PSA: Because I wanted to put it out there in its own post.

Note: I will be using the general “you” in this mini-rant.

Just because you know someone who has a chronic condition or other serious, life-threatening and/or life altering disease, it does not give you a free pass to make jokes about it. Especially when these “jokes” promote ignorance and misinformation about the condition/disease.

If the person/people that you know personally make jokes about their condition, that is okay for them to do; it is their condition. They live with it day in and day out.

If the person/people that you know personally allow you to join in in making these jokes, that is okay for you to do around them. Because they have given you that permission.

There are probably a lot of other people in the world who have the same disease/condition that people you know who have given you permission to joke about their condition with them have. These people that you do not know have not given you permission to joke about their condition/disease. There is a good chance that they might find your “jokes” offensive, harmful, and/or ignorant. It is not their problem if your “jokes” offend them. It’s yours.

Just because someone you know personally is okay with it does not give you a “Get Out of Being Called Out for Doing Something Ignorant, Harmful, Hurtful, and Offensive Free” card. It just doesn’t work that way. And “I’m sorry you were offended” is NOT an apology; it’s an insult, really. Because you are saying, with that fauxpology, that what you said is not offensive (with the implication that no one should ever find it offensive, because it’s “just a joke,” right?) when it’s pretty damn clear that yes, yes it was offensive. And it will probably make the person you offended think even less of you as a human being.

This should not be as hard to understand as it clearly is.