I argued about straws so much last year that my husband literally had to talk me down and ask me to stop for my own mental health. But here’s why it bugs me so deeply:

It speaks to a few common underlying themes- one of which is people refusing to do very very basic research and expecting personal education instead of reading any one of the countless pieces by disabled people about this before they presume to argue.

Another- people rarely wait before they start peppering disabled people with personal questions about “why they can’t use X kind of straw” or sending a link to a single product and expecting that to “fix it.”

This belies an underlying presumption that 1) disabled people owe you, personally, info about their bodies and 2) you can find a “solution” in a single Google when the disabled person in question apparently couldn’t in years.

If you’re arrogant enough to presume that, you obviously aren’t coming to the table assuming you and the disabled person in question are equals/peers.

Lastly, it’s all very rooted in the notion that accessibility is 1) a burden, 2) the burden of the individual, 3) not on society to provide/develop accessible, environmentally friendly alternatives *from the beginning*.

Going along with that, people never assume that it’s THEIR responsibility to advocate for accessible/adaptive alternatives. They have to put in, apparently, no effort where they expect others to put in quite a bit.

Anyway it’s never just a straw; if somebody couldn’t find a solution in all this time for their own body you definitely can’t with a two-second search; this is a constellation of awfulness; and please, let’s not have to do this again. But I know we fucking will.