At the Intersection of Self Advocacy, Representation, and Inspiration Porn
Madeline Stuart, Model credit Twitter With a heavy heart, I am watching as the story of Madeline Stuart, of Brisbane, Australia goes viral in entirely the wrong way . Madeline, a Down Syndrome self advocate, wanted to make the kind of breakthough impact child model Valentina Guerrero and actors Pascal Duquenne and Lauren Potter have made in representation for her community globally. She wanted to be taken seriously as a model. She made the decision to train and be as fit as she could and a year later, she reached her goal and got a model shoot. This was an amazing thing to accomplish and it shows the kind of iron will I've seen again and again in the neurodivergent community. Here's the problem. Beyond the usual "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" style inspiration porn generated by Maddy's success, her before and after photographs are being used in the worst possible way to promote fat shaming of her peers, to impose the myth of indistinguishability, a...