I’ve been thinking deeply about the word normal.

That word has hovered in the background like an invisible ruler for most of my life, measuring how well I fit into the world. As a blind and neurodivergent person, I have been reminded again and again through systems, spaces, and attitudes. My existence is seen as outside that invisible line.

Normal is presented as harmless, even kind. “One day you’ll live a normal life.” “We just want you to be normal.” But beneath those words sits the demand to shrink yourself, hide what makes you different and mould your life into shapes never made for you. The cost is enormous. One learns to police themself constantly and feel shame for moving at a different pace, communicating in unsettles others, or existing outside the blueprint.

Normal polices everything. It sets the speed of pedestrian crossings that change before I can cross safely. It shapes the design of offices where quick talkers are rewarded and slower processing is dismissed. It lives in classrooms that label difference as disruption and hides in moral language, as though being “normal” is the same as living a good life. However, these are not natural truths. They are decisions made by architects, teachers, policymakers and employers. People defend the idea of normal with familiar lines. They say the world cannot bend for everyone, or that people have to fit into society. They say difference makes others uncomfortable. "To hard" always means too hard for those already at ease. “Fit into society” ignores that society is built by human hands, and what is built one way can be built another—Impactsl and heavy. There is the loneliness of being invisible and present in a room, but recognised only for how well you perform a version of yourself that others accept. There is grief for the years lost to masking, passing and striving to appear “close enough” to normal. There is the exhaustion of having to argue every day for dignity. The myth of normal doesn’t just exclude but also limits what humanity could be.

So what do we do? The solution is to let go of normal and stop pretending it is real. Society needs rules for safety and fairness, but those are not the same as demands for sameness. We commit to rules that guard dignity and protect people from harm, without flattening the richness of difference.

The way forward is not charity; nor is it praising people like me for “overcoming.” The way forward is rights and recognising that when someone asks for accommodation, they are not asking for a favour. They are asking for what is required to participate fully. Access is not an extra.

This means building streets, classrooms, workplaces, and systems that expect variety. Listening when people say what they need and respecting those needs are part of our shared responsibility. It means refusing to equate belonging with passing as normal and recognising that belonging must never be conditional.

As a blind and neurodivergent person, this is not abstract but a part of daily life. It is waiting in offices where names are reduced to numbers. It is streets that demand a pace I cannot match. It is conversations where my way of speaking is read as wrong. And it is the constant reminder that “normal” was never designed to include me.

I refuse that word. I refuse the shame it carries. I refuse to disappear into a mould that was never real.

The truth is, nobody is normal. We are all different. The choice is whether we keep clinging to a myth that divides us or build a world where difference is expected, respected, and valued.

I know which world I want to live in.

#Disability #Neurodivergent #Blind #Ableism #Inclusion #HumanRights #Accessibility

Adding meaningful alt-text is not only important for everyone using a screenreader and an essential #inclusion and #accessibility requirement. Alt-text is also searchable and used by filters. People who prefer to filter certain people and topics for mental health and other reasons can't filter memes or images without it. Please use alt-text and cw generously 🙏

Added bonus: with added alt-text you can find images in your own posts with "from:me" and people are more likely to boost your posts.

#screenreader #fediverse #Mastodon

Decided to sign up for #Codeberg, the #GitHub alternative that the Fediverse at large is insisting is worth a try and, in some cases, claiming will improve project contributions by avoiding some of the GH antipatterns. I expected to find some #accessibility issues; this is the modern web, after all.

I did not expect a fully inaccessible visual CAPTCHA with no workarounds. I'm unable to solve it, so I cannot create an account.

In short: If you want people who are #blind or #lowVision to contribute to your projects (you do, right?), Codeberg is currently not an #accessible platform.