#ables

So I have a discord full of friends and I had posted a tweet from Four Wheel Workout on twitter (go follow her) that I will link and transcribe: 

“Today I was told to my face that I am not disabled. I politely directed her attention to the 200lb+ wheelchair I’m in and my invisible legs. She said: No. you aren’t disabled. You are SKILL-able. Y’all I may or may not have snorted. I done heard it all.” https://twitter.com/4WheelWorkOut/status/1111841655164813312

Now a friend of mine had asked why skill-abled, because it sounded like the abled person in this story was making it seem like Four Wheel Work Out had skills that the abled didn’t (I mean we do, but that’s not the point of the story). And I had elaborated that ables (usually white ables) tend to dislike the word “disabled” and will try to stop using it even when the disabled person in question identifies with it. So they’ll change it to anything that isn’t disabled, like handicapped, differently abled, and the dreaded handicapable. And my friend had replied, “That’s really dumb, it sounds like you’re talking down to them.” And I had replied, “That’s usually because it is, even if they’re not actively thinking about it.” But then I thought, what if white, cishet, ables did this with other people?