If you are oppressed, then you face ableism. It?s that simple.

You?re probably not used to this concept at all, so I?ll explain(1). Bear with me, because this is quite important whether you know it yet or not.

From my perspective, there?s two main ways that oppressions collide with each other. One is horizontal. One is what I?d call vertical or embedded. This post is about vertical or embedded oppression, which very few people discuss. Horizontal oppression, on the other hand, is very fashionable to dissect in detail at the moment, and I?ll leave that to the people who are much better at it than I am.

Horizontal oppression works more or less like this: Sexism and homophobia can go together because lesbians exist, who are both gay and female. Racism and transphobia go together because there are trans people of color. Etc. The connection is a side-to-side…