11 Quotes by Eli Clare

But in today’s world, being seen as intellectually, cognitively, or developmentally disabled is dangerous because intelligence and verbal communication are entrenched markers of personhood.

Laugh and cry and tell stories. Sad stories about bodies stolen, bodies no longer here. Enraging stories about the false images, devastating lies, untold violence. Bold, brash stories about reclaiming our bodies and changing the world.

I want to sharpen my pride on what strengthens me, my witness on what haunts me. Whatever we name ourselves, however we end up shattering our self-hatred, shame, silence, and isolation, the goal is the same: to end our daily material oppression.

Our body-minds tumble, shift, ease their way through space and time, never static. Gender transition in its many forms is simply another kind of motion. I lived in a body-mind assigned female at birth and made peace with it as a girl, a tomboy, a dyke, a queer woman, a butch. But uncovering my desire to transition—to live as a genderqueer, a female-to-male transgender person, a white guy—challenged everything I thought I knew about self-acceptance and love.

The body as home, but only if it is understood that bodies are never singular, but rather haunted, strengthened, underscored by countless other bodies.

Simply put, diagnosis wields immense power. It can provide us access to vital medical technology or shame us, reveal a path toward less pain or get us locked up. It opens doors and slams them shut.

The mannerisms that help define gender - the way in which people walk,swing their hips, gesture with their hands, move their mouths and eyes when they talk, take up space - are all based upon how non disabled people move…The construct of gender depends not only upon the male body and female body, but also on the non disabled body.

Simply put, the DSM is a highly constructed projection placed on top of particular body-mind experiences in order to label, organize, and make meanings of them from within a specific worldview.

The brutal consequences of “monkey” arise because that word removes some of us from humanity, placing us among nonhuman animals in the natural world. “Monkey” strengthens racist, ableist, and speciesist hierarchies. Once a person is deemed not human, then all sorts of violence become acceptable.