Title: Adapt and Resist: Spoons, Unicorns and Rainbows

Abstract: We live in a time when ideologies that are dear to our hearts are being challenged. We live in a time where important words that give us visibility are banned by executive order. This talk responds to that, how do we continue to fight the good fight when we cannot talk about ourselves, which in turn limits our ability to fund our research? We adapt and resist. One strategy is to look critically (and we can still say that) at policy and follow the letter but not the spirit of the law. There were omissions–we can still talk about neurodivergence, ableism, intersectionality, First People, Black people, Brown people and Queer people. Just as we borrow foreign terms like dasein, vorhanden, zuhanden in our critical theory,  we can borrow terms like Behinderung or LSBTTIQ. We can use metaphors like spoons and unicorns, and speak of a rainbow coalition. This talk is not just about words, it is about strategy.  How do we continue to fight for our principles and do good research when the political establishment is curtailing our free speech?  This talk will discuss the historical strategies of other protest movements and scientific communities that have come under political threat.  It will distill those lessons for our community.  Just as this talk’s abstract engages in doublespeak and obfuscation to talk about the issues at hand while following governmental policy, we will learn other strategies—we will overcome.