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Was just fully denied the right to travel today at Liverpool St Stn, on any train, because Network Rail staff collectively refused to deploy a ramp for me. Why? One of them claimed I was “rude” for telling him I didn’t need the lecture he was giving me on why they’d failed to …

bring the ramp in time for me to board my train several minutes before. He was telling me that I was a lower priority than those who booked assistance in advance. Very abled-mansplaining. As I work in accessible transport, I firmly but politely told him that I know the law…

& did not need a lecture. He continued on and I repeated myself and said I was just looking to the next train since they’d failed to bring the ramp for the original one. He then said I was rude and that he would not be assisting me. I said okay. Several minutes later, another…

staff member (who I assume was a manager) came over to tell me that I was rude and so the staff member would not assist me. I told her I didn’t not believe I was, I simply asked him not to lecture me, but okay. She left and came back to tell me that I would not be given …

Ramp assistance by any staff due to one’s accusation that I was “rude.” I do not believe I was rude — I believe this able bodied man did not enjoy a young disabled woman speaking assertively back to him in the same tone he was using. And regardless, “rudeness” is not the …

The fact is, disabled people reacting with anything other than gratefulness & deference for being granted basic human dignity is often perceived as rudeness. And the power nondisabled people have over our lives to enforce that dynamic is extraordinary. No trains for me today.