Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally

by Emily Ladau

There’s one thing we should address right away—we need to stop using the word handicapped. It’s an outdated term that’s fallen out of favor with most disabled people, and, quite frankly, it makes my skin crawl.

Talking about a person? “Disability” is better than “handicap.” Pointing out a parking spot with the blue lines? It’s “accessible” parking.

Certainly, there are people with disabilities who prefer not to be identified by their disabilities, but in my case, hearing such things makes me feel as if a whole facet of my existence is simply being erased.

It is a language-based reminder that people with disabilities deserve to have their humanity fully recognized, just like everyone else.

the terms “confined to a wheelchair” and “wheelchair-bound.” I can’t tell you how many articles I read that have otherwise good points about disability but then refer to wheelchair users as confined to their mobility equipment. I’m not confined or bound to my wheelchair. It’s literally designed to enable me to move.

So you can imagine I might get a little salty when people use euphemisms (terms used to soften something deemed unpleasant, harsh, or offensive) for disabled or disability.

You’ve definitely heard examples of these before—terms such as physically challenged or special needs.

After all, avoiding the use of disabled to refer to me won’t make me any less so. Neither will changing the way the word is written to disAbled or disAbility, as I’ve seen many people do in an attempt to downplay the actual meaning.

“Diff-ability”? “Other-abled”? “People of special abilities”? I’ve heard them all. I wish people would stop doing this and just call me what I am.

While euphemisms for disability are generally intended to be well-meaning, they usually fall flat. Here are the most common ones.

Differently abled

Handi-capable

Mentally or physically challenged

Special needs

Placing this label on me isn’t a compliment. It wrongly pits me against people whose disabilities impact their writing and speaking abilities, holding me up as somehow superior to them.

Noor Pervez, an Autistic activist, further explained to me why functioning labels are both inaccurate and harmful. “ ‘Low functioning’ is used to deny agency to disabled people who have high support needs,” he states, “while ‘high functioning’ is used to deny resources to people who can mask their disability well. Any person’s support needs can shift from year to year, or even day to day, making ‘functioning’ a flawed concept.”

Words have histories connected to stigmatizing disability. Some were once considered acceptable terms, and others have always had derogatory connotations.

Words such as these were historically used to refer to people with disabilities, often as official diagnoses for people who were housed in institutions.

Not only are they outdated; they’re hurtful and offensive. And there are plenty of alternatives.

It’s easy to fall back on using disability as a metaphor, but it’s just as easy to avoid.

She’s so bipolar. They’re acting Autistic. Quit being so OCD. These are cheap shots that use actual diagnoses to be derogatory, and that’s just not okay. When we use disabilities in this negative way, we’re perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

Say This ✓has a disability ✓is disabled Not This ×afflicted by ×suffers from ×victim of

Staying alive is a lot of work for a disabled person in an ableist society. — Alice Wong, editor of Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century

So here’s the definition I use. “Ableism is attitudes, actions, and circumstances that devalue people because they are disabled or perceived as having a disability.”

Often it’s glaringly obvious, but in many cases it’s so insidious that it’s hard to articulate exactly why something is ableist.

To most of society, ableist beliefs and behavior don’t raise any red flags because they’re woven into the fabric of everyday life, simply accepted as the

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Fighting back against ableism in its many iterations feels like playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole—smack down one instance and it won’t be long before another one pops up. It can be exhausting to try to stop such a vicious cycle.

Such treatment is rampant toward people with developmental disabilities, including intellectual disabilities, Autism, and other disabilities that affect communication or thinking,

Ableist words are so embedded in society’s vocabulary and mindset that avoiding them and actively remembering to use alternatives needs to be an ongoing process. To apply this idea more broadly to dismantling ableism, remember: Being an ally needs to be an ongoing process.

I know that trying to wrap your mind around the complexities of disability is no simple task, especially because society is brimming with injustices and so much in need of change. I’ve definitely had moments of grappling with whether pushing ahead is worth it when ableism is so strongly and deeply interwoven into the fabric of our society.