LD Resources

© Judy Heumann

An important aspect of attitudes I would like to address is language. As our movement has evolved, we have been plagued by people, almost always not themselves disabled, attempting to change what we call ourselves. If we are “victims” of anything, it is of such terms as “physically challenged, able-disabled, differently abled, handi-capables, and people with differing abilities,” to name just a few. Nondisabled people’s discomfort with reality-based terms such as “disabled” led them to these euphemisms. I believe these euphemisms have the effect of depoliticizing our own terminology and devaluing our own view of ourselves as disabled people.

Disabled people also are involved in the discussion of terminology, but for our part the discussion centers around what will empower us and what will have the most positive impact on our movement. Nondisabled people think they also are promoting empowerment, but, to return to an earlier analogy, I wonder how far a group of white people would get by trying to determine the most empowering term for African American people.

I have a physical disability that results in my inability to walk and perform a number of other significant tasks without the assistance of another person. This cannot be labeled away and I am not ashamed of it. I feel no need to change the word “disabled.” For me, there is no stigma. I am not driven to call myself a “person with a disability.” I know I am a person; I do not need to tell myself that I am. I also do not believe that being called a “person with a disability” results in my being treated more like a human being. Maybe putting the word “disabled” first makes people stop and look at what, as a result of society’s historical indifference to and/or hatred of people like me, is a critical part of my existence. I know that “disabled” is not a noun, as in “the disabled want….”

Purists should maybe just call me a cripple. In Germany in the early 1980s, there was a separatist group that called itself the Cripple Movement. They said people treated people like them like cripples, so knowing how uncomfortable people felt with the term, they took it as their own and were empowered by it. There are certainly some disabled people in the United States who are talking about taking back the word “cripple.”

As a disabled woman from Britain put it: “For myself, I do not want to have to try to emulate what a nondisabled woman looks like in order to assert positive things about myself. I want to be able to celebrate my difference, not hide from it other disabled people, will be achieved when laws and policies are drafted in a way that enables us to go when and where we want with whom we want; when we have an equal chance at quality education and employment, quality health care and housing; and when the ultimate success in the area of disability is no longer to do away with our very existence.

Let the disabled people who are politically involved and personally affected determine our own language. May we please have no more $50,000 contests to select the best new word for people like me. A suggestion to those of you who do not know what to call me: ask! I frequently ask other disabled people what they call themselves and then respect their language.

Until we receive the respect due us as the experts on ourselves in terms of our terminology, our needs, and our movement, we cannot believe that in generally society shares our goal of equal participation. Adolf Ratzka, a disabled user of PAS from Sweden, has said: “Our message is that disability is a normal part of life, that we have the same basic human needs and life aspirations as everybody else. Disability is not a medical, technical or humanitarian issue but a political one, an issue of unequal distribution of resources and political power. In working for our human rights, we help to make this world a better place for everybody….”

Heumann, J. (1994, June). Terminology. TASH Newsleter, 20(6), 24