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9:57am July 12, 2013

➸ Living in a broken body: Am I disabled?

chronicallyaverage:

I am in several different online EDS support groups. Today a discussion came up to where a girl got offended at being referred to the disabled bathroom because she was on crutches. She quickly told the man that she was not disabled and did not need the disabled bathroom.

This broke out a friendly…

Also when some people say disabled, especially in Britain, they mean that like, some people are enabled by society, whereas others are disabled by it for having impairments. Like society has built itself for nondisabled people, enabling them, but built itself to shut out people with impairments, disabling us. (Where impairment means a combination of what everyone else means by disability, impairment, condition, and illness. A difference in the body that is seen as medical in nature by most people, whether it ought to be or not.)

That’s not how most people mean disability, but some people might be using it that way. And people who use it that way don’t always mean that there’s nothing unpleasant about impairments in and of themselves. They just separate impairment (how our bodies differ) from disability (how our society shuts out people with different bodies).

So there are definite cultural differences in how disability is used. Even in the USA people within the disability community often mean disability different than people outside it. And in the UK they very often are used differently inside and outside the disability community.

Food for thought.