalk and harass disabled people, including me. I know she will find this posting titillating, but I hope it can serve as a beacon to others in the future.

And besides, she has made every effort to violate my privacy, publish my contact details, and encourage others to harass me. Someone like that is due to have the mirror of truth shone in her direction.

Guest post for Autistics Speaking Day-Part 1

I'm a bit late to post these today, but they're important. I did not write them, as they clearly state. My friend Shaun did. They've been dealing with massive shit as a result of activisming while autistic and now you all get to read about it. If you are a person named here who behaved badly, well, if you wanted people to write warmly of you then you should have behaved accordingly. Content notes for sexual abuse, ableism, racism, antisemitism, a whole wide varieties of behaving badly.

My name is Shaun Bickley, I'm an Autistic disability justice activist in Seattle. One of the vehicles I've used to do my work here is the Seattle Disability Commission, a body of volunteers appointed largely by the Mayor and City Council to advise the city on disability issues. In my time on the Commission but especially the last 14 months I've been subjected to ableist harassment, retaliation, and stalking because of my advocacy.

Unfortunately we live in a society where the law protects some people without restricting them, and restricts others without protecting them. By and large I fall into the second group, at least where these people are concerned. It's unlikely that my situation will change, not unless I concede and retreat from public life entirely (and I hope that doesn't happen).

But I can tell my story. And that will have to be enough.

Over a year of incidents has given me new insight into how people are worn down and simply quit after sustained systematic bullying. I will try and summarize, but I will have to tell my story out of sequence.

I'll start by explaining how ChrisTiana ObeySumner and I became the Commission Co-Chairs. Our predecessors were Steve Lewis and Cindi Laws. Laws was a wildly unpopular anti-Semite who bullied Commissioners into giving her her way. One of the things I remember most was her smug opposition to joining the LGBTQ Commission's call for Mayor Ed Murray to resign last year (Oregon CPS found that he had sexually abused his foster son and should never be allowed to foster again, something Murray didn't contest).

Steve Lewis was a different matter. In December of 2017, Washington courts were considered making it easier for a guardian to sterilize a person under guardianship without their consent, something currently only allowed by court order. Disability organizations rallied against it, unsurprisingly.

What did surprise me was Co-Chair Steve Lewis' vehement support for the procedure. So much so he went to the Seattle Women's Commission to lecture them about reproductive rights, in an illuminating 6-page screed that included comments like, "women with intellectual disabilities react inappropriately (sic) aggressively pursuing men." When members of the Disability Commission objected, he doubled down, refusing to even allow us a vote on opposition. Making his support for eugenics clear, he told Commissioner Dorian Taylor that "if people with developmental disabilities were dogs, (we) would be put down." Taylor, like ObeySumner and myself, are developmentally disabled.

In response, members of the Commission's two active committees at the time, Public Safety and Housing penned a letter to the Mayor's office and the Seattle Office of Civil Rights requesting the Co-Chairs' immediate removal.

 

In the end it probably wasn't any of that that was the final nail in the coffin: Lewis used the n-word at a professional dinner, which was reported to the city by none other than Kassiane Asasumasu (it's also worth noting in private conversation with me Lewis mentioned visiting the white supremacist website Stormfront).

The city gave him every opportunity to reverse himself: he met with the Mayor's office and corroborated his use of the slur, attempting to justify himself. Finally, a month after the call for his removal, Mayor Jenny Durkan's office removed him from his (Mayor-appointed) position in February of 2018. Cindi Laws (also Mayor-appointed) quit a few days before Lewis' impending removal. The following meeting, ChrisTiana ObeySumner and I were voted Co-Chair. ObeySumner is the first person of color ever to Co-Chair the Disability Commission; I was the first openly autistic person (though ChrisTiana has since come out as autistic).

So now, without white supremacists and eugenicists leading the Commission, everything would be fine, right?

Well, not quite...

So I Need to Talk About Gymnastics

Content note: I am going to be addressing the abusive actions that were perpetrated upon US gymnasts over the past several decades. These include physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and a breach of trust. They also include using young girls as a means to an end (that is, medals). I'm not going to be graphic but this post does come in light of all of that, and that is something to be aware of as you read.

Those who know me well, or sort of well, or at all, know that I was a gymnast. I was pretty good. I loved it. Gymnastics is what saved me, to be honest.

Those who follow the news know that USA Gymnastics handed an endless stream of young women over to a sexual offender (Larry Nassar, who apparently has an autistic daughter and I doubt she is safe from him). Those who follow gymnastics know that criticizing Marta Karyoli is Just Not Done, although you cannot square up the allegation that she knows everything with that she didn't know (I personally think the Karyolis both knew from early on that they had a predator. But keeping a predator around is a great way to find which girls will keep your dirty secrets). Marta and Bela have a documented history of being emotionally and possibly physically abusive, stretching back into the 80s. But all that USA Gymnastics saw was medals.

This is disgusting. USA Gymnastics has all sorts of things you supposedly swear to uphold if you are a judge or if you coach lower levels, but as soon as we're talking medals, the athletes are apparently disposable. Fuck that, I say.

