Today was a historic day for LGBT people as SCOTUS ruled to extend marriage to same-sex couples, and several transgender people born in states like Tennessee and Ohio, unable to marry because of their states refusing to change their gender marker on their birth certificates. I am celebrating for all my friends who now have the right to marry, but I cannot celebrate for myself, because I still cannot get married.
Yeah, this is becoming an issue for me.
The rules for SSI and Medicaid are set so that if you make *almost* enough to get out of poverty, they cut you off, leaving you in poverty. You can’t work or you’ll lose your benefits, but you can’t quite live on your benefits either, and you can’t work enough to make up for it, at all.
Now add in a second person’s income on top of that. They get access to your partner’s bank account records, they monitor their accounts, they count anything either of you makes against you – even money people give you so you can eat because the government doesn’t give you enough to not go hungry. They punish you for money people give you to help you get by. Just … deal with that.
They want us to starve and die young. They honestly do. No lie. And they won’t even stop penalizing us for wanting to be in a legally-recognized relationship with all the safeties that provides, such as those related to access to hospitalized people, those dealing with distribution of property after death, and so on.
It’s not *illegal* for disabled people to get married, but that doesn’t mean disabled people are not *punished* for getting married.
The whole system is fucked, and I honestly despair of it ever improving, or doing so quickly enough to help me.
Some People with Disabilities ARE Prevented from Getting Married and Here’s Why
Holding the Bowl 