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Home / Thoughts / Sean's Thoughts / What do I mean by "just another disability"?

What do I mean by "just another disability"?

Written by Sean on Sunday, October 1, 2006

A young woman with a disability told me that part of what got under her skin was me saying that being transabled was "just another disability". She argued that it is a confrontational statement that can easily be misread by a lot of people with disabilities. She suggested I should explain my position, and I thought that is not a bad idea.

First, I should say that there are many ways to interpret this word "disability". There are also many people who dislike the word, or some its applications. There are so many things to keep in mind if one wants to remain PC, and PC changes from one decade to another. What was ok 5 years ago even isn’t necessarily so anymore. There are different ideologies and philosophies surrounding it. I am to explain, very briefly, some of my understanding of it and how I came to say "just another disability". I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but at least, perhaps you’ll see where I come from when I say this.

There is the concept of "impairment" vs "disability". Being paraplegic is an impairment. Using a wheelchair in a non-accessible world is a disability. Being blind is an impairment. Not seeing if there are only printed menus available is a disability. Being deaf is an impairment. Not hearing the fire alarm is a disability (and a wee bit of a danger too!). So perhaps I should say "just another impairment". But this concept of "impairment" instead of "disability" appears not to be all that accepted throughout the world yet, so I refrain.

Yet, the idea that disability comes from a non-accessible society is important.

I’ll argue that body identity integrity disorder is a mental illness. Oh, I know many people who have BIID will disagree with me, but if you disagree, bear with me for the sake of this argument. Mental illnesses are impairments. Depression (not just a case of "the blues", but chronic and/ or severe depression), bi-polar disorders, schizo-affective disorders, the list goes on. All impairments, disabilities. And this is where I say, that being transabled is just another disability.

There are two problems with my stance, and they both stem from ideological differences.

Mental illness a disability?

First, there are those who claim that mental illnesses aren’t disabilities. In fact, this young lady explained:

I do believe that there are those with debilitating mental illnesses that put them in the disablity category ( ie that they should receive benefits and services and be part of the protected class of disabled thus protecting them from discrimination) however I think the mental illness expereince and the disablity expereince are extremely different.

Of course everything is a continuum. Having vision problems that force you to wear glasses is a mild impairment, and does it qualify as a disability? Depends on how serious your vision issues are, doesn’t it? Is being mildly hard of hearing a disability? Again, it depends. So what does "debilitating mental illness" means? At which point are you mentally ill enough to be considered disabled?

This rather feels like the argument that was around a while back, where people were saying that physical impairments were the only "true" disability. Of course, the Blind community wants protection as people with disability. The Deaf seem to say they aren’t disabled, yet want protection under some of the anti-discrimination laws (and I generalise here for the sake of my post). So many people are saying they both have disabilities and not. While others claim almost monopoly over the status of "disabled". Quadriplegic view paraplegic as less disabled, in fact, some say that paras shouldn’t whine because they don’t have real problems. Complete paras often take a similar view over those with incomplete low injuries. And the one thing for certain, everyone frowns on people with mental illnesses.

Even in a community where we try to do the right thing and avoid expressions such as "deaf and dumb", "wheelchair bound" or what have you, we still use expressions such as "chill, take a pill", or "is she off her meds today"? We are entirely too quick relegating mental illnesses and people who have them to the bottom of the totem pole. In fact, probably in the whole under the totem pole!

I, and several others I know, disagree with that position. We say, a mental illness is just as real a disability as a physical one.

And yes, obviously the experience of mental illness is quite different from that of a physical impairment, just like experiencing deafness is quite different from experiencing blindness. But the disabling experience of a discriminating society is rather similar. Can’t get jobs, can’t get housing, can’t go to school, can’t travel, etc.

BIID a mental illness?

Secondly, as I said before, there are those people who are transabled that will argue that BIID is not a mental illness. I think part of that reaction is due to the generally negative view of society over mental illnesses. For me, I don’t really care about being labelled with a mental illness, one way or the other. If it takes BIID "achieving" mental illness status, and be included in the next edition of the DSM for us to be able to have doors opening on avenues of treatment that fit our needs, then I embrace the idea that I have a mental illness.

For me, it’s a means to an end. But it is also a reality. It is something that affects my mental health.

And to quote my young correspondant, it is very much a "debilitating mental illness" for me. But for me, it’s not a question of wanting benefits, it’s not a question of wanting protection under the law as a person with a disability. It’s about being able to get where I need to be.

[tags]Mental+Illness, Disability, Impairment, Society, Blind, Paraplegic, Deaf, Debilitating[/tags]

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