Fuck USA Gymnastics. Fuck the Karyolis. Fuck Nassar. I'm going to talk about gymnastics. And my experience is just one, but there's themes in the survivor's narratives that echo my own experience.

Namely this: the sport is not the problem.

Many many children and adolescents (and late blooming adults) will tell you about the benefits they experienced. I made friends with my body. I learned to fly--gymnastics is all about learning to fly, right? Learning to make your body and your brain cooperate because what you are trying to do sounds like a terrible idea, and then doing it anyway. Gymnastics builds confidence, because you spend a lot of time saying "this thing should be impossible. I'm going to do it anyway". And then you do it.

Gymnasts are both strong and flexible. The physical benefits for those who can participate are obvious. You use speed, you use strength, you use a range of motion--and you use those all together. Right? And if you are being taught properly, you learn everything in a stepwise fashion. Everyone is going to have a cap of what the hardest thing they can learn to do is, that's just life and having a body. But before you find that cap, you learn a lot of other things. You stretch your library of movement every day that you're in the gym. It's no wonder that gymnasts go on to succeed in martial arts or dance or other sports. We learn how to move our bodies in so many ways that adding elements isn't as daunting as making friends with your body and also working with a partner or a ball.

Gymnasts who are not dealing with abusive coaches and program staff learn a lot of psychological things too. The psychological things I learned from gymnastics are why I am still here, and gymnasts with supportive families will report similar things. You learn to say "no, you move" to mental blocks. Even when that mental block is your asshole mom. You learn hard work. You learn creative problem solving (everyone else does a full but I hate back twisting? Good thing a front flip with a half twist exists!). Hard work beats talent because hard work shows up. And you learn that moving your body is fun. That's mental too. You learn to trust yourself. All of that is incredibly important.

It also makes what USA Gymnastics supported a betrayal. I'm not minimizing at all what our athletes went through at the hands of the governing body. But those women and I agree, at least according to everything I have read: gymnastics isn't the problem. The people at the top are.

I understand people who are saying that they'd never put their kids in gymnastics in light of all this. I do. But I don't agree with that as a blanket choice. I'd stay the hell away from elite gymnastics, yes, unless the whole system is changed drastically. I'd stay away from any program that belittled children or used weight and diet talk (I cringe so hard when commentators talk about the athletes' bodies, please shut up Tim Dagget), and I'd stay away from a program that never allowed observation--parents do not belong on the floor. Parents should be able to tell if their presence is a distraction to their kids and excuse themselves during practice. I don't like totally shut off gyms at this point. But there's seeing red flags and avoiding them, and there's cutting off a whole avenue for development. I understand the impulse. I don't think it's the solution.

As people who care about the sport and its athletes, coaches and judges have got to be less afraid of making waves. Young girls learn early that people don't listen to them. People do listen to adults. It is our duty to speak up when we see practices that make us feel icky, or see dynamics that could be harmful. Many elite coaches done fucked up on this score--I cannot believe that literally zero adults knew what was happening at the Ranch and such. I cannot believe that people who have the eye for detail necessary to teach such intricate skills and routines could fail spectacularly to miss what a fucking creeper Nassar is, or that the athletes were underfed at the Ranch, or that verbal abuse is a bad life choice and totally happens. You're more perceptive than that, folks. I do in fact hold the elite gymnastics establishment as a whole responsible for the shit that was allowed to happen. I thought I could never be an elite coach because I'm not tough enough. I was sort of wrong. I can never be an elite coach because I care about the athletes, not about the medals, and will always, always advocate for the person. Every time. All coaches should do that. US elite coaches failed spectacularly at that.

The system is broken. The sport can be sound. Listen to participants. We don't have to throw away a great way to make friends with your body because of a broken system. We need to throw away the system.

Actually, I don't regret it: Mother's day without a mother

It's Mother's Day again. That day that your friends with good parents forget, again, that their experiences aren't the only ones and say shitty but well meaning things to you, asking about what you're doing for your mom. Because of course that's a healthy safe option for everyone, their mom is great.

These well meaning friends, when you say "nothing" or "Netflix with my cats" or "hiking alone where I won't have to put up with brunch traffic" will often ask confused. They may express bafflement that you aren't doing something for your mom.

Many many people, even well meaning, empathetic people, cannot understand what it takes to cut off a parent. Even if they know why, even if they agree that your parent is toxic, they can't grok why that means "I don't do mom-centric holidays". It's like there is a disconnect because that diverts from their experience of the world.

And then they may say the thing that is borderline unforgiveable: "she's your mom. You'll regret this when she's dead."

So, those of you who are well meaning people with good parents: never say that.

But this post isn't for you. Maybe later I'll write a post on how to not be shitty to your friends who disconnected from their parents.

This post is for you, the brave person who got free.

I'm so proud of you. You had an opening. You did what was right for your safety. You did it in spite of growing up inundated with "but family" messages. You left.

Maybe you took a long time to get free. Maybe you did the reconciliation/estrangement spiral before reaching escape velocity. Maybe you will have a reconciliation that sticks, on your own terms. Maybe you won't. It's okay if you don't.

