{"id":6002,"date":"2024-11-21T15:02:49","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T15:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/?p=6002"},"modified":"2024-11-21T15:02:49","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T15:02:49","slug":"a-girl-with-a-hidden-disability-didnt-give-up-her-seat-to-an-elderly-woman-and-now-feels-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/a-girl-with-a-hidden-disability-didnt-give-up-her-seat-to-an-elderly-woman-and-now-feels-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"A Girl With a Hidden Disability Didn\u2019t Give Up Her Seat to an Elderly Woman and Now Feels Guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Public transportation often causes arguments, especially about who should give up their seat.<br>Recently, a story went viral about an elderly woman demanding a girl with a prosthetic leg to give up her seat, saying she wasn\u2019t \u201cdisabled enough.\u201d\n\n\n\n</p><h1 class='\"wp-block-heading\"'><strong>Here\u2019s what happened.\n\n\n\n<p>The girl explained: \u201cA few years ago, I lost my left leg in an accident. I\u2019ve been using a prosthetic leg since then.\n\n\n\n</p><p>It\u2019s a really advanced one, so when I wear long pants, it just looks like I have two normal legs. I usually wear long pants because I feel uncomfortable showing my prosthetic.\n\n\n\n</p><p>Now, I can do most things, like walking, running, and going upstairs.\n\n\n\n</p><p>My main problem is keeping my balance on trains and buses when they move suddenly, which brings me to this story.\n\n\n\n</p><p>\u201cI was on the train and sitting in a seat reserved for disabled, elderly, and pregnant people.\n\n\n\n</p><p>It was crowded, so no other seats were free. After a few stops, a woman told me to move because she needed the seat, and I shouldn\u2019t be sitting there.\n\n\n\n</p><p>I told her I was sorry, but I needed the seat too. She got mad and said I should get up because the seat was for elderly people, and I was just a lazy kid who could stand.<br>\n\n\n\n</p><p>\u201cI apologized again and said I really needed the seat. She left and brought back the train conductor, who also told me to move.\n\n\n\n</p><p>At this point, I was tired of being treated this way, so I rolled up my pant leg, showed my prosthetic, and told them I wasn\u2019t moving.\n\n\n\n</p><p>The woman turned red and mumbled something before getting off at the next station.\n\n\n\n</p><p>Did I handle it wrong? I could\u2019ve said I had a prosthetic right away, but it\u2019s a sensitive topic for me, and it makes me feel really self-conscious. That\u2019s why I always wear long pants, so no one sees or knows.\n\n\n\n</p><p>Turns out, many disabled people face the same issue when in public places. Here are some of the responses the girl got:<br>My husband had a disability that when he\u2019s sitting down he looks normal. Stand up with 2 crutches and you can see what\u2019s wrong.\n\n\n\n</p><p>He had been insulted parking in disabled parking, on trains sitting in the priority seats for the elderly and disabled.<br>All he has to do is stand up and they always either say sorry or mumble and walk away. It\u2019s bad that you have to prove you are disabled before cantankerous fools believe you.\n\n\n\n</p><p>I\u2019ve had multiple surgeries on my legs and ankles and if I haven\u2019t been walking recently, then it doesn\u2019t look like I\u2019m disabled at all because they don\u2019t hurt. When I go grocery shopping, and I\u2019m standing up for a long I start limping really bad, and I\u2019m in severe pain so parking and going into the store I don\u2019t look disabled at all. I have been insulted so much for parking handicap spots.\n\n\n\n</p><p>It\u2019s sad that people double down and get defensive when they\u2019re caught out or embarrassed when they could much more easily say \u201coh my, so sorry to have bothered you!\u201d and move on.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"</p><div class='\"mh-excerpt\"'><p>Public transportation often causes arguments, especially about who should give up their seat.Recently, a story went viral about an elderly woman demanding a girl with <a class='\"mh-excerpt-more\"' href="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/sciencesandnatures.com%5C/a-girl-with-a-hidden-disability-didnt-give-up-her-seat-to-an-elderly-woman-and-now-feels-guilty%5C/%5C%22" title='\"A' girl with a hidden disability didn give up her seat to an elderly woman and now feels guilty>[&hellip;]\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6004,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6002\/revisions\/6004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}</a></p></div></strong></h1>