One of the problems arising from talking about disability, is the assumption that it functions like other identities. This is not an unreasonable assumption, if you are fairly well versed in feminist issues, you can reasonably apply those ideas to trans rights issues, even if you don’t know that much about them. Disability identity is however more complicated, and without understanding these complexities having a proper discussion about ableism and inclusion is dead in the water.
The basics
Disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial negative effect on your normal function. This includes much more than the typical image of a person in a wheelchair, from invisible disabilities like arthritis, to mental conditions like depression, anxiety and OCD, to developmental disabilities like autism and ADHD. Somewhere around 1/5 people are disabled and almost all of you will be disabled some point in your life.
Starting in the 1960s, disability activists began arguing for the rights of disabled people as a unified group. In the past there were people fighting for disabled rights, but not as a unified identity. For instance, people arguing for the inclusion of blind children in mainstream Victorian education were working separately from people trying to improve conditions in asylums for mental patients. Disability activism created one collective identity to rally behind. Out of this came the field of disability studies, and the creation of a better understanding of disability.
There are two major models of disability: the medical model and the social model. The medical model conceives disability as result of a fundamental medical problem with a person. This approach has been heavily criticised for its ableist, paternalistic and dehumanising attitude to disabled people. It contrasts with the social model which was created in the 60s and 70s in response to the medical model and is now the default used in policy and law making around the world. It views disability as a result of external factors. One way to think about this is to imagine that everyone except you developed a magical power, like water-breathing. Right now, this is not a major problem as the world isn’t built for people who can breathe underwater. But in a few years, there may be restaurants, hospitals and jobs opportunities you cannot access because this world is not built with you in mind. I have simplified the issue here; it is much more complicated than this – I encourage you to do more research if this intrigues you.
The Problems
Our first problem in discussing disability is that its definition rests on what you define as ‘normal’ – neither an unbiased nor neutral standard. Mental disorders fall under the umbrella of disability and until 1973, the American Psychiatric Association defined homosexuality as a mental disorder. Under this approach, heterosexuality falls under the ‘normal function’, but I really doubt that anyone today is going to back up that perspective. Today, a ‘normal body’ is limited to a young cis-gender able-bodied person, which describes a very limited number of people.
Secondly, generalising about a common disabled experience is nearly impossible. The experience of someone living with ADHD may have nothing in common with someone living with chronic pain. Experiences of disability vary not only from condition to condition but also as a result of gender, location, race, economic circumstance and access to services. For example, the experiences of someone with a chronic condition living in the USA with limited access to healthcare can be radically different to someone with the same condition in the UK, where chronic conditions are treated under the NHS. Because you cannot generalise about disabled people, fixing exclusion is much more complicated because there is no general widespread solution. Everyone has specific needs that are not going to be the same. Making spaces inclusive for disabled people takes time and money that often isn’t made available, and often isn’t the main priority of governments and major institutions. As a fun experiment – try and figure out where a wheelchair user could easily get to around the school. A wheelchair is about 2 – 2 ½ feet wide, kind of clunky and obviously cannot use stairs.
Thirdly, disabled identity is more fluid and nebulous, partly for the reasons stated above about it in relation to normalcy, but also about personal identity. Depression and anxiety definitely disrupt normal function and happiness but aren’t commonly thought of as a disability. Whether a person uses the label disabled is entirely about personal choice; it’s much more fluid than other identities. ‘Temporarily abled bodied’ sums it up best, you might not be disabled now, but it only takes one phenomenally bad day to change that. You are not going to wake up tomorrow morning a different race, sexuality or religion, but you might wake up tomorrow morning disabled. It’s not likely, but neither is it impossible. Practically, unless you die suddenly, you are going to be disabled at some point in your life.
In 2016, Mel Baggs wrote an article titled, “There is ableism somewhere at the heart of your oppression, no matter what your oppression might be.” Which discusses one of the really key ideas here. Baggs sets out the differences between horizontal and vertical oppression. Horizontal oppression is about the intersection of identity – for example, homophobia and racism can go together because there are gay people of colour. Vertical oppression is like sexism and homophobia, where one is embedded within and a product of the other. Homophobia can’t exist without sexist gender roles and homophobia without the sexism is basically unrecognisable. Baggs makes the case that every kind of oppression uses ableism as an excuse by defining the person being oppressed as disabled.
For instance, the Victorian diagnosis of hysteria resulting in women being locked in mental hospitals is a textbook example of this. Their experiences are defined as a disability and are therefore justified. When activism fails to recognise this, it can end up reinforcing the oppression of disabled people. An example of this can be found in the scientific racism of early IQ testing. In the early 1900s, these tests were used to justify false beliefs about the mental inferiority of people of colour. These tests were massively inaccurate and relied on specific cultural and local knowledge geared towards those belonging to white, western society. Race is not an indicator of intelligence – however, stopping at this point in the argument has troubling implications. If we argue that the oppression of people of colour is unjustified on these grounds, then that implies that oppression would be justified if these people were actually intellectually disabled. Or take a look at most early feminism that argued that women were just as capable as men, without ever critically thinking about why ability was a criterium in whether or not people should be allowed to vote.
The central point of disability activism is not that as an autistic person I am just as able to do things as a neurotypical person. I am not and there will always be things that I will find harder. It’s that regardless of my ability, I am no less deserving of happiness, respect and dignity because of it.
