also i think a lot of support needs discourse completely overlooks the fact that the reason functioning labels and autism levels are problematic to begin with is because there is no across-the-board way to generalize support needs across dozens and dozens of different daily activities usefully, realistically you end up categorizing almost every disabled person as "mid support needs" because of splinter skills and that just isn't materially useful
"can't feed or bath themself" and "completely independently handles their finances and works an accounting job from home" can and do coexist in the same disabled person
"nonverbal and uses aac" and "is capable of completing a college degree" can and do coexist in the same disabled person
"can't live independently and needs a carer" and "is a carer for the other disabled people they live with" is something that applies to literally every disabled person i know
(and like, yes of course i think that people who are profoundly incapable of participating in abled hegemony in any way need language to describe themselves, but the ability to access abled hegemony is already overlooked as the main axis of disabled oppression, instead trying to localize it within our bodyminds? and yeahyeah i get it "i'd still be disabled under socialism" thats not really the point there, the point is regardless of how little you can access abled hegemony the disabling feature is still the access to abled hegemony, current language and discourse abt support needs obscures that imho)
(particularly because the visible markers of disability more profoundly limit someone from accessing abled hegemony, and arguments abt what is "more" or "less" disabling aren't centered on the axis of "how much is this person able to access the benefits of this hegemony, incl. income, respect and authority, social acceptance." i've seen people who have no ability to access institutions like work and school, 0 degree or qualifications and 0 income, being implied as ~less disabled~ due to current discourses on support needs, than people who draw on hegemonic authority via academic and professional accreditation.)
and like, separating out those into categories and representing access to those categories with ur language is fundamentally more accurate than drawing broad lines around dozens of categories of daily living and shunting disabled ppl off into those 3 or 4 categories. the experience of someone who cannot feed or toilet independently + has a masters degree is fundamentally different from the experience of someone who is independently physically mobile + labeled as violent and dangerous due to their disability and currently street homeless. and trying to determine whose "support needs are higher" in that axis or trying to plot them on an axis of "more or less disabled" is fundamentally useless in comparison to describing how their disability positions them in relation to abled hegemony and what parts of it they have access to and what parts they dont!
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