I wrote a story in which the main character was deaf. I knew very little (probably nothing, actually) about that experience, but I wrote the story anyway, without doing any amount of research. I was around twelve or thirteen years old.

My fic was problematic in that I was writing the character from my uninformed, limited point of view. Essentially I was ill-equipped to write a story about a character who was deaf. I received a handful of reviews, two of which were critical. These reviewers took the time to point out where I'd gone wrong and how my portrayal of the character was potentially offensive and ableist.

Basically, I was made aware that there are some things I cannot write accurately from my able-bodied perspective. It was not easy to hear that I had fucked up, but it was an essential and necessary wake-up call for me. Tlast thing I want is to offend or hurt anyone, and so when someone tells me I've written something problematic I take it very seriously.

The truth of the matter is that I come from a place of privelege. I have experienced prejudice before, whether it was to do with my gender, sexuality, or social class, and they were not pleasant experiences. All the same, I'm still pretty fucking priveleged. It is therefore my responsibility to acknowledge my own privilege and prejudices, at all times, but most especially when it comes to racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism; discrimination in any form.

We all make mistakes. We fuck up, sometimes catastrophically. It's inevitable. But the correct protocol, in such an event, is to apologize, inform ourselves on the error of our ways, and not to do it again.