Disabled Chess Players out there?

Sorry

But you can send me friend request

Let's make Chess.com the most accessible site to play chess!

It would be interesting to build an online chess club for people with all sorts of disabilities. I have brutal ADHD and some other cognitive issues including brain damage (too much moshing lol) and chess has been incredibly therapeutic for me, but of course it's also frustrating because some days I'm a lot foggier and play much worse for seemingly no reason. Having a community of sympathetic players could be a really cool idea. Chesscom has some sort of clubs feature doesn't it? Or maybe I should start a discord? Hmmm

I'm Autistic

Aight, I've looked into it a bit, and I think there's definitely a need for a community centered around disabled/ND chess players, especially since chess is blowing up right now and especially since the playerbase can be a little harsh on newcomers (particularly those in marginalized communities). And from what I see, there isn't really much out there in terms of online spaces to facilitate discourse and support among players like us.

So I started a Discord server! It'll probably be really slow to build up, but I think it's an important thing to establish no matter how minimally it gets used for a while. Mainly I want to create somewhere welcoming to disabled/ND/etc players, and also as a premed/public health nerd, I'm really excited about the potential of a community like this to exchange and collect insight into the medical therapeutic effects of chess (I know it's been monumental for me; I've significantly reduced my dependency on meds and greatly improved my executive function just from several months of regular play!) If we get enough of a userbase going, we may even be in a position to implement surveys and get great data that could encourage more formal medical research into chess!

Permanent invite link to the AcCHESSible server: https://discord.gg/ARbqJNZNDa

Hope to see some of you there!

I spaced clicking through and actually reading your blog when I visited this thread previously. But now I've read it, and although there's no shortage of people already pointing this out, I gotta say it again -- STELLAR post! You really broke down a lot of important issues and, most importantly, gave phenomenally actionable, specific, well-organized input on how they can and should be addressed.

I'm curious -- what, if any, improvements have you noticed in chesscom's setup since you published that blog? What is the current state of online chess accessibility in your opinion?

My public-health-nerd locus is chronic trauma populations (mainly the unhoused and those with cognitive/behavioral/emotional illness including addiction, which I mostly approach from the perspective of a clinical med geek and medical communicator) ... so although I'm useful for some disability-related topics, I'm actually quite ignorant about the current physical-and-sensory-disabilities advocacy scene and tech/tools/etc for such populations. (I'm unhoused myself so I live under a bit of a rock when it comes to anything outside my pet issues lol.)

Anyway, I followed you (first time I've followed someone on here! I don't really know what it implies but I did it!) and I'm excited to learn more ongoingly from your insights! Looking forward to hearing anything you want to add about how things have or haven't changed and any new issues you've recognized!

many people call themselves autistic to feel special, but kudos to the real disabled people that play chess

you are strongly implying people on the spectrum are not disabled.

Michael Aigner is a legend in american chess.

where does it say that?

Who made you the all-knowing authority on others' motivations? What a gross, presumptuous, judgmental, belittling thing to say. If you can't conceive of a reason why people would self-label other than wanting "to feel special" then that's an unfortunate limitation, and solely your problem. It doesn't mean anything legitimate about anyone else. It just reflects traits that lie within you.

As someone who's also autistic and was formally diagnosed as a child (not that this is required for anyone to have an educated opinion on this issue), and also (more importantly) as someone who's deeply involved in public health work particularly involving chronic trauma populations (including the disabled), I can say firmly with both firsthand perspective and objective evidence that gatekeeping about diagnostic labels causes FAR more harm than is caused by people self-diagnosing.

So, as I believe the kids say these days ... cope.

As a person on the spectrum I've never seen someone claiming to be autistic to get attention. Most people I see on a daily basis don't even know I am.

Is this an American thing?

I'm decently sure that they were angling at the notion that "true" autistic people are legitimately disabled, and gatekeeping about "true" autism (which is still ignorant harmful rhetoric, ofc), rather than gatekeeping autistic people from the "disabled" label. Still a problem, but a different one, if I'm reading them correctly.

Semi-tangential semi-rant:

There are those out there who are autistic and don't want it to be called a disability, of course. To those people, I'd say that it's fine for them to refuse the "disabled" label for themselves if they want to ... but I'd argue that they should consider that they're very fortunate to be able to even have such debates, whereas people like my older brother (nonverbal, in lifelong care) are by nature excluded from piping up about the issue.

(Same goes for people in the "how dare anyone research cures" culture ... nobody should ever be pressured into utilizing any therapies they don't want to, period, I'll defend that to my literal death! But once again, people trying to fight against therapeutic research are failing to consider the autonomy of people who don't have the privilege of participating in such conversations. RRRGH.)

People who claim disability labels for attention (which is still an attempt to meet a need or perceived need, just with extra steps, I have opinions) are essentially statistically insignificant. The phenomenon of people "trying on" different labels/social constructs, as part of figuring out who they really are, is anything but new -- it's just fairly new that this process includes so much "trying on" of medical labels, since neuroscience/psychology has become such a mainstream topic of conversation in the last couple of decades.

That said ... mocking and deriding people who proclaim any sort of marginalized identity, and making up nasty judgments about those people's supposed motivations, certainly seems to be a long-established USian tradition lol (sigh)

Oh dope! I'd never heard of this guy, and googling him led me to discover that there's an online olympiad for people with disabilities, which is probably not news to most people here but it was to me haha. Thanks for the info! I love what he's doing in the scene

yes its an american thing, many people here are kinda wacky and like to pretend they are disabled for clout

and as you see @MonstrousReprobate has gotten mad due to this ¨offending him¨ 

Everyone should look up Joseph Reid of New Zealand. He is the world chess puzzle champion. ***** I have a friend, Jimmy, who is hearing impaired and cannot speak properly. He also plays the fiddle. They advertise his CD's with the line, "Have you heard Jimmy's new album? He hasn't." He gets on stage and plays some of the most weird, incredible music you've ever heard. Does it through feeling the vibrations, I guess. He is also rumored to be a Broadway dance choreographer. ***** John Marino broke his back and went on to become the first person to ride a bicycle across the United States in less than 10 days. ***** Hugh Herr is another person that you should look up. He is the leading expert in the usage of biomechanics. He was one of the top climbers in the world when he had an accident and lost both his legs. He went on to become one of the most incredible climbers ever. ***** There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it. My father always told us that nothing was impossible. Good luck to you all.

I get that your intentions are good, but it's absolutely not okay to tell people they aren't disabled. The term is meaningful and useful to many of us. The fact is, no matter how society adjusts to be more inclusive, there will always be people who struggle to function day-to-day without assistance or special methods of some kind. "Disabled" is not a bad word or insult. For many of us, it's just a fact, and it's part of our identity. Anyone should feel free to reject the label if it doesn't serve them, but for many of us, claiming the label "disabled" is validating and empowering, not limiting.

(Edit: Lol didn't realize I was looking at the first page and answering a way older comment. Oh well)