Disability is no long a dirty word by Cai Cherry

The first time I heard the word ‘diff-abled’ or ‘differently abled’, it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I couldn’t explain it at the time, however something about the word rubbed me the wrong way.

When I developed a long-term health condition at the age of 18, which manifested itself in both visible and invisible symptoms, I didn’t consider myself at the time ‘disabled’. Of course, under the statutory definition contained in the Equality Act 2010, it wasn’t yet clear if my condition would last more than the required 12 months. However, four years later, it obviously has, and has been diagnosed as a life-long condition. Under statute, I am disabled.

The first thing I had to learn was how to navigate the world as someone with a disability. People used my disability as a conversation-starter, with people I had never spoken to before at university finally finding a reason to talk to me. People used my disability as a sales device, with one person telling me that paintballing would ‘heal my leg’. People used my disability as a method of subjecting me to their beliefs and their ideas, with strangers who had no medical qualifications at all advising me to eat raw vegetables for three months or pray to their gods for healing.

I’ve never been the best at making small talk with strangers, however it occurred to me at the time how uncommonly rude it was to ask me, or demand that I tell you, about one of the most traumatic events in my life. Of course, I would then be blamed for ‘reacting badly’ to people with good intentions, and, naturally, the people with good intentions can be hardest to please.

We have heard of ‘white fragility’, defined as “discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice,” and the fragility of abled people is a similar phenomenon. When people with good intentions do things they perceive to help disabled people, such as pushing someone’s wheelchair without permission, or asking about a diagnosis as a conversation starter, it can be hard for them to see how what they are doing is harmful.

Wider society has taught us that disabled people are to be pitied, to be recipients of charity, and to be impotent in the face of challenges. As victims, disabled people should be thankful for whatever help they receive from the kindness of strangers, even if that help is simply someone taking an interest in us and, contrary to what they have been taught, not ignoring us. But by centring our disability as the only reason we are worthy of your attention is just as ableist as ignoring a disabled person entirely. You are still only seeing one facet of our identity and denying our whole personhood.

So, why did ‘differently abled’ give me bad vibes?

The answer is that it centres the conversation of disability inclusion and progress around mere words; is it more inclusive to describe someone as ‘disabled’, ‘diffabled’, ‘handicapped’, ‘the holder of a long-term health condition, etc? More importantly, by describing someone as differently abled, you are erasing an important part of the disability rights movement – everyone has different abilities, and therefore by describing someone as ‘diffabled’, people with disabilities have what makes them different, what makes them part of a community, erased. It would be the same if you added ‘straight’ to the LGBTQIA+ acronym; by including everyone, it returns to the status quo and gives the appearance of equality simply by ignoring inequality.

People with disabilities are disabled, by definition. They have health conditions that impair them from full integration into society. I am disabled because I have a long-term health condition – I am differently abled because I am better at history than I am at art. You get the picture.

In addition, by ignoring ‘dis’-abilities, you also ignore the need for reasonable adjustments to allow for inclusion. The adjustments people need to enable them to participate as fully as possible in society are varied; from ramps and rest periods, to captioning on videos, however disabled people do require these adjustments. Differently abled people require no such adjustments, and statute does not provide for them, because it does not matter to society if I am good at history or art, and therefore this will not hamper my inclusion.

The barriers put in place for disabled people to prevent their inclusion in society, from underfunded benefits to inaccessible buildings, are what disabled people require reasonable adjustments to be made to in order to allow them to overcome these barriers. By treating ‘disability’ like a dirty word, you simply erase the need to focus on how disabled people are excluded. By focussing on linguistic turns of phrase, the abled-bodied people focus once again on the disability, and how to treat it like it doesn’t exist, rather than dealing with the systemic barriers to inclusion from which disabled people suffer.

Disability isn’t a dirty word. By telling people what words to use you insinuate that the disabled community is incapable of making their own reasoned choices as to terminology. By focussing on the words you are using, you scrape at the surface of ableism, and forget to dig deeper and confront the actual issues.

I am disabled. I am proud. I am not a dirty word.

At the MyPlus Annual Reception 2022, Cai was presented with The Best Disability Speaker / Advocate Award.