The solution to ableism isn't for me to "stop calling myself disabled", it's for everyone to stop treating "disabled" as a bad word
There's an actual named phenomenon called The Euphemism Treadmill for how people keep coining new terms for disability hoping to get away from the stigma but then the new term just winds up with a negative association. Because the problem is not the term, the problem is the ableism.
Disabled isn't a bad word. It's a neutral and descriptive term and it's one we've been using for political organizing for decades now.
I’m still bitter about the time I got lectured by students in my university class because I was using the word ‘disabled’ and not ‘differently abled’ in my presentation. One was a woman that worked with disabled children and was lecturing me on how bad the word is.
Nothing I said worked. They only stopped ganging up on me when I pointed out that we still call them disability services at our school.
Either way, this is my venting way of saying I agree with this post so much.
I'm disabled. I have a disability. My disability disables me. The term "differently abled" can get fucked and so can everyone who insists that it's the "better phrase."
I feel this.
And in my experience, the people who are loudest about it being a “bad word” are the people who aren’t disabled. 🤦♀️
