• TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
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    11 hours ago

    I mean there’s already a school of thought that “disabled” has a negative connotation to it, that’s where the term “differently-abled” comes in.

    It’s all kind of a dance to not hurt anyone’s feelings.

    • Shapillon@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Honestly “differently-abled” seems more like a media term than anything linked to either handicapped communities or scientific research. Imho it’s kinda stupid.

      And people speaking on behalf of marginalized communities is a real issue that does a lot of harm. e.g. Autism Speaks

      An expression I encountered helping my roommate work on their education master was “handicapping situations”. It’s a bit unwieldy but I like that it conveys that someone is handicapped by a combination of an ailment, an activity, and a lack of accessibility.

      In other words, someone who’s paraplegic isn’t in a “handicapping situation” when gaming in a chair.

      Or someone who’s dysorthographic isn’t handicapped as long as their not trying to write anything.

      I use handicapped as a shorthand for myself but it’s still a neat concept imho.

      I might be mistranslating some stuff since said roommate is French.

      PS: about the dance, blame it on people insisting on using our disabilities as insults.

      PS2: You’re always gonna hurt someone at one point or another. But it’s not hard to try not to and apologize when it happens imho.