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Peter Torres Fremlin

@desibility.bsky.social
1.7K followers 635 following 320 posts

Covering world news with a disability lens. I love languages, questions and places I've lived 🇬🇧🇧🇷🇧🇩🇪🇬 Writing Disability Debrief: www.disabilitydebrief.org/signup

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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
“As a young autistic woman, how can I figure out if someone is using me or if they are genuine? I don’t want to go around being bitter and not trusting anyone.” A new disability advice column by @teawithhb.com. Dear HB: an agony aunt in constant agony. www.disabilitydebrief.org/debrief/am-i...
An illustration of a woman holding a tray as two others reach over and take from it. The woman is wearing blue, and the tray has a glass of lemon water and a chocolate bar. The two others are wearing red, with blue smiling masks covering their faces. One has a straw to sip the drink of the woman.
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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
"I teach my students to be bold warriors against any mistreatment, to find their own place in our culture. But I'm not able to do that in my own case." www.disabilitydebrief.org/debrief/root...
Illustration of a magical scene of a woman and child sitting across from a table from each other. They are Black, and sit with hands outstretched towards each other but not meeting. On the ground, there are large cracks appearing, broken chains, and a knife. They are framed by growing plants and sparkling stars, and outside of that, by healing beads that are breaking apart.
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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
On the fruits and flaws of disability community: "You can’t pick palm nuts without your hands getting oily". Alexander Ogheneruemu writes about Deaf community in Nigeria, how it liberated him and others at the same time as its challenges and corruption. www.disabilitydebrief.org/debrief/pick...
Digital illustration close-up on person making a sign with their hands, one of which holds a nut and is stained in oil. The person, who is black, touches their fingers together, one palm on top of another, forming a triangular shape. Their shirt is also stained.
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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
“I'm honoured to be your ancestor”: remembering Alice Wong in her own words. Alice's writing changed the way I see myself and our future. Here are the ones that touched me most: www.disabilitydebrief.org/debrief/hono...
A digital illustration of Alice Wong, an Asian American woman in her early fifties, with a ginger cat curled up in her lap. Alice is looking directly at us and smiling with her mouth closed and a serene, thoughtful expression. Her hair is tied up, and she wears her signature dark red lipstick and a blue sweater. She sits in a wheelchair with a head rest, and is connected to a long ventilator tube through a tracheostomy. The background is coloured with a light blue wash of watercolour and signed by Kinanty Andini.
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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
This photo from a protest in London last week summarises the fight disabled people are caught in around the world. See how disabled people are resisting, and what's coming for us. All this and more in curated news from 35 countries: www.disabilitydebrief.org/debrief/but-...
A photo of a young white person who wears a facemask holding a sign above their head that reads "Money to kill but no money to live". The sign shows both a hand-drawn rocket and a blue wheelchair symbol. In the background, other protestors hold banners and signs of their own.
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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Choosing the right assistive technology is complicated, and at first we might refuse. But if we find the right aid, it can set us free. Today's Debrief is written and illustrated from Indonesia, by Ida Putri and Kinanty Andini: www.disabilitydebrief.org/debrief/good...
A digital illustration imitating a video game interface, where a short-statured woman selects a pink wheelchair from a menu of assistive technology, against a background of two mountains and a sunset. The woman has short black hair, and back turned to the viewer. The menu is titled "choose you companion" and shows options of an electric wheelchair, a manual pink wheelchair, crutches and a walker. It has a background with a batik pattern, and a sub-menu shows a motorcycle, rickshaw and horse-drawn cart. Signed, Kinanty Andini.
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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
“We have a right to be angry” – protestors on the 20th anniversary of France's disability law. All this more from around the world in today's Debrief, covering disability news from 45+ countries: www.disabilitydebrief.org/debrief/righ... Photo by Matthieu Delaty/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images.
Two people in a group of protestors, holding signs in French. A white man with a beard sitting in a wheelchair holds a sign saying "Votre inaction c'est notre marginalisation". Next to him a white woman standing with a sign saying "Je n'ai pas honte de mon handicap, cést exclusion la honte."
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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
“I wish we practiced ‘inclusion’ differently. I no longer want my students to be included as a favour or out of pity. I no longer want them to be included if it means they need to change themselves to fit in. It is not inclusion if you have to walk on eggshells and always fear being excluded.”
Illustration of a window onto a classroom with a group of Black children rigidly studying, and others on the outside noisy and restless. Inside the classroom the students lean over their books and the blackboard has "inclusive education" written on it. Outside the children look noisy and climb as if into the class from a bench and the window pane. A bee flies around them.
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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
beautiful, well done Flo! Reminds me of this: disabilityclimatechange.georgetown.domains/bracing-agai...
Screenshot of text reading:

Julia:  I’m curious about how your disability shapes the way you interact with the land?  How it shapes what you see, or where you go?

Naomi:  As a disabled person, I’m always at the cusp of city and wild space. For example, if  there’s a really rocky, pretty tough hiking trail, but it has a nice parking lot, I’ll go to the parking lot, wedge my vehicle in the corner of the parking lot, and then I’ll set up my chair in the corner so it’s right on that threshold.  

It’s definitely desert. But there’s going to be trash there from people who were partying.  There’s going to be water bottles and energy bar wrappers. 

I’m there, watching this beautiful interdependent patch of land, watching the animals interact.  A Harris’ antelope ground squirrel will come pick a cholla bud, tuck it in its cheek, then go back into its burrow, and I’m watching the spiders and ants and all these creatures that are there. But I can’t just be with those things. I’m also with the man-made aspects of the space too.
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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
My lesson from 2024? More is possible than we first imagine. This piece is my personal and political reflections from the year - my long breakup with walking, one of the ways a Trump Presidency will limit my freedom, and the uninvited guest, generative AI. www.disabilitydebrief.org/debrief/long...
A digital illustration of showing Peter, in an electric wheelchair, going through scenes of 2024. People gather around a large monitor, a train comes out of a tunnel, a ballot box with flags floats in a flood, and explosions mark the background. Ahead of Peter is a sign pointing towards 2025 and a cliff-edge.
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Peter Torres Fremlin @desibility.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
I make a newsletter on international disability news and I need your help. The two biggest challenges for a project like this are visibility and financing. Please share, to help others find it. And if you're comfortable, it runs on pay-what-you-can. www.disabilitydebrief.org/debrief/open...
Photo of Peter, a white man nearly 40, sitting in wheelchair and engaging smile. He works on a laptop, and wears a green hoody with a disabled-gingerbreadman theme. He has short dark curly hair, glasses and a trimmed beard.
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