Someone started a rant to me with ‘you people just want to complain’ and included ‘wheelers’ in response to a Facebook conversation about inclusivity of an event.

‘You people,’ like ‘those people’ implies, to me, that people with disabilities are a separate segment of society. And, historically, people with disabilities have been disadvantaged, not by disabilities, but by a society where ableism prevailed and the identification, prevention and removal of barriers hasn’t been a priority.

As a person with disabilities, the barrier that I encounter the most is the attitudinal barrier; it’s usually based on stereotypical beliefs that people using wheelchairs make up the majority of the disability community or that people are demanding extra.

Do you know anyone that has or has had cancer? diabetes? arthritis? MS? lung disease? heart disease? dyslexia? low vision? hearing loss? ADHD? depression? anxiety? Then you know someone that has a disability.

While there are legislative definitions of ‘disability,’ there are also various models of disability that describe attitudes toward people with disabilities and I can usually quickly spot and categorize where people fit in.

There is a longer list, but briefly, the medical model where members of the medical community need to ‘fix’ an individual. The charity model; I see photo ops of politicians at charity events where people with disabilities are depicted as victims of tragedy and are pitied. What I sometimes hear are political comments related to costs and how things take time. The social model, and more recently the human rights model, emphasizes that it’s the environmental and attitudinal barriers that prevent people with disabilities from equally participating in communities, even though everyone has the right to equality.

There is also preferable and inclusive language but people still use the outdated ‘handicap’ and other euphemisms.

Ignorance is no excuse in 2024. It’s also unacceptable to personally attack people with disabilities on social media for ‘complaining’ about a lack of access or pointing out attitudinal barriers.