thefibrodiaries:

you know what disabled trope I hate more than any other trope even disabled person dying because life isn’t worth living or disabled supervillain is evil because they’re bitter about their disability? It’s the person fakes a disability trope. like when you’ve got a character claiming to be disabled for money/attention etc then suddenly they stand up from their wheelchair or maybe someone is claiming to be too ill to get out of bed but then they’re caught doing something.  It paints disabled people as lying fakes who are trying to do something bad or manipulative and if you see a disabled person do anything or getting out of their wheelchair/not using their cane they must be faking.

Also there is the one where the disabled person either uses or fakes disability to manipulate or trap their partner or family and you’ve got this evil disabled person who is abusing the poor abled victim (even though disabled people are more likely to be abused by abled people rather than the other way around). This makes people believe that a disabled person who needs a lot of care and rely “too much” on their loved ones as someone who is taking advantage and being a burden to their loved ones and maybe the big bad disabled person controlling, abusing and maybe even lying to their loved ones who then perceived as victims just because they care for a disabled family member/partner.

 It makes people think that these things are commonly done by disabled people. It’s also a very believable trope (unlike disabled supervillain for example) and people see it being used regularly (not just in fiction but in the media in general) and think “wow I can’t believe people do this so often, I better keep my eye out for these people.” 

 I can’t even begin to describe how harmful this is to us. It actually puts us in danger. People are so used to hearing about or seeing stories in the media about someone who has faked a disability so they constantly second guess us and we live in fear of doing something that may give someone the wrong impression. Stop using this trope in fiction. Stop making tv programs about benefit cheats. Stop putting loads of stories and false statistics on the news and in the paper of people faking disability. let the faking/using a disability for personal gain trope die.