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What is Meant by Diversability?

Diversability?

No, it’s not a consolidated hashtag for “Divers Ability”, Diversability is quoted as being an award-winning global movement to re-brand disability through the power of community that began in Washington, DC with Tiffany Yu in 2009.

The term Diversability is currently a movement as the preferred term to replace the word “disability and disabilities”. The word “disabilities” is said to be associated with the past and people’s negative experiences with institutions. The term Diversability however embraces the uniqueness and potential in every human being, disabled or non-disabled.

Diversabilities refer to physical, cognitive, developmental, learning, and/or neurological differences, or diversity, in ability levels.

Diversability events promote an atmosphere where individuals are comfortable discussing and exploring questions about accessibility, equality, and inclusion for people with disabilities. (Read more at link)

I don’t really feel these things are helpful in the long run. It seems to ultimately serve to erase our experiences with the social model of disability and erases the fact that there are some things that we just cannot do.

Rebranding disability is not going to get us the dignity, respect and care we deserve. Some rebranding takes away the social responsibility to make society better for everyone and makes it an issue solely for disabled folks to sort out. 

Like if a person can’t walk up stairs, but they can drag themselves and crawl up, that doesn’t mean that you just say“you’re still able to get up the stairs, you just do it differently!” it means you install appropriate ramps and elevators so people don’t have to crawl.

So many of us are pushed beyond our limits already, so many people do not see accessibility as anything other than frivolous and extra, we already have to fight for proper accommodations when they are even available. 

I don’t think rebranding disability to diverseability will help that really.

This is also partly informed by my experience being disabled and part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Most words that we use for ourselves become insults and slurs to folks outside the community.  The stigma associated with the community is not a product of the words that we use, but attaches itself to whatever words we use because it is our being they look down upon. 

For an example within the disabled community, “Special Needs” was meant to be a gentle way of highlighting that accommodations and accessibility for disabled folks were needs, different needs but needs nonetheless. 

“Special” then became an insult, even the accommodations provided became insults “taking the short bus” was an insult when I was growing up. Heck. “you’re using X as a crutch” is still a popular phrase even though crutches are mobility aids, not the thing that holds you back. (I was even told “you are using your spinal cord injury as a crutch” once and I just… it blew my mind).

I can’t speak for everyone, obviously, but I think that rebranding efforts never get to the core of the problem of stigma and lack of respect. 

How does this word even apply on an individual level? I am a disabled person. I am not “diversable” because we cannot be diverse as a single person; I have a specific set of experiences and needs *as a disabled person* which can’t be acknowledged or addressed when people try to hand-wave it away with “well we’re all just differently abled :)”

The disabled community and disability rights movement have existed for decades, and we choose the words we use deliberately. This is an awkward excuse for able-bodied people to pretend they “don’t see differences” at best; This is erasure.

I know I can’t speak for everyone, but speaking for myself and the other people with disabilities that I know/am friends with, disabled isn’t a Bad Word. I don’t like being disabled - I would change it if I would - but I can’t, and I’ve grown to understand that it’s part of who I am. The constant need of able-bodied people to try and find new words for minority groups so that THEY can feel comfortable is really upsetting to me. If you really care whether or not someone with a disability has preferences on terminology, you go and you ask them. But don’t try and fabricate something so that you can feel better about yourself. Consult disabled individuals, not your conscience.

I’m disabled. I know I’m disabled. And I have accepted that, and now I live with it. I have routine, I have self awareness, I am perfectly capable, and I am perfectly okay with who I am. “Disabled” isn’t a bad word. It’s not uncomfortable, or disgusting, or abnormal. It’s what I’ve got, and it’s what I live with. It’s part of who I am. I know that.

“No one marked April 25 on their calendar. In fact, most of the living were unaware that St. Mark even had a day named in his honor.

But the dead remembered.”