What Do Disabled People Argue About Among Themselves?

People with disabilities don’t all think alike.

Anyone with even the smallest experience with disability or connection to disability issues can recognize the old conflicts between disabled and non-disabled people. Disabled people struggle to gain recognition, accommodation, accessibility, and opportunity from non-disabled people. Non-disabled people tend to be indifferent and impatient with disabled people’s “special needs,” or hostile to disabled people themselves. Meanwhile, non-disabled people, particularly nowadays, want to view themselves as caring, attentive, and sensitive to disabled people’s needs. But even at their best they tend to come across to disabled people as condescending, controlling, or just deeply confused.

The battle lines, so to speak, between disabled and non-disabled people are familiar, at least to people who pay any attention at all to disability issues.

But disabled people argue among themselves too. Not just over specific cases – like the best way to reform Social Security work incentives, whether it’s more important to make City Hall or restaurants accessible, or which disabled people should get priority funding, youth with developmental disabilities or aging people in nursing homes. There are also honest, good-faith disagreements over more abstract issues of general principle, philosophy, and strategy.

Arguments between disabled and non-disabled people aren’t hard to find or understand. So maybe it’s even more helpful to recognize some of the things disabled people disagree about between themselves.

Here are just a few examples — issues and questions disabled people often disagree about.

Terminology

This isn’t just about what words to use — whether “disabled person” or “person with a disability” is better, or whether “special needs” and “differently abled” are more positive terms or kind of cringey.

The question hanging over these upfront debates is whether disability terminology even matters. Or, is worrying about it a waste of time?

Some disability-related words are clearly hurtful, and should be actively eliminated from public and personal dialog. Most notably, there are words for developmental disabilities like “the R-Word” that were once clinical, but have for decades now been simply painful, abusive slurs. Some newer terms, like “differently abled” and “special needs” are usually well-intended, but misguided euphemisms that should at least be discouraged if not fully condemned. Disability terminology is also critically important in certain professions, like journalism, where accurate, specific language is always relevant. And prioritizing language is part of a broader philosophy that the words matter because how we name and describe things affects how we understand them.

On the other hand, arguments over disability terminology often feel tedious, pedantic, nit-picky and superficial. Some advocates for deeper and more concretely impactful disability policy changes often view language debates as a distraction. They argue that policing people’s words wastes the disability community’s scarce energy and limited access to public goodwill, taxing non-disabled people’s limited attention spans for disability issues.

There are valid pros and cons on both sides.. It could help a lot to have more agreement on terminology so disabled people can be clear on what to tell non-disabled people about the words they use to talk about disability. At the same time, because the argument itself is so repetitive and tiresome, it would be something of a relief to leave the whole terminology debate behind.

Responsibility

Who is more responsible for adaptation — disabled people or society? Is it up to disabled people to adapt to society, or to society to accommodate disabled people?

Conventional wisdom in an individualist society has typically held that disabled people are primarily responsible for liberating themselves. This idea is mostly applied by non-disabled people to people with disabilities. It’s often viewed as an ableist moral burden on disabled people, and perhaps even a strategy to discredit and weaken disability activism. But some disabled people, too, opt for this personal responsibility view, not necessarily out of faith in individualism, but because they have so little faith in collective social action or social progress. Doing it for yourself is all they believe they have.

And yet, there really is only so much most individual disabled people can do for themselves, especially in the face of systemic ableism. And collective social action does produce progress – maybe not as much as people want or need, but it’s far from futile.

Leaning exclusively on either approach – personal responsibility or collective activism – creates problems. Aside from how effective two approaches are, the moral weight and power given to each can profoundly affect disabled people’s self-image and morale. Some are energized and empowered. Others feel dispirited and judged. At their best, debates between disabled people on this question may achieve something like a healthy, sustainable blend of group solidarity and individual responsibility.

Unity

Are different types of disability more unique or alike? Should disabled people emphasize common experiences and goals, or highlight key differences so they aren’t smoothed over or forgotten?

The more traditional argument is that specific disabilities, like deafness, paraplegia, intellectual disability, and chronic illnesses, are different enough to require vastly different approaches and solutions. In this view, efforts to unify people with all different disabilities, and develop broad, universal principles of disability rights, have obvious moral and practical value. But they also risk neglecting more specialized, specific needs. For example, people with higher support needs and more complex conditions sometimes feel ignored and erased from positive portrayals of disability pushed by people with disabilities that are perceived to be “milder.”

However, an important component of the modern disability rights movement is the idea that disability is a broadly shared social experience, not just an individual struggle with a thousand unique, unconnected medical conditions. Regardless of degree or type of disability, all people with disabilities experience certain similar restraints. These include ableist attitudes, physical barriers, social marginalization, discrimination, and sometimes outright persecution and neglect. The question disabled people continue to wrestle with is exactly how they can work together on the priorities and experiences they share, while still paying due attention to their different individual needs.

The answers affect how non-disabled people and social institutions regard people with disabilities. They also influence how disabled people share with each other and organize to wield collective power.

Attitude

Should disabled project positivity and optimism, always countering negative narratives of disability? Or, should they emphasize dire, unmet needs and ableist discrimination?

A deliberately optimistic approach to disability helps sustain hope and prevent demoralization. And there are good grounds for optimism, visible evidence of real, if still usually partial progress. Buildings are more accessible. Blatant ableism is more frowned upon. And mechanisms do exist that when properly funded and managed, help people with disabilities live more independently. These are all marked improvements from the state of disability life 50 years ago. Besides, some degree of optimism is generally more emotionally sustainable — including for disabled individuals and disability communities — than constant, bottomless pessimism.

Still, optimism too often reads as naive, simplistic, and unrealistic – the definition of “rose colored glasses.” Disabled people who have other kinds of social privilege and advantages that cushion them somewhat from hardships other disabled people face, often fail to recognize the harsh reality and force of ableism, until it’s too late and takes them unawares. Being awake to disability oppression is upsetting. But it at least allows disabled people to anticipate barriers and support each other when they appear.

Optimists and pessimists tend to clash with each other, each resenting and criticizing the others rather than just acknowledging the value and validity of different temperaments. Finding a workable balance between positivity and outrage can make disabled communities more persuasive and effective.

Disabled people argue between themselves about these and other questions about how to approach disability, ableism, and non-disabled people’s beliefs, practices, and institutions. Most of these conflicts are also disability-specific extensions of divisions and debates in broader society – privileged and marginalized. Left and Right, individualist and collective, intellectual or practical, cultural, spiritual, or political.

Being aware of the outlines of these arguments doesn’t necessarily make it easier to resolve them. But it can make dialog within disability communities more familiar, less perplexing. And that can help disabled and non-disabled communities understand each other a little better too.