Comments | friendly_crips: naming disability, and cripspiration

sammason in friendly_crips

naming disability, and cripspiration

Jul 30, 2011 10:06

What do you call your disability? Rude words, often, of course. But more seriously I'm unsure whether or not I should use terms like 'an autistic' or 'a diabetic'. I tend to be cautious, and say things like 'a person who has autism', because I know that I wouldn't be very impressed if somebody called me 'a multiple sclerotic'. But perhaps it's just ( Read more... )

describing disability: naming it, sleep, conditions: neurological, the disabled person, professional achievement, cripspiration, conditions: diabetes, conditions: autistic spectrum, disablism

Comments 15

rainbow_goddess September 2 2011, 01:24:58 UTC

I call myself an autistic person, or an Aspie, who has diabetes. To me, autism is a HUGE part of who I am. Diabetes is a very small part. It's just incidental to my identity. But autism is a very big part of my identity.

I believe in calling people what they want to be called. I want to be called autistic. I have a friend who goes around saying that she *is* ADHD, rather than having ADHD. So when I'm referring to Chandi, I will say, "Chandi is ADHD." But my nephew Josh says that he *has* ADHD, so I say "Josh has ADHD."

My friend moggymania, who sadly hasn't been around on LJ for several years, has a good rant about "person with" language. She points out that we gladly say, "a woman," rather than "a person with femaleness." We say, "a gay person" or "a lesbian" rather than "a person with homosexuality." We say, "An Asian person," rather than "A person with Asian-ness." So why change that for an autistic person and call them "a person with autism"?

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sammason September 2 2011, 06:52:04 UTC

I agree with your point about considering who is hearing the description. As you know, a current issue for me is about being disabled and being at work. I've noticed that many people perceive my wheelchair as the whole of my disability, thinking that I'm confined to it. To me the wheelchair s one of the best things that has happened to me but quite often it's the only aspect of my disability that's relevant to the people around me, and quite often it's seen as negative. So I'm polite and gracious about 'fully accessible' buildings, which do indeed help me, and I don't confront everybody with the nastier aspects of my illness.

rainbow_goddess September 2 2011, 08:01:15 UTC

"I don't confront everybody with the nastier aspects of my illness ( ... )

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