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

by Emily Ladau

One billion. More than one billion people around the world are disabled. In fact, we’re the world’s largest minority.

If the disability community wants a world that’s accessible to us, then we must make ideas and experiences of disability accessible to the world.

So it’s important to remember that if you’ve met one disabled person, you’ve met one disabled person. And if you have a disability, then the only disability experience you’re an expert on is your own.

Disability is not a brave struggle or courage in the face of adversity. Disability is an art. It’s an ingenious way to live. — Neil Marcus, actor and playwright

After years of existing in this body of mine, my definition is Disability: a state of being; a natural part of the human experience.

Disability is not just a physical diagnosis, but a lived experience in which parameters and barriers are placed upon our lives because of that diagnosis.”

it’s important to think about how we talk about disability, because the way we talk shapes how we think, and the way we think shapes how we talk.

Identity-first language (IFL) is all about acknowledging disability as part of what makes a person who they are. So when using IFL you might say “disabled person” or “blind person” or “Autistic people.” In this case, disability isn’t just a description or diagnosis; it’s an identity that connects people to a community, a culture, and a history.

One of the simplest ways to avoid incorrectly using IFL is to default to PFL until and unless you’re informed otherwise.

‘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.”

Disability must be considered within an intersectional framework because it cuts across political, social, and cultural narratives and identities. An intersectional lens challenges the historically white, cisgender, heterosexual understanding of disability to more accurately reflect the narratives as told by lived experiences of disabled people. — Sandy Ho, community organizer

D’Arcee Neal rightly pointed out to me, “being part of one marginalized community doesn’t absolve you from understanding discrimination toward marginalized people whose experiences are different than your own.”

The social model emerged as a response to the incomplete perspective of the medical model. According to the social model, people are disabled not by medical conditions but by environments, attitudes, and systems that create barriers.

As “invisibles,” our history is hidden from us, our heroes buried in the pages, unnamed, unrecognized. Disability culture is about naming, about recognizing. — Cheryl Marie Wade, “Disability Culture Rap”

Disability Justice is a framework that both builds on and diverges from disability rights, centering marginalized disabled people who are so often left behind in broader conversations about disability rights.

Jim Sinclair that broke early ground for the neurodiversity movement, Sinclair lamented, “The tragedy is not that we’re here, but that your world has no place for us to be.”

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

“Ableism is attitudes, actions, and circumstances that devalue people because they are disabled or perceived as having a disability.”

Dominick Evans, who tweeted: “I don’t personally like dismissing people for being ableist. It’s embedded in our culture, and I had to learn to be better, so how can I expect nondisabled people to know how to be better? What gets me is when people learn the harm they’ve caused, and double down about it.”

Overthinking is one enemy of disability etiquette, but so is making assumptions about what a person wants and needs. Of course disabled people want to be treated like everyone else, but when we say that, we don’t mean “treat every person exactly the same.” We mean “recognize our humanity and meet us where we’re at.” — Kyle Khachadurian, cohost, The Accessible Stall podcast

Indeed, the history of disabled people in the Western world is in part the history of being on display, of being visually conspicuous while being politically and socially erased. — Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, professor of English and bioethics

We’re not bitter, though; we just have the audacity to believe that disabled lives are worth living.