I thought it would be interesting to talk about how we identify someone as having a disability based on their actions. I feel like the most popular way we identify someone as having a disability, in our society, is by whether they're able to accomplish a particular thing. I think this is a fucked up way of thinking about disability, and doesn't work.
Some examples of things that people would immediately diagnose as a disability are:
*if someone has mental retardation to a degree that they can't learn to read, no matter how much they try or how much special help they receive.
*if someone has a physical disability to a degree that they are in a wheelchair for their whole life, and can't move their legs at all.
But what about
*if someone has dyslexia to a degree that they have trouble learning to read, but may be able to learn with hard work and special methods?
*if someone has a physical disability to a degree that they can walk, but it's hard for them and makes them very tired, so they frequently use a wheelchair to conserve their energy?
The reason I became interested in this is that I have Asperger's Syndrome, which is basically a disability that makes you weird socially. [Obviously this is a major oversimplification, but the impairments I was talking about in this video all relate to that aspect of AS.] Sometimes, when I would tell people that I had AS, they would say they didn't believe me, or they thought that I was lying, or they thought that my parents had paid someone to diagnose me with a disability because they didn't know what to make of me. They thought I didn't do the things that an AS person would do.
I think when you assume that all AS people do "the things that an AS person does," you are demonstrating a lack of understanding of the way human beings are, and the fact that we learn. For example, a well-known symptom of AS is for a person to talk at length about something they like, not noticing that the person they're talking to isn't interested. I've certainly done that, and I enjoy talking about my interests at length, but I'm smart enough that since people have told me my whole life that I have a disability that makes me talk about my interests too much, I'm obviously going to try not to talk about my interests so much, and be more aware of other people's reactions, or just channel my talking-about-my-interests urges into a more socially acceptable venue, like blogging. So, I can develop new ways to deal with my AS traits, and when I do that, I won't fit the stereotype of the Asperger's person who is always monologuing.
Another example that isn't related to Asperger's is the experience of my friend, who is physically disabled and went through a period last year when he was using a cane. One time, he wanted to get up and get something, and he couldn't use his cane because he needed both hands to carry the thing he was getting. He said, "I really don't want to do this, because when people see that I'm not using a cane, they'll think that I don't really need a cane and I'm faking it." I think it's really fucked up that someone would make him feel like that, that if he went without a cane for one minute he wasn't really disabled enough to need it. As if people always have the same level of disability, and if they're not doing something it's never because it's hard for them, only because they 100% can't ever do it.
There's another issue with people like my friend and me, who can do things, but can't always do them very well, and need to work really hard to do them well. I feel like society thinks: if a person really can't do something, it's okay for them not to do it, but if they can do it they ought to be doing it as much as a nondisabled person. And if a person can look normal for periods of time, they ought to always look normal--it's their responsibility to look normal.
I don't think that's acceptable especially because, if you're asking me to look normal all the time, and never ever come off as different, even in completely harmless ways, and if I don't do that then I've failed at "overcoming my disability," and I deserve whatever prejudice I get because I made a choice not to look normal--well, I don't think it really is a choice, if I'm being asked to do something that is exhausting. I think if you're asking a person to exhaust themselves to appear normal, that's what's fucked up. It's not treating disabled people the same as nondisabled people to require us to look the same as you, when looking the same as you requires so much energy.