Three tenets of disability advocacy you should know

Or, disability 101

Hello! How is everyone?

This week, inspired by my Substack Go cohort, I’ve decided to do something a bit different with this newsletter.

Recently, I’ve been writing a lot of personal essays, which I think are a great way to show you guys what living with disability is like (is this right? Let me know in the comments!). I think the form allows me to humanise and demystify these experiences, and allows you to sit in my shoes for a little bit. Sometimes, specificity is really helpful.

But I’ve had a bunch of new subscribers recently (hi!) and I thought it might be nice to zoom out a bit and give you a simple intro to the key ideas I work and live by, and maybe help you on the road to disability allyship.

Sound cool? Let’s get cracking!

The social model

This is the big one. The OG of disability activism. The spark that lit a thousand protests. Ready?

‘The social model’ refers to a way of understanding and thinking about disability - and its lessons are at once obvious and revolutionary. Adopt this view and everything else will follow.

At the social model’s core is the idea that disability is a social phenomenon.

While acknowledging that people have real impairments (e.g. I have cerebral palsy and cannot walk) the model shows that it is societal barriers - both physical and attitudinal - that disable people. Put it another way, disability is not inherent to me, it is imposed on me by an ableist society.

Or another way: everyone has needs (you require stairs because you cannot fly), and a disabled person is a just person whose needs society has chosen not to meet.

Think about it like this: if everywhere was wheelchair accessible, I would still have cerebral palsy, but I would be able to access society as well as everybody else. Therefore, the problem doesn’t lie with my body, but with the way we build.

#IDPWD: Are you a disability ally?

It’s important to remember that this doesn’t only relate to the built environment. Ableist attitudes are as disabling as any flight of stairs. Just look at research from Scope that found two-thirds of people feel awkward talking to a disabled person to understand issues as varied as the disability employment gap or endemic social isolation.

It’s easiest to understand the social model if you compare it to the old, outdated ‘medical model’. The medical model saw disability as a biological problem to be fixed, and therefore labelled disabled bodies as broken or less than. Ew. It also conveniently absolved society of any responsibility.

The social model is at the heart of activism and advocacy because it shows that change is possible; make society less ableist and inaccessible, and disabled people will have better lives.

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Language matters

Once you fully adopt the social model, it becomes obvious that lots of the language we use around disability is still stuck in the medical model dark ages.

Most egregiously, people are still asking disabled people what’s wrong with us. Not only does this make you a complete arse, it also perpetuates the myth that our bodies are the problem.

Less arseholic but still annoying is the insistence on knowing someone’s medical diagnosis. Newsflash: Unless you are a medical professional, you do not need to know. Remember, it’s society that’s disabling and society that can do something about it. It doesn’t matter why I need a ramp, it matters that you provide one.

So, if you need to know how you can help because you’re organising an event or employing a disabled person, consider rephrasing ‘what can’t you do?’ to ‘how can we make x accessible to you?’. That’s the social model in practice, kids; relocating the problem of access outside the disabled person’s body.

One final point on language: please use identity-first language (unless you’re a disabled person talking about yourself, in which case use whatever the hell you like). ‘Identity first language’ basically means you see disability as a socially created label (as above) and so use phrases like ‘disabled people,’ ‘autistic people’ and ‘wheelchair users’ instead of ‘people with disabilities,’ ‘people with autism,’ or, shudder, ‘people who are wheelchair-bound’.

This might seem like semantics but is actually really important. Firstly, it helps hammer home the social model by harking back to that fundamental idea of being disabled by society. But it also acknowledges that disability is an identity that many of us are proud of and that informs our whole lives, rather than something we can shrug on and off like a baggy coat. I am a disabled person, deal with it.

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Nothing about us without us

Last one but an important one for nondisabled allies!

We really, really want nondisabled people to start challenging inaccessibility and ableism. But! Part of being a good ally is not talking over or for the affected community.

The phrase ‘nothing about us without us’ was adopted by disability rights activists in the 90s when disability rights legislation was being written without any consultation with actual disabled people.

But it’s also relevant today, when lots of media organisations focus on the parents of disabled kids instead of disabled people, or when we see nondisabled activists correct a disabled person’s language (don’t do this).

Remember, be an ally - but point people towards disabled people they can learn from, take your lead from us, and always, always amplify disabled voices first.

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See you next week,
Lucy

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Links of the week

Just one for you this week but I did a little happy dance when I saw it.

The incomparable Ed Young at The Atlantic asks ‘What does society owe immunocompromised people?’ and, unlike so many others, has concluded the answer is: a lot.

Read it here.