Really. You don't need to tolerate someone just because they're family. And you don't have to reunite. Ever. If that's what you want, I wish you the best of luck, but it's not a requirement.

Everyone knows someone who knows someone whose third cousin's brother's tutor's veterinarian regretted removing a toxic mom from their life. This is the dominant narrative. There's so few narratives about people who don't. It makes people uncomfortable.

Allow me to use my superpower of "making people uncomfortable" for you: I got out, and I have never regretted it. Not even for a moment.

My mother died several years ago. Recently enough that I panic when I see someone who looks like her in public, long enough ago that if I was going to have regrets they'd have set in. I don't regret it at all. I don't regret missing her birthdays, I don't regret missing mother's days, I don't regret skipping her funeral. I don't regret the years of gaslighting, nastiness, and unpredictability that I escaped. Getting out was hard. Staying out had some really rough, touch and go moments. But I have never regretted it.

Now, I have had moments of mourning for the mother I didn't have. All the stories people have of their good times with their moms, the supportive things apparently a parent does? I have gotten wistful. But that wasn't my mother. That was never going to be my mother. She isn't the mom she needed to be to be worth continuing a relationship with. The mom who had my back stopped existing when I was still very small. I can be sad about the alternate universe where things were different, without ever regretting leaving.

Maybe you're wistful like that too. Maybe you had good times so feel like it's not "bad enough" to justify skipping mother's day. But you know the society you live in and you chose to not put yourself through that. It was bad enough. You don't have to put up with abuse of any kind for the comfort of others. You've already done the math. You chose the path that people don't understand because you needed to.

If you, like me, are going to be struggling with the thoughtless "all moms are great no matter what", be gentle with yourself. Do something nice for yourself. Lots of us basically parented ourselves, after all, or we're basically going back through & doing as adults what our parents should have done for us as children. Celebrate getting out.

And don't let anyone tell you that we all regret leaving. We don't. The hard part about today has nothing to do with regretting escaping. It has everything to do with people who supposedly care about me trying to make me do so. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this--how many of those regrets were expressed to shut up people who say "but she's your mom."?

If you, like me, are spending today without your mom, I salute you. You took care of yourself in getting out. That's amazing. You're amazing. I wish society would reexamine its collective prejudices and see how much it takes to cut off a parent. Maybe if they did they'd not be twisting the knives that are already driven into people who can't be around their mothers.

<3,
K

To the youth I know--you matter. I'm so sorry.

This is one of those posts I highly doubt the people I have in mind as I write will ever see it, or will know is for them. But it's not just the youth I know who fit these words. They're just who I am mentally looking at & speaking to, because Having Feelings at them would be awkward & weird & they have enough to worry about without realizing that I'm a big ball of squishy feelings. 

Dear young people I have the privilege of knowing & working with & seeing grow into who you are going to be,

I am so sorry. We failed you. We meaning the adults. Again and again we failed you. No, #notalladults, but yes, enough adults. You're putting up with a veritable avalanche of bullshit and it's not fair. And it's our responsibility. I'm so sorry that you're going to be the ones stuck with the fallout.

I'm so sorry that your generation has targets on its backs, in the places that should be safe, because our lawmakers care more about guns than about you. I know the kind of people you are, and the kind of people you want to be. I fear for you every day. Every time I see reports of another mass shooting I am afraid that we're going to be holding a vigil for you, because you're brave kids and you're selfless kids (I lucked out, getting to know you. You're way further along the road to decency than the kids I went to school with were). I know that every week, someone is having to hold a funeral for someone very like you. And I can't even imagine your terror every day.

I couldn't even get on the MAX for several months after the white supremacist murder. You have to go to school every day. You can't avoid it. I cannot imagine how scary that is, every day. And you're still brave. Every one of you who I know & spend substantial time with is.

I'm so sorry that you grew up being called entitled and lazy. My generation got that too & it sucked. And your generation is being left in an even bigger sociological mess than mine was--that's saying something. Millennials (that's me, not you. You're Generation Z or Generation Screwed Over or Generation Why Aren't You More Nilhistic or something) are the first generation to have a lower life expectancy than our parents. You may be right there with us. That sucks. You deserve better.

I'm sorry that the news is always, always bad. That you're seeing a rise of fascism. That you're watching while adults, who are supposed to care for you & show you the way, destroy the planet. That kids you've known from childhood are being sent to countries they don't remember, all because adults are letting their bigotries rule.

I know your whole generation isn't perfect, but gods what I've seen of you makes me feel both hope and shame. We don't deserve the representatives I know. You're forces for good. I hope you keep being forces for good, although it's hard, especially as good gets dangerous.

I'm so sorry. You're worth more. We should have fought harder for you. We owe it to you. Please, hold on to who you are. Who you are is beautiful. Don't succumb to the bigotry. Learn from our mistakes. My generation & the ones before chose to not. Be better than us. You have an abundance of information at your fingertips. Please. Learn from it.

I'm proud of each of you. I am proud to know you, to get to watch you grow into adults. I wish you didn't have such a mess to come of age in. I plan to help clean it up. You deserve that & so much more.

Love & strength,
K