Disabled isn’t a dirty word: Navigating the language around disability

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Setting the standard

We recently put together a language guide for a client’s comms team that included primers on how to speak on a variety of topics, including disability.

Having an organizational language guide is an important standard to maintain, particularly for organizations that are committed to anti-oppression work. Not only do language guides help organizations maintain consistency in their writing and provide editors with a clear roadmap for their work, but they also allow the organization to keep up with the language that historically marginalized communities use to talk about themselves.

Language is one of the tools that marginalized people have the power to shape and reclaim. It can be a site of exploration, education, and resistance. I think one of the best examples of the power of language is how 2SLGBTQQIA+ people and communities have used and changed language about identity, gender, and sexuality.

What goes first?

So what about disability? You’ve probably heard disabled people referred to in a variety of ways including, but certainly not limited to: people with disabilities, differently abled, special, and, yes, even diff-abled.

The most common of these terms, the one that you will find reproduced in government literature, news stories, and organizational materials is “people with disabilities,” or PWD for short. This is known as “person first language” or PFL. The Canadian Press style — the style guide that the majority of writers in Canada defer to — uses PFL.

The thought behind PFL is that it puts the person first to remind others that disabled folks are more than their disability. Seems like a good approach, right?

Here’s the thing. We don’t do this with other identities. I’m not a person with queer, a person with settler, a person with Alberta-born. Where we do see PFL is with cancer and other major illnesses. That tells you a lot about the assumptions that abled people make about the quality of life and the quality of character that disabled people have: that deafness, blindness, autism, etc. are pitiable fates akin to or worse than death. For a lot of disabled people, using identity first language (you guessed it, IFL) is a way to recognize that their disability is a central part of their experience and their identity, and not something that detracts from those things.

“My brain damage is not going away, and I don’t need the small reminders that I’m a person.”

— John Loeppky

Of course, there are exceptions. Given that somewhere around 20% of adults have a disability, it is impossible to speak in sweeping generalizations about this entire population. Historically, the intellectual-disability community and mental illness-disability community both prefer PFL because of the stigmas associated with their specific types of disabilities. And person to person, there will be variance in how people want to talk about their experiences with disability.

So what’s a language guide to do?

Be specific whenever possible. If you are writing about a specific group of people or an individual, use the language that they prefer. If you are writing about a disabled community that historically prefers IFL use that. If you are writing broadly about disabled people living in Canada, you can choose to alternate between PFL and IFL and include a note at the end of the piece explaining your decision. Whenever we make mindful decisions about the language we use, it can serve as an opportunity to call others in and build their capacity to use anti-oppressive language.

Go further

While we’re talking about anti-oppressive language, here are just a few of the words that you can remove from your writing to be more inclusive of disabled people:

Able-bodied: This term implies that a casual observer can look at a stranger and clock them as disabled when many disabilities are internal (a.k.a. invisible), relapsing, and/or neurological. Replacements for this term include “abled” and “non-disabled.”
Asperger’s: Hans Asperger, the person for whom Asperger’s was named, was a nazi doctor whose work contributed to the death of many disabled children. In 2019, Asperger’s was removed from the DSM and the condition became part of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Blind spot/Deaf ears: Don’t use disabilities as metaphors for someone’s weakness or failings (e.g. the analysis highlight’s the councillor’s blind spot; the critique fell on deaf ears). Someone choosing to ignore something or not having experience in an area (which are negatives) is not akin to having a disability (which is value neutral).
Confined to a wheelchair: For many, wheelchairs and mobility devices provide freedom and possibility. Don’t editorialize on someone else’s experience.
Differently abled, Special needs: Avoid euphemisms for disability. Speaking around the issue stigmatizes it. Name disabilities. Don’t pity them.
High functioning/low functioning autistic: These characterizations are harmful to autistics folks. Replace them with “autistic.”
Lame: Seemingly one of the most difficult words to remove from progressive vocabularies. While lame is now used to express displeasure, its origin is a description of a physically disabled person. Replace with: “regrettable.”
Spaz: This term refers to involuntary muscle spasms. As Lizzo recently demonstrated, it is easy to evolve beyond this word.

Well, we can’t say anything anymore!

I hear this frustration sometimes. I think it’s rooted in fear and I’d like to address it.

Think about what mobile phones looked like in the 1980s. It’s okay if you can’t remember.

A black 1980s mobile phone, which is a large rectangular brick with a thick antennae sticking out of the top — Here’s what I’m talking about.

This brick was clunky and awkward (I literally had to crop the antennae in this picture to fit it on screen).
Running on a 1G network meant it was really hard to hear the person on the other end.
Was it a phone? Technically. Did it work? Also, technically.
Would we use it now? No, because we have better tools available.

Now think about your phone, which you might be reading this on. That’s a pretty phenomenal leap in fewer than 40 years.

Language is similar, but also critically different. The way that language has changed over the past ten years alone has allowed it to be more refined, more precise, and more inclusive. But just like when you upgrade your phone, learning the changes to language takes time, practice, and getting used to.

One critical difference between a technology like a phone and a shared technology like language is that language is shaped and built by its users. When the language changes, you are getting real-time updates from the people around you who are saying, “hey, this is a more accurate way to talk about this, so let’s use it instead.” Rather than feeling angry about these changes, I want to invite everyone to find the awe, appreciation, and recognition for the power that language has and the power that language users have to create a more inclusive future through language.

Words matter. Find the joy. Disabled is not a dirty word.