Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.

[Dystopiary]

I'm not sure it necessarily does, but what words would you use? Because '...with disabilities' (plural) wouldn't be appropriate for everyone either, and everyone should be able to have their preferred terms of reference for themselves.

I use still "disabled people" tbh. I get that it's tricky though, in that there's no one size fits all.

More important is that life is made difficult for disabled people by poor accessibility, prejudice, etc (long list). Good points were made by Brainaddict and hitmouse on that. Companies, the government, etc officially changing their language seems a bit of a sticking plaster treatment (imo). But I get that people want to use respectful language and it's not so long ago that there were all sorts of shitty terms in the mainstream.

 

[8ball]

Along similar lines, rather than “healthy” as an antonym, I prefer “not-yet-disabled”.

“Not currently disabled” is possibly better.

Not all disabilities are necessarily permanent, and none are necessarily inevitable, unless you are viewing being dead as a long term metabolic disability.

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

Yes that's all true but from my work and training in the health and social care sector I know 'person with a disability' is currently the standard term. The point is to separate the disability from the person.

Does't go down well when applied to neuro diverse people because it implies that our neurodiversity is a thing separate from us - whereas many of us see the neurodiversity, if we do see is as a disability (which i do) as part of us.

 

[Red Cat]

Yes that's all true but from my work and training in the health and social care sector I know 'person with a disability' is currently the standard term. The point is to separate the disability from the person.

If having a disability didn't carry stigma there would be no need to separate the disability from the person.

 

[mojo pixy]

Does't go down well when applied to neuro diverse people because it implies that our neurodiversity is a thing separate from us - whereas many of us see the neurodiversity, if we do see is as a disability (which i do) as part of us.

There's a very (very) deep philosophical discussion to be unfolded here around what is a self, but it's a separate thing from what I'm describing, which is current standard terminology within H&SC.

 

[mojo pixy]

If having a disability didn't carry stigma there would be no need to separate the disability from the person.

This may be true, but sadly there is that stigma and the work of destigmatising disability is still very much in progress

 

[mojo pixy]

And again, 'standard terminology' is just a standard. Doesn't mean it applies to everyone.

 

[Red Cat]

And again, 'standard terminology' is just a standard. Doesn't mean it applies to everyone.

Standard very often means something that is done to people not with.

This may be true, but sadly there is that stigma and the work of destigmatising disability is still very much in progress

I would say someone with a disability, as I think saying disabled person implies that it is their whole personhood that is disabled and that's the point of the attempt at separation. But it was and still is in most places standard to say person with autism despite the stated preference of the majority of surveyed autistic people for autistic person.

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

There's a very (very) deep philosophical discussion to be unfolded here around what is a self, but it's a separate thing from what I'm describing, which is current standard terminology within H&SC.

but I've seen neurotypical people insist on using person with autism type terminology even when it offends neuro diverse people, and its because of all this person with disability stuff. so, no, its not a different discussion. Its a very pertinent discussion that people should be having before pulling this kind of pat terminology off the shelf and making it fit all.

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

And again, 'standard terminology' is just a standard. Doesn't mean it applies to everyone.

it implies it applies to everyone, and a lot of people assume it does. What is the point of having a standard terminology if it isn't intended to be used as standard?The standard should be, ask.

 

[mojo pixy]

it implies it applies to everyone, and a lot of people assume it does. What is the point of having a standard terminology if it isn't intended to be used as standard?The standard should be, ask.

Well a lot of people assume a lot of rubbish things, personally I think the problem is with a person making an assumption, not with a person trying their best to negotiate difficult psychosocial terrain with empathy and regard to the complexities of identity.

 

[mojo pixy]

it implies it applies to everyone, and a lot of people assume it does. What is the point of having a standard terminology if it isn't intended to be used as standard?The standard should be, ask.

Sorry you edited as I was replying, I want to address your second point. H&SC workers have to communicate with each other too, terminology is primarily for that context. Of course with a patient / service user 'ask' is best practice, but in a discussion between eg. a service manager and a social worker, for better or worse there are all kinds of shorthand that get used.

 

[scifisam]

Personally I don't really care whether the term is disabled people or people with disabilities. I like the reasoning behind "person with disabilities" and it's the term I use myself most of the time, but I just don't think it's important enough to waste time over - more time than the few seconds it took to write this post, anyway.

Healthy really isn't an antonym to disabled though. Some people with disabilities are otherwise healthy, some without a disability are not healthy, especially depending on how you define disabled and healthy. There is, at least, a very very rough benchmark for disabled - something like "needs accommodations in order to access a particular environment or opportunity" - but healthy is completely nebulous and personal.

Differently-abled is one I personally hate. It's well-meaning, and some people with disabilities like it - an old acquaintance who's a wheelchair user was a big advocate of it - but it's denying reality. I can see it applying to some types of autism, perhaps, and maybe some other areas of life, but not being able to walk at all isn't really "differently abled" when the vast majority of the human population over the age of 2 is able to walk. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging you can't do something most people can do - it doesn't mean you're less of a person.

