What is a Disability?

The image above is of a group of about 25 disability advocates from Illinois at an event for the feminist disability group FRIDA, protesting the death of a young black woman with a disability named Dorothy Dixon. They are holding a red banner with the word FRIDA on it and raising their fists in salute. They have many kinds of disabilities, different races and different gender identities.

Those who are unfamiliar with the disability movement often assume that there is a clear and simple definition for disability. This would be mistaken. Within one country there can be competing definitions of disability, and certainly across countries the concept of disability can vary. The simple word "disability" can also be very different, not simply in language, but in meaning.

Disability advocates have argued heatedly for years over the true definition of disability, given the need to frame it in legal, social, religious and other contexts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines disability as "an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations." (See this link).

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) in its Preamble states that disability is "an evolving concept and that disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others." (See this link)

The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, provides this definition: "An individual with a disability is defined as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment." (See this link)

Personally, I like the idea of disability as an evolving concept. Certainly societies are structured in many ways that make equality difficult for people with disabilities. I also think that one's own perception of disability, whether one's own disability or that of others, changes over time. Self-perception of disability can involve varying amounts of shame and pride. It can also be informed by the history of the disability movement. For myself I am glad to take what is in the US the civil rights term that protects us: disability. I have hearing loss. I am disabled, I have a disability. But I also identify with Deafness, I am a woman, I am many things. 

A note on the Deaf world: Many, if not most, Deaf people may say that being Deaf is not in itself a disability. I would agree. It is a different modality, a visual mode. However the fact remains that Deafness in US law has weaker protections than disability. Civil rights protections for linguistic groups is much weaker than for disability groups. Since hearing loss is a disability, I claim both: one for living in a visual mode, and the other because it affords civil rights protections that make my life possible.

What carries us forward for social change is, as Cheryl Marie Wade said, the process of "naming and claiming who you are." Living out loud, making yourself known.