I just nearly fell into my toilet b/c I changed legs & this never goes recorded, so let's talk about it.

First of all know: It was very funny. I was like, "gdammit I don't know how to sit when my leg changes."

I have many kinds of legs. For this convo, I am referring to my Ottobock C-Leg that I generally cover with foam calf and hose and etc. Also fwiw, I'm mainly talking to fellow crip/dis people right now. And I'm especially talking to fellow #Cyborgs

So we have these legs. They make for us. And we can either decide, "Cover that sh*t up b/c your tryborg design is a complete eyesore," in which case we have legs that appear like legs b/c prosthetics & such. OR we can decide, "This cover is worse even then your tryborg design."

I generally cover, which is to say, I pass, b/c the last time I went my-leg-uncovered-aka-their-tryborg-design, I was approached in the long term parking lot of the ATL airport by a man who wanted to give me exactly $1 in exchange for the "good luck" I would bring him

as a disabled person--idk it was very strange & I was definitely very American in the entire thing & he was not & I was like "aaaaa STRANGER DANGER get away from me" but also if you're gonna approach me with money, in exchange for "good luck" I definitely cost more than $1

So after that experience, I was like okaaaaaay, I have to cover again. And I've been covering ever since (approximately 3 years) and the nice thing about covering is my leg is soft and I can sit in lotsa positions and it is comfortable.

But I am also very annoyed, every single night, for about 90 seconds, as I "plug in" my leg to the outlet b/c I have to unvelcro myself in order to connect myself to the outlet and is this due to the legmaker's shitty design? Yes it is.

"90 seconds is not that much time," the morally righteous one is thinking. And: "Ppl are dying." Noted. But 90 secs 365days/year for 20 years is equivalent to AN ENTIRE WEEK where all I do, 24/7, is unvelcro, plug, velcro, unvelcro, plug, velcro, unvelcro, plug, velcro, unvelcro

And this is entirely UNNECESSARY and @AimeeMullins plz tell me if you also spend entirely too much time dealing with your legmakers' bad design ideas?

Yes, I'm getting to the point. So I have gone UNCOVERED again. In part so I can say "f*ck a buncha tryborg covers and outlet placements" and in part b/c I no longer go to the ATL airport nor Anywhere Public so no stranger danger over being my bot-leg

However, my bot-leg (that's a new one, idk if I like that term) is not soft, is made of metal, is not easy to sit down with, is INADEQUATE and where is my plastic surgeon to fix the entire prosthetics industrial complex? we cyborgs would like to give them all a leg job

So I used to think this: "People who cover are from a different generation. They are just not comfortable with exposing their disability b/c we've been taught to HIDE disability" h/t @jaivirdi for her recent talk on how hearing aids have been hidden

But I was wrong to think that. This cover/not cover decision is SUPREMELY NUANCED and whether a cyborg covers (aka passes), or doesn't cover (aka declines to pass), is far more complex than what year she/he/they were born in.

Even the fact that I have access to this decision (a cover, not a cover) speaks to CLASS, for sure, and my whiteness and my facility with medical as a born-disabled person, so I am more apt to say, "I will accept this. I will not accept this" to medical people.

Shifting subjects, to center us, and to quote disabled poet Sylvia Plath's worst poem, "Do not accept it." I am speaking to cyborgs. Do not accept this idea that b/c I cover and you don't, or I hide the device and you don't, we are on separate planes of cyborg-being. We are not.

We are actually much closer than we think. This notion that we are separate, far apart, in conflict, comes from tryborgs. They want us to think that way. Thinking that way reifies their power. "Power abdicates only under the stress of counter-power" #MartinBuber #CyborgRevolt