Crip Language

Who do we list as 'disabled' and what are the implications of that? When we separate out Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people, do we lose the expansive community that 'disabled' can hold?

Image: Jamie Hale in Quality of Life is Not a Measurable Outcome by Shona Louise Photography

Recently, instead of the word ‘disabled’, people seem to have switched quite consistently to saying ‘deaf, disabled, and neurodivergent people’. This creates a list of groups, implying that they are discrete - that deaf people, disabled people, and neurodivergent people are separate groups, and that deaf and neurodivergent people do not face disableism.

Opening up the disability umbrella

For me, that misses the point. The purpose of the word ‘disabled’ is to welcome everyone who faces disabling barriers. I sometimes encounter in neurodivergent spaces a sense that to be disabled is bad and to be neurodivergent is good; that it is an advantage or a superpower rather than a disability. In my view, neurodivergent people are completely part of and welcome under the disabled umbrella.

The same is true for deaf people. Living in a society designed for hearing people, deaf people face additional disabling barriers and are therefore considered under the disabled umbrella. I say this, by the way, as someone with moderate to severe deafness - however you choose to describe it. I tend to describe myself as hard of hearing, and I am also neurodivergent, as well as being somebody who has a physical impairment.

I would never expect someone to use language to talk about themselves that they weren’t comfortable with. I use all three of those categories for myself at different times, where they are the most appropriate way of describing my experience, and I use many other words as well. However, when I am talking about a community, the reason I use the word ‘disabled’ is because we all share that experience of disabling barriers, and it feels disingenuous to list people otherwise.

Should I also be listing chronically ill people, blind and visually impaired people, wheelchair users, people with fluctuating conditions, or people with mental health conditions and Mad people separately from ‘disabled people’?

Every group has a reason to speak of their unique cultural position and the unique experience of their oppression, and many groups have reason to either say that without being listed they are not welcome under the umbrella, or that they don’t fit under the umbrella and so should be listed separately, the way deaf and neurodivergent people sometimes are. I do not see how that leads to better cohesion, nor how it leads to a stronger shared identity and solidarity between us. The word ‘disabled’ should be able to contain the multitudes that we are, and our different experiences of barriers, cultures, and oppression, without fraying at the seams.

Disability solidarity

With the way I use the word ‘disabled’, I’m not saying anything about the person, their abilities, etc. I’m talking about the radical act of naming the barrier instead of the person; of saying we are all facing disablist barriers. We are all in a world that was not built to fit us, and we are all actively being disabled. To be disabled is a verb, not an adjective.

When I zoom out and think about the whole community, ‘disabled’ is the only word I can find that holds it together. Again, this is because we share this experience of facing disabling barriers, and we don’t have to agree on politics or language or anything else. It’s enough just to acknowledge that we are all facing social barriers.

One cannot speak about the word ‘disabled’ without also being expected to speak about the phrase ‘with disability’. People with disabilities, disabled people. In different parts of the world, this calculus has worked out differently. Some people use ‘with disabilities’, and some people use ‘disabled’.

I have had to really bite my tongue and learn to just find my allies, whatever language they use, because actually, fundamentally, a question of preferred grammar is nowhere near as important as the question of the battles we are fighting.

But it is important, I think. I describe myself as a disabled person because I am being disabled. We are back to the idea of ‘disabled’ as a verb: disabled is enacted onto me. It is not something that I carry with me. I am not a person with disabilities as if my disabilities were separate; I am, instead, inextricably a disabled person.

Will I die on that hill when it comes to UK politics? Yes, absolutely. But internationally, I recognise that it is not that simple.

Communicating the open umbrella

The problem with the way I use the word ‘disabled’ is that it ends up feeling like it could be gatekeeping. Who gets to be ‘disabled enough’ to call themselves disabled? How does language police the borders of the community?

I am particularly thinking about neurodivergent people who may not feel that they are part of the disabled community. I am very conscious that listing them separately could feel like it gave that legitimacy, and people might not think that things aimed at disabled people are aimed at them - when they very much are.

I am also particularly conscious that Deaf people often see themselves as a linguistic minority, not as part of a disabled community, but I come back to the idea that anyone who faces disabling barriers is welcome in the label ‘disabled’ - and that society puts barriers in Deaf people’s way.

I think this puts an obligation on those of us who prefer to just use the word ‘disabled’ to make sure that we are also communicating clearly. We must demonstrate with our words and our actions that we include neurodivergent and Deaf people within that category of “people who experience disableism”, making sure that information on who we mean is easily accessible. We cannot assume that people will know we are using ‘disabled’ to mean them if we don’t explicitly tell them and welcome them.

Disabling as a process

Ultimately, recognising oneself as disabled, for me, is a process of recognising removable disabling barriers that have existed in the world and have shaped one’s life. If you can see how these barriers have affected you as a disabled person and have limited your ability to live the life you want, then you very much are a disabled person. It is not actually a matter of whether you identify or not; I don’t particularly identify as a disabled person, I just recognise that I am.

The word ‘disabled’ is broad enough to really build solidarity across differences between groups of disabled people, without forcing individual identities to be flattened. There is room to say we are here for disabled people and also to say what we mean by that, which for me is anyone who recognises that they experience disablism.

However, finding a solution for this is impossible; there isn’t and won’t be a single piece of language that works for everyone. No language is neutral, and no language is complete.

While for me the word ‘disabled’ is the most honest one I have and the best way I have to speak about a community, I also need to remember that allies are allies and may not always agree with me. I can work with people who hold very different opinions from mine on disability language, as the words we choose to describe ourselves are not the whole of our political and activist lives. I would rather have allies with the right principles, even if their use of language is different to mine. Ultimately we face the same challenges, whatever words we use, and that for me has to be paramount.