To people with PhDs and postdocs justifying the absence of robust disability solidarity in HE because of how complex disclosure: you know this doesn’t justify me and 10+ PhDs had to go up against UKRI in the press this week from our beds, right?

Do you understand the likely implications of this not just for the PhD chapters or research we’ve had to postpone, but for our prospects as future ECR researchers seeking funding or grants or posts? Does it not occur to people that this work is costly now and in the future?

We know how hard it is: some of us have been PhD students so long our students have even got PhDs and post docs and jobs. We have friends who were also disabled PhDs organising who have finished and are now ECRs, as well as ppl who left bc it was too shit.

None of this is to say people must disclose; none of this is to lay the blame on particular non disclosing individuals but to note the ways that the structures mitigate against solidarity and it’s cultivation. But don’t try and defend it to me, in bed, this week, please?

I once had to make this point that it’s not just about taking longer but burning bridges with all sorts of people, from fellow ableist grad students and staff who become funding leads in depts or join hiring committee panels or administrators to Judith Butler fgs.

But listen, I know the costs when, for example winning a complaint against one institution for disability discrim means the head of school for a new one wants me to sign advance waivers confirming access arrangements before we’ve even discussed them, bc that happened to me.

Word travels, reputations stick, and I do not want plaudits or anything like that but do not disregard that this work for us all has plenty of cost and some of us will just do it anyway, bc it needs doing, and don’t for a second thing bc we’re still PhDs we are naive or green.

And please, in your thoughts about privilege and precarity as complex factors that determine who gets to speak out, stop and take a moment to wonder about those argts if a bunch of marginalized and multiply marginalized PhD students have to step up and put our necks on the line

(I once had to explain the burned bridges thing to Judith Butler; I have not to my knowledge burned any bridges with Judith Butler, but anything is possible.

This whole thing was much less edited than would be nice but eh)