Intersectionality has failed the Tourette's community

Even though my case of Tourette's is mild and even after almost 30 years since I first started having tics, I still feel so self-conscious and shameful about them that I mask and hide them from people and deny to myself that I have them. It took me until 5 or 10 years ago to admit to myself that I even officially had Tourette's because even though I knew I grew up with tics and my brother was diagnosed and it runs in my family, I used the fact that my parents never bothered to get me officially diagnosed as something to latch onto because of that shame. I've looked through the rules they use to diagnose it and I definitely have it as I have had multiple motor and vocal tics starting from when I was around 6, which aren't caused by anything else.

The reason we feel so much shame is because we don't have a support system outside of our own community, and because everyone attacks us. The proper response from the black community and society as a whole should have been love, acceptance, and support, acknowledging that it was ok and that John didn't do anything wrong and neither does anyone who has tics, and a way for John and us to relieve the stress of having tics in the first place.

People should have been offering meditation services and support groups for the whole Tourette's community and for John to deal with having to have said those things in the first place and the attention from it. There should have been proper recognition of the harm having tics causes the tic-haver and the harm the response society has causes the tic-haver. Instead I'm seeing John and the whole Tourette's community receive not only endless horrid and uninformed comments but also comments calling for violence, including death threats. John said it was the worst few days of his life and someone even stole his bike.

This last week was a good example of the stigma we face, and that stigma is why the Tourette's community has a way higher rate of feeling suicidal, attempting suicide, completing suicide, feeling shame, feeling self-hatred, depression, and self-harm than those without Tourette's. We also deal with loads of hate crimes including violence and murder because it's easier to get away with harming someone if you can just say they were being offensive.

And even with all of that oppression, we don't have the flip side of it: a support movement. We still don't have our own civil rights movement. We don't have any marches, we don't have a month to celebrate us. We don't have the equivalent of Black Lives Matter or even Autism Acceptance Day. We were finally hoping to get our civil rights movement started with the BAFTA awards because John was there to promote his movie about Tourette's called I Swear, which from the trailer looks like an amazing way to teach people about it and advocate for support and acceptance.

What we need from society is support, not hate. We are a minority that gets witch hunted and hated by everyone else. We are labelled as evil and hate-crimed constantly. Intersectionality and mutual aid includes the Tourette's community too, and you all have failed us. You cannot have Total Liberation without supporting the Tourette's community and giving us the acceptance and tools we need to thrive in society. I really hope that everyone watches I Swear when it comes out in theaters near you or is available online wherever and whenever you can find it. It reminds me of Kneecap, which has been well supported by everyone, and I hope it leads to that sort of acceptance movement.

Feminist pro-choicers being open to the fact that feminists are diverse in every way, except not abortion

While I will always consider myself a feminist, it seems to have been taken over by a pro-abortion stance, with some people claiming that if you are pro-life, you can't be a feminist, as abortion rights is what feminism is about. Yet feminists usually tend to agree that you can be feminist and have a wide array of stances on a wide array of issues. We know that feminists can be sex-positive, sex-negative, pro-porn, anti-porn, pro-BDSM, anti-BDSM, choose to wear makeup, choose to not wear makeup, choose to shave their legs, choose to not shave their legs, choose to wear dresses, choose to not wear dresses, choose to be mothers, choose to never have kids, choose to get married, choose to never get married, choose to be housewives, choose to be career women, more concerned with feminism in the workplace, more concerned with intersectionality,  choose to go from a woman's body to a man's body, choose to go from a man's body to a woman's body, feminists who are nerds, feminists who are rockers, feminists who are gamers, feminists who are outdoorsy, feminists who are nudists, feminists who are athletes, feminists who are artists, feminists who are business people, feminists who are mothers, feminists who are stay at home dads, feminists who are of all races, all countries, all faiths and none, all ages, all genders, all sexual orientations, all sizes, all shapes, who have all disabilities, all diseases, all interests, all political ideologies, have to overcome all challenges, feminists who are this and that and the other and everything in between. So why is it different for the abortion stance? You're not letting anyone choose to be pro-life. That's not very "pro-choice." After all, Feminism started off pro-life. Apparently the people who started feminism in the first place, wouldn't be considered feminist by these people. Since they created and defined feminism to begin with, there must not be such a thing as feminism. Feminist pro-lifers aren't going anywhere. There are many pro-life feminist groups. You'll have to learn to accept it eventually.

To make it all about abortion is very limiting. You are throwing away all this good that can be done to make the sexes equal and help people not be judged by or have disadvantages because of their gender, all for the sake of trying to keep ONE thing around and say that ONLY people who believe in that ONE thing are good people, or adequate enough to call themselves something. THIS is one of the reasons why feminism is looked down upon, and many feminists don't realize they are feminists. Feminists themselves are making other feminists think they aren't feminists because they have pro-life views. We all hate how much people don't realize they are feminist. We all know the "Well I'm not a feminist, I just believe in (insert what feminists believe in)" circumstance that happens ALL the time, so why do that TO them? If they are feminist besides that, why wouldn't you HATE it if they didn't realize they were feminist, just like you do with people who do that in general? Feminism DOES NOT equal abortion.

Not only that but it really shows a lack of priorities. There are so many things wrong with the world, wrong with gender discrimination, wrong with women being raped and killed and this and that just for being women, and you are more concerned about women having a right to abortion? SERIOUSLY? Not to mention the females BEING KILLED IN THE WOMB JUST FOR BEING FEMALES!! But oh wait, you say we have to support that because a woman can choose no matter what, or let's just ignore it because it'll hurt our pro-choice movement. There are also women being FORCED or COERCED into abortions, but oh wait, we have to keep it legal for the greater good, all the bad things that come with it be damned. Not to mention all the women who regret abortion and have PTSD and suicidal thoughts and tendencies, or who have actually killed themselves because of it, but oh wait, we need it legal, and we need people to be pro-choice, so let's just ignore them and say they don't exist and it's all lies, even though you can hear their stories everywhere, so that we can keep abortion. Some people are going to be casualties, right? All of that really shows a lack of caring about women.