I’m just going to leave this here. Title is a bit clickbait-y, but it’s a good video. https://youtu.be/DNE0sy7mR5g

But… the person you’re replying to didn’t say you don’t need to use a wheelchair. They said that if someone genuinely doesn’t need to use a wheelchair, using one will likely have negative effects. Which is just, like, true? In my head, it’s roughly akin to saying, “If you consistently take a medication you don’t need, you’re probably going to wind up needing a different medication to counteract the negative effects of the medication you unwisely took.”

You’re completely right that wheelchairs are liberation tools and shouldn’t be vilified. And as someone who needs medical intervention to survive, I understand your frustration with ableist rhetoric. I just think your reading of this one is a bit off the mark.

But if you start consistently using a wheelchair when there is no physical reason for you to use one, will your muscles not atrophy, thereby making you need it?

I don’t think this metaphor is inherently ableist. That wheelchairs aren’t being pushed onto anyone isn’t really relevant, nor is the fact that very few people fake needing a wheelchair. I don’t think the person you replied to was shaming anyone for “faking it.” Just saying that if you don’t need a wheelchair, it’s probably a bad idea to use one.

Damn, that’s a good metaphor. Gonna steal that for myself.

As a writer myself, I find this rather depressing. I use parallel sentence structure, group things in threes, use unusual-but-accurate words, and come up with my own metaphors because those are good ways to make your point. I’m also inclined to restate and overclarify things to minimize the chance of being misunderstood. I hate the idea of my writing being mistaken for AI slop. At least I type my em-dashes as --, which LLMs don’t do.

Personally, I use the em-dash a lot, but I just type it as --.