Shay Erlich (They/Them)

It got shut down so hard because they thought that this was some kind of potential like gateway to a gang fight 🤣🤣 so now I see these recruitment reels and they just transport me back to their incredulity that this could be a legitimate youth expression activity and not a secret knife fight.

The community theatre near me is running a rap/spoken word program for youth and I just got thrown back into being a student youth worker. I was working with a young person who loved rap music and making up lyrics so I wanted to go to some spoken word workshops together.

A poster for Cripping The Past with three visibly and invisibly disabled people wearing masks and dressed for an evening event. The person in the upper left hand corner is a femme presenting black person with dark skin and tight curly back hair off to their right side. They are wearing a fishnet cropped body suit with a yellow crop top and shiny yellow shorts overtop. They are also wearing yellow knee socks, shoes and gold jewelry. Midway down the poster on the right side of the page is a brown-skinned manual wheelchair user. They have straight shoulder length dark brown hair, an upper arm sleeve tattoo and wearing a patterned green dress with green shoes that match their green wheelchair. In the lower left corner is a light-skinned cane user. They are wearing a pink cow print hat, fringed jacket, bolo tie and cow print shorts to match their pink cowboy style boots. The text of the poster reads: Cripping the Past. Social Dance Ball. Free. All Ages. Family Friendly. Relaxed Event (Come and go as you please). Masked Event. ASL Interpretation. Wheelchair Accessible. Service Dogs Welcome. PSWs on Site. Blind/Low-Vision Inclusive. Saturday September 27th 2025. 6-9 pm. The Village at Black Creek. RSVP @ http://www.pushmakers.org/cripping-the-past Logos on the poster include: Pushmakers, The Toronto Arts Council, The Village at Black Creek, Dancemakers, Crossroads Theatre

Disability-led space is magical. Rehearsals for this project have been some of the most grounded and healing dance spaces I’ve ever been in. Almost every rehearsal someone has the experience of being in dance space in a new disabled way. And we get to share it with you all next week! Please join us!

Now I’m imagining a 2025 remake where the main romance is a femme queer awakening and hernandos hideaway is a drag joint and queer bathhouse.

But seriously - has anyone else ever done a self duet like “Hey There”?

For some reason the last few days The Pyjama Game soundtrack just will not dislodge itself from my brain. Something about 7 1/2 cents and pro-union messaging seems appropriate at this moment…

And of course not a single local conservation area has a meaningful accessibility section on their websites to make this easier. The AODA is such an utter joke when it comes to outdoor environments and it’s one of my biggest sources of grief as a wheelchair using outdoors human.

That uniquely wheelchair user experience of being desperate for a hike, think you’ve found an accessible trail after an hour of searching trail maps and then realize that it was the one that laid the boardwalk perpendicular and your wheels kept falling through the gaps in the boards last time.

Fascinating thread on some major breakthroughs towards an enduring HIV vaccine in our lifetimes.

I resigned from the board of directors for the @cmadocs.bsky.social in December 2023. I tried to push the institution to take a stand against Israeli attacks on Palestinian healthcare in Gaza. Instead, I learned they are racists, genocide supporters, and genocide deniers.

I am so grateful for the ways that my biologic meds are changing my life for the better in amazing big and small ways.

However, a 12 week dosing schedule is just enough time to forget how knocked out I get for a few days after each dose. A kick to the immune system indeed!

It’s always fun when your med goes on hiatus for a few months each year and you have to scramble to source alternate formulations or brands just to survive. More use cases means better availability.

The one benefit to being on a super niche life sustaining medication is being able to recognize a clinical trial aimed at expanding the use potentials of your med from 1000 paces.

The evils of pharmaceutical greed aside, it would be really nice to have larger med runs produced annually.

Absolutely, but for the sake of this thread we are assuming genuine good faith engagement and a commitment to finding solutions that include everyone as the baseline for meaningful engagement 😊

I’ve met some really awesome and thoughtful public space planners and they deserve credit for their work!

Exactly. Nothing without us means NOTHING without us!

