10/23/25 - Social Security, masking, and horror tropes

Good afternoon!

Sorry about missing yesterday. I got overwhelmed with mundane but unmissable chores. I guess the theme today is various forms of horror ...

The Trump Administration’s Plans To Covertly Cut Social Security Disability Benefits

Molly Weston Williamson and Mia Ives Rublee, Center for American Progress - October 14, 2025

"In particular, according to published reports, the forthcoming regulations would likely change the way claimants’ age is taken into account, making it harder for older claimants to qualify. A similar suite of changes was nearly proposed in the first Trump administration. The Wall Street Journal, which obtained a copy of the draft rule in 2020, noted that the draft’s proposals would “no longer assume age seriously affects a person’s ability to adapt to simple, entry-level work” and “raise the age at which education and work experience are considered in determining eligibility to 55, from 50.””

This is frightening to me. I am a somewhat older American who does depend on Social Security Disability for a good chunk of my monthly income. When I read about this plan I can't help thinking, "What would this mean for me?" – an essentially selfish response. Having already qualified for SSDI, would I be okay? Or, would they apply new, more restrictive standards at my next medical re-certification? So, this tactic for cutting this particular "entitlement" is also divisive, maybe at least partly on purpose. It pits subsets of Social Security Disability recipients against each other – not to mention against people who use other benefits, like Supplemental Security Income and Veterans Disability benefits. This, in turn, makes it less likely for all of us to fight cuts like this together.

How to Make Disability Masking Unnecessary

Kelly Mack, Rolling with It - October 16, 2025

"The question that I’m now asking after contemplating disability masking, the reasons for it, and the costs to the individual is: what would society look like to make masking unnecessary? What would I require to safely put down the mask and just be my true, disabled self?”

We try to "mask" our own disabilities – either hide them entirely or minimize them – in part because the persistence of ableism continues to make us feel like we have to. There's almost always some internal shame involved too of course. But even that comes as much from that everyday fog of ableism that we all swim in. The solutions in this post aren't new. But that's appropriate. After all, ableism itself is so very old, and depressingly consistent over the decades.

The uneasy history of horror films and disability

Gwyneth Peaty and Katie Ellis, The Conversation - October 21, 2025

"Many disabled people are huge fans of horror. The goal of critique is not to destroy monsters, or erase the horror genre, but to reduce its narrative dependence on ableism.”

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday. But I do like a good horror movie or monster-themed TV show. And I'm afraid I even have guilty, nostalgic affection for deformed and disabled Bond villains. But October is a doubly good time to at least remind ourselves that equating disability with horror or villainy is not great. And many disabled people really can trace their direct experience of truly scalding ableism to the way disabled people have been portrayed in pop culture horror.

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