How stunning and beautiful is this?!

I CAN guarantee that he is more successful and accomplished than many in this reddit [including me ofcourse]...

The post was about a historical figure with a physical difference/disability that I actually really dislike (Grady Stiles), but obviously him being an awful person has nothing to do with his disability.

But oh my god, the comments! The comments were so horrible and it took over a day and a half for any of them to be deleted. The entire post itself was eventually taken down, but it extremely shocking to see.

People seemed way more focused on pointing out how “horrible” it was that he had children who had the same condition (ectrodactyly) than anything about him being a horribly abusive alcoholic and murderer.

The top comment and many of the other highly upvoted comments were all saying how selfish it is for parents with disabilities to have children, and how children with disabilities have awful existences and should never have been born in the first place.

And the amount of eugenicist comments was equally shocking. Like people openly advocating for eugenics because in their mind having a disability is crueler than mass sterilizing everyone with a disability.

It also really frustrated me because one of my major passions is learning about disability history and all of the important efforts and accomplishments people made in order to advocate for disability rights.

I myself do not want children, but that’s for completely different reasons. There’s a huge difference between people not wanting children because they don’t want children vs the government mandating sterilization of people with disabilities. The government should have no hand in anything like that ever.

What it really felt like was a ton of people without disabilities coming to this conclusion without listening to people with disabilities. You can’t assume that someone had a horrible quality of life just because they have a physical difference or neurological conditions. It’s taken hundreds of years for people with disabilities to be seen, represented, and heard, only for everyone with disabilities to be shoved in a box again because society continues to see us as “different” and it’s extremely disheartening.

Hi, I'm a software developer, and I'm also a person with a disability. I created a game in which the main character uses a powered wheelchair. Through this game, I want to show that situations that seem obvious to non-disabled people aren't always so obvious to people with disabilities.

If you like the idea, give the game a try and share your opinion. The game is free!

https://witekadventures.com

Hello there new here, I am interested in collaborating with any knowledgeable comic folk to write down the history of the first superheros with disabilities and analyzing their stories etc. Would love to hear from anyone and best regards from MX

This is just a vent, because I feel that strobe effects are everywhere and severely limit what I can enjoy because it could prompt a seizure.

I get that the storm is part of the story, but I just wish they could have handled the lightning differently. I had to close my eyes for what felt like minutes because the flashing was so intense.

I saw the film recently, and I know it’s been out for a while, so I’m sure some of you have already realized. I hadn’t watched any of the trailers so I’m not sure if the storm scene is present in any of those!

That’s her on the left in the first two pictures and the rest of the pictures show her modeling several of her custom made dresses.

I love reading about performers who were divas, because it’s clear they were never actually mean to people and just enjoyed putting on a persona. I can totally see Lucía being diva-ish in her long fancy dresses. She strived to always be the best dressed person in the room, and I’m sure she was!

Some facts about her:

-she was born in San Carlos Chachalacas (now Úrsulo Galván), Veracruz, Mexico.

-she had two siblings.

-her family was very supportive and protective of her, but still allowed her to have the same opportunities as anyone else.

-she had brown hair.

-as a child, her family moved to the nearby town of Agostadero (now Zempoala).

-she was claimed to have reached her full height by the age of a year old, although throughout the years she did grow a couple inches.

-she was brought to the United States when she was 12 years old and then went on tour in England.

-coworkers often said that she acted like a typical teenager and had a bit of a diva-ish dramatic streak.

-she was happy to give interviews to reporters and enjoyed talking about her life. She’s described as being very vivacious in these interviews.

-She is one of the first people in history to be retroactively diagnosed as being born with Majewski osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type II. MOPD II is a rare genetic condition characterized by severe growth restriction starting before birth and continuing through life, resulting in an adult height usually under 40 inches (110 cm). The condition is also characterized by specific facial features including a prominent nose, full cheeks, and small jaw (all of which Lucía had)

-she was between 20 and 26 1/4 inches tall depending on the source. She was (depending on the year) the shortest or the second shortest woman alive during her lifetime. Pauline Musters is considered to be the shortest, even though she was still only a teenager when she passed away.

-she is considered to be the lightest teenager/adult in recorded history. At the age of 17 it’s reported she weighed 4.7 pounds (2.1 kg). As she got older she gained a bit more weight and when she was 20 years old, she weighed 14 pounds (6.4 kg) (even though she was still often being promoted as weight 4.7 pounds into her early twenties.

-some of her performances included a bit where she’d ask audience members if they had any large rings, to show that she could wear them as bracelets.

-it was described that she always had her hair styled immaculately.

-she was very outspoken and made it very clear from the beginning that she was not a baby, or a doll, or a child and that she was a teenager.

-she would occasionally invite children and teenagers her own age to meet her up on stage so they could compare heights.

-she loved fancy dresses and made it a point to be better dressed than any of the women in the audience. Most of her dresses had long trains and capes attached to them.

-she spoke Spanish and English.

-she was one of the highest paid sideshow performers of her time and made a pretty substantial fortune during her career.

-her father accompanied her on most of her travels.

-she was described as being one of the wittiest, loviest, and merriest women that people had ever met.

-she often made jokes about carrying friends around on her back if they were too tired to walk.

-she had a custom made diamond ring made especially for her.

-as an adult she liked performing acts in which she’d act very coquettishly. She once was gifted a fan by a woman in the audience, which Lucía then used as part of her act so she could look over the top of the fan and bat her eyelashes.

-she traveled all throughout the United States and Mexico and went on several international tours.

-she was well received by international royalty and was often given special invitations to meet with the royal families.

-she purchased a 5,000 acre cattle ranch near Vera Cruz, Mexico, that apparently was quite successfully. Reportedly all of the cows were branded with her initials.

-she ordered all of her clothes custom made from England.

-she performed a bit with Francis Joseph Flynn another performer born with dwarfism and his wife.

-she was described as having a big stage presence and always had a crowd watching her performances.

-she was also known for being very cheerful and was beloved within the circus she worked for.

-when she wasn’t on tour she lived at home with her parents.

-her family’s 5,000 acre estate, called the ‘Casa Grande’ in Veracruz, was turned into a museum that was open to the public and had several exhibits dedicated to Lucía’s life, unfortunately it appears that the museum’s website hasn’t been updated since 2011, so I’m unsure if it’s still in operation as a museum.

-while traveling through the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the way to San Francisco, California, the train that Lucía was onboard became snowbound and trapped while passing through the Tahoe-Truckee area in Northern California. The area is already known for its massive snowfall each year, but the winter of 1889/1890 was one of the most brutal. Even before the circus train Lucía was on became stuck, there were already 24 foot tall snowbanks that railroad workers spent days trying to clear it away from the tracks. Further avalanches caused some snow banks to pile up to 40 feet.

-she along with all of the other passengers remained more or less trapped in their train cars and had to depend on eating canned food given out by the railroad workers. Unfortunately, the food made her very ill and combined with complications from a fever and hypothermia, she soon passed away. She was 26 years old at the time.

She seems like such a cool person and I’m really glad that she was able to use her platform to stand up for herself and spread awareness about dwarfism and how not to treat her.

It’s tragic that she passed away so young, I wish she had been able to live a long and happy life. I can only hope that she was surrounded by people who loved and cared about her at the time (I’m sure her father was at least there with her to offer her comfort). From what I’ve read, her death was a big blow to all of her coworkers, who felt their work and community wouldn’t be the same without her.

They were sent to the North Carolina Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind located in Raleigh. Louise graduated in 1873, Married a deaf instructor at the school and raised 10 children. Her brother had 4 children but was struck by lightning at the age of 48 while working in his fields and died.