I've been told off, on a different forum that I've now left, for describing myself as disabled or mobility impaired rather than specifically saying what my condition is. But I have more than one, and it's a level of personal information that just is not necessary, especially when I'm talking about, say, access to toilets on the ground floor - it's not like it's only people with my condition that need them, is it?

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

Well a lot of people assume a lot of rubbish things, personally I think the problem is with a person making an assumption, not with a person trying their best to negotiate difficult psychosocial terrain with empathy and regard to the complexities of identity.

yeah well, you have tremendous empathy obviously.

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

Sorry you edited as I was replying, I want to address your second point. H&SC workers have to communicate with each other too, terminology is primarily for that context. Of course with a patient / service user 'ask' is best practice, but in a discussion between eg. a service manager and a social worker, for better or worse there are all kinds of shorthand that get used.

not sure as a neuro diverse person i put their needs ahead of neuro diverse people. ah well. Obviously pesky people like me with our own ideas about how we want to be thought of don't feature in H&SC professionals worldview. No wonder they end up pissing autistic people off so much.

 

[Red Cat]

You seem to be making an assumption that people working in H&SC are all neurotypical and are therefore in opposition to neurodivergent people.

 

[kabbes]

I’d just like to note that if “well, this is the standard terminology” was the be all and end all, if that was what determined the “correct” language, we’d all still be using the same words we used in the 1880s or 1940s or whatever. The whole point of challenging a standard is to address the assumptions implicit within it.

 

[hitmouse]

Not to be too wanky, but I wonder what the kind of meta-lessons to be drawn from this discussion are? Like 1) groups with a shared condition are not monolithic and sharp differences in approach will exist within them which make it hard to say "this is what disabled people (or whoever) want", 2) trying to use more inclusive language is good but there are major limitations to what language can achieve, anything else?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

One of my colleagues is on the spectrum and probably the most talented members of staff we have. He would hate to be judged on it.

 

[Red Cat]

Not to be too wanky, but I wonder what the kind of meta-lessons to be drawn from this discussion are? Like 1) groups with a shared condition are not monolithic and sharp differences in approach will exist within them which make it hard to say "this is what disabled people (or whoever) want", 2) trying to use more inclusive language is good but there are major limitations to what language can achieve, anything else?

That we live in an age in which there is a constant categorising and counter-categorising.

 

[kabbes]

Also, and this is hardly the most original thought, we live in an age where context, culture and circumstances are routinely essentialised to be seen instead as an inalienable feature, character or trait of the individual, abstracted from their socio-ecological environment.

 

[scifisam]

Also, and this is hardly the most original thought, we live in an age where context, culture and circumstances are routinely essentialised to be seen instead as an inalienable feature, character or trait of the individual, abstracted from their socio-ecological environment.

Yes. And I think this is where the person who hated me saying I am disabled was coming from. But from my POV it was not intended as meaning anything else about me other than that, in some circumstances, the only ones where I would mention it, I have difficulty with access, or extra needs (and often that means adaptations should be made, but sometimes they can't).

For him, it meant that I was saying that disability was all there was to me. For me, it's almost the same as telling someone my height, except that it's more subject to change.

I know that isn't quite what you were saying - just springboarding.

 

[Shechemite]

Apologise if this is the wrong place to put this but as is clear I’ve made some posts recently that have really not been ok, and massively unhepful - in particular my one to stephoscope. She in no way deserved tbe anger I showed to her. She is very kind and very decent woman, and she has contributed far more to these boards (and no doubt elsewhere as well) than i have. I’m not saying this to make a point or anything like that, i just want want to own my own fuck ups and that was mine. In another post but in the same grief and desperation fuelled ridiculousness I was on I also used the expression ‘groomer’ in a comment to Krtek. I shouldn’t have said, as despite my concerns at the explosion of exploitation of disabled people (including of himself) we’re seeing and the utter destruction it leaves in its wake, using that expression is only going to fuel the hateful, maddening death cycle we appear to find ourselves in. I’m not the best with tech at the best of times, and as it may come across this is not the best of times (for anyone on the planet), so if a mod could delete them I’d be thankful

I have got some thoughts on the relationship between disability and the idpol/anti-idpol stuff, and why I believe both camps don’t offer anything helpful politically (and ime take away the joy of being a disabled person),and how this plays out for those ‘above’ me, for my category/level of disability and even more so to people to those in the lowest of the low category (‘life unworthy of life’, and that’s really not a good way to think about human beings), and why I think the civil war between the polarity is bullshit and something that ultimately we need to find a way through, from below,

I also want to try and explain why I think about disability as a structure rather than either as a cultural identity or some mad rage against ‘identity’, and why i focus my efforts on the ‘life unworthy of life’.

This may take me a while to write, so I’ll try and write something on that and come back when it’s done

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

You seem to be making an assumption that people working in H&SC are all neurotypical and are therefore in opposition to neurodivergent people.

Hardly. A few neuro-diverse employees in an overwhelmingly neurotypical organisation aren't going to make any difference. I can testify to this from personal experience.