Disabled people need to be a part of these conversations from the beginning. How can we create public spaces that serve us all when people without that experience can’t see the unintended consequences of their decisions?

Nothing without disabled people. Period.

This isn’t to say that it’s always bikes versus wheelchairs, but had a wheelchair user been a part of the planning process they might have seen this problem coming. We might have signs on the elevators reminding people to prioritize disabled folks. Or a better process that served everyone.

Sometimes you get lucky and a gate agent will give you the gate in advance allowing you to skip the horde of bikers. Sometimes you get verbally abused with a threat of it escalating into violence. Either way you never quite know what to expect.

So, now as a wheelchair user you’re left staring down a pack of folks on e-bikes who have formed a group bond as colleagues who don’t respect the prioritization of wheelchair users on the elevator (because of the need for advanced boarding)

However, e-bikes are generally heavier than someone wants to carry up and down stairs, and it’s created a massive demand for elevator space at major hubs and during peak hours.

They also only announce the platforms a few minutes in advance to avoid crowding on the narrow platforms and permit flow.

Now - add in an influx of bikers, many of them with e-bikes commuting into the city to gig work as bike delivery workers in the downtown core. It’s a way to reduce the overhead required to be a courier downtown and it’s a popular gig.

Most train stations in the GTA are primarily accessed by stairs and have a single elevator to access the platform level from any given entrance. They do the work to make it accessible, but generally the bare minimum with no or few redundancies.

In recent years the GO Trains in the GTA have expanded to have cars full of bike racks to encourage cycling and emission-reduced commuting.

Overall, a pretty innocuous thing and you wouldn’t necessarily expect to invite wheelchair users to that consult - except there was an unexpected consequence

I think all too often people don’t understand the importance of including disabled people into planning decisions that seemingly don’t impact them.

When we say nothing about us without us, that truly means everything. An example for you:

Grabbed the Citizen Sleeper bundle this weekend and I’m about 5 hours in. Really enjoying myself so far. I’m noticing that more often than not fellow traveller being involved with a title is a pretty strong signal that it’s going to jive with my gameplay values and desires.

Building from Access Intimacy - Crip-Platonic would refer to the types of love and intimacy that come from platonic relationships rooted in a deeply intimate co-created access system.

That disabled person who does medical triage just like you, and rides along to the ER is a Crip-Platonic Bestie.

Thought of the Day: What about Crip-Platonic Partnerships? Both as something distinct and intertwined with Queer-Platonic Partnerships (Queer-Crip Platonic Partnerships?).

As someone who mostly does not love whatever movie/show etc is capturing public attention at the moment it’s so wild to be so enthusiastic about K-pop Demon Hunters. Every reel is playing the same songs we have on repeat in our house. Can we have more values-aligned mass media please?

Tales from set - We’ve now had 4 separate blown tire incidents across the past 10 days. I’ve gone years on end with no tubes blown and it’s like as soon as you turn a camera on a chair the tube is like “nice knowing you!”

In clearly unrelated news - I’m also getting better at changing them myself.

At this point I owe a few people money that they've covered for me (for food and meds) that I currently don't have. #HelpSky #HelpFolksLive2025 #MutualAidRequest #MutualAid #TransCrowdfund #DisabilityCrowdfund

Alt: 2. The top section of the image displays the phrase "Justice for Disabled Workers" in large white text with a pink outline against a bright yellow background. To the right of the text, two raised fists, one holding a ruler and the other holding a stethoscope. Below, a pink striped line separates the top and bottom sections. The lower section contains explanatory text in black, detailing challenges faced by disabled workers in regulated professions. At the bottom, in large bold text, it invites viewers to share their stories, followed by a website link in bright pink. On the right, a QR Code also connected to that website - DJNO.ca/disabled-workers

Today, our focus is on Regulated Professions--if you're a disabled teacher, nurse, doctor, or other worker regulated by a College or other body, drop us a line and share your story. More to come, friends! Visit djno.ca/disabled-wor... for details.
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