 

[Shechemite]

Briefly on why although I’m autistic amongst other stuff, I don’t like the ND term. Not to be on some anti-woke rant: but because 1) it doesn’t match my reality: there are things that I need support with, and that doesn’t make me better or worse than anyone else, it’s just true, and also, had I been born prior the bloody miracle of modern medicine I would have died in childbirth, and so I think my disablement has pre-social element not just a social element, and that’s also ok; 2) I think owning the the stigma (and pre social element too) helps me to deepen my thoughts on how make the world more egalitarian and less bloody awful and 3) to me the ND term it so clearly has a part the technocratic/populist polarisation (it is very popular on one side of the polarisation and deeply unpopular on the other, and do we really need more of that), and 4) the most important one, is it functions to assert the needs of clever clogs ‘high functioning’ autistics like me (apparently) over those who are more disabled, and as such is actually anti-egalitarian whilst being cloaked in nice fluffy terminology, has quite frankly lethal implications for those ‘below’ me, so on principle I cannot go along with it

 

[mojo pixy]

Some people .. quite a lot actually .. have disabilities so severe or profound that a discussion of disability-as-identity is largely or entirely beyond their capacity. I think this is one of the reasons 'disabled' isn't just an identity like any other.

Ah sorry Shechemite you posted as I was posting and appeared first! I don't think my post contradicts yours though..

 

[Shechemite]

Some people .. quite a lot actually .. have disabilities so severe or profound that a discussion of disability-as-identity is largely or entirely beyond their capacity. I think this is one of the reasons 'disabled' isn't just an identity like any other.

Precisely. And also, and I don’t know how to word this without sounding rude, does anyone really think any of the people (and they are people, this cannot be repeated enough, we are trying to avert mass murder here remember) who have to live in a ‘unit’ (that already gives away a lot doesn’t it) have their identity preferences respected even if they were able to ask for them. As such ND, even if a lot of people use it with good intentions, actually functions to show off social privilege and assert that some people are inferior to others. And again, that’s not what we want to be doing

 

[Shechemite]

Some people .. quite a lot actually .. have disabilities so severe or profound that a discussion of disability-as-identity is largely or entirely beyond their capacity. I think this is one of the reasons 'disabled' isn't just an identity like any other.

Ah sorry Shechemite you posted as I was posting and appeared first! I don't think my post contradicts yours though..

Yeah we are expanding on the same point. In reality, the ND movement erases those who are more disabled, both by denying that some people just will need more support than others (and that’s ok, because we are the good guys remember) and by denying how fucking brutally those who are more disabled are treated in our society

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Personally I don't really care whether the term is disabled people or people with disabilities. I like the reasoning behind "person with disabilities" and it's the term I use myself most of the time, but I just don't think it's important enough to waste time over - more time than the few seconds it took to write this post, anyway.

Healthy really isn't an antonym to disabled though. Some people with disabilities are otherwise healthy, some without a disability are not healthy, especially depending on how you define disabled and healthy. There is, at least, a very very rough benchmark for disabled - something like "needs accommodations in order to access a particular environment or opportunity" - but healthy is completely nebulous and personal.

Differently-abled is one I personally hate. It's well-meaning, and some people with disabilities like it - an old acquaintance who's a wheelchair user was a big advocate of it - but it's denying reality. I can see it applying to some types of autism, perhaps, and maybe some other areas of life, but not being able to walk at all isn't really "differently abled" when the vast majority of the human population over the age of 2 is able to walk. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging you can't do something most people can do - it doesn't mean you're less of a person.

I've been told off, on a different forum that I've now left, for describing myself as disabled or mobility impaired rather than specifically saying what my condition is. But I have more than one, and it's a level of personal information that just is not necessary, especially when I'm talking about, say, access to toilets on the ground floor - it's not like it's only people with my condition that need them, is it?

Hmmm... Yes, I've heard that before too. But the problem with the term is that it still centres the disabled person as being problematic in some way, they're the ones who are different to 'the norm' whatever that is.

That's why I think it's helpful to make the distinctions between the medical model and the social model of disability.

With the medical model, the disability is intrinsic to the disabled person, whereas with the social model, it's society that dis-ables disabled people.

If a house has a level entrance, IE no steps, and if it's a bungalow or has lift access to upper floors, and if doorways are sufficiently wide so as to allow wheelchair to pass through, and if there's a wet room rather than a bath, there's a hoist in the bedroom, if needed, and if counter heights in the kitchen are lowered, and if plug sockets and light switches are at mid height rather than down near the floor and at height, respectively, is that disabled person who happens to be a wheelchair user still disabled?

 

[mojo pixy]

I used to be key worker and advocate for a chap called Michael, a lovely man with moderate learning disabilities and on the autistic spectrum. He would not identify as disabled, as a matter of fact if it ever came up he would deny being disabled at all, and it was in his care plan to never talk about his disabilities explicitly to him or with him as it was not unknown to throw him into crisis just hearing about it.