Not someone (another disabled veg) on reddit arguing with me about the definition of veganism and reducing it to diet…when ‘as possible and practicable’ is literally in the first part of the definition sigh. Any advice on dealing with this kind of thing and trying to explain that reducing veganism to a diet is a disservice to the movement and highkey ableist af?
I'd say something like this:
I can understand treating veganism as it is just a diet, since that is how it is almost always discussed in media and online. Veganism has a dietary component, but that isn't all that veganism is. The Vegan Society definition that I have outlined is almost universally accepted definition by vegans themselves, and one of the founders of the Vegan Society who provides that definition is the person who coined the term in the first place.
Wouldn't we know best how to describe our own belief system? I really don't think it is your place to define a belief system on behalf of a community that you don't belong to. You, a non-vegan, are telling me as a vegan, what veganism is. Does that not sound a bit presumptious to you?
I am sure it isn't intentional, but by insisting on this extremely narrow definition, you are erasing thousands of disabled vegans all over the world, who may not be able to survive on a completely plant-based diet, but are tired of being told that they're not real vegans by people who aren't even trying to be vegan themselves. By defining veganism in this way, you are, intentionally or not, explicitly excluding anyone who can't adopt a plant-based diet from being able to call themselves vegan.
It feels like a catch 22 here, because people trash veganism for not being inclusive enough, but when we tell you what the inclusive definition of veganism is, you respond by saying: "Well that isn't what veganism means." We are trying to be inclusive with a definition that can be owned by anyone who is doing their best to avoid animal exploitation, but you and people like you are insisting that isn't real veganism... Which feels counterproductive if you actually care about inclusivity and accessibility more than having some easy ammunition to use against vegans.
So do you want veganism to be inclusive, or not? If you actually care about this issue and want veganism to be more inclusive, then you should encourage people to define it in a way that can include disabled vegans who are not able to completely take on the dietary component.
By insisting that a diet is all that veganism is, you are telling disabled vegans that they are not allowed to call themselves vegan. So isn't it just objectively better and more inclusive to define veganism in the way The Vegan Society do? And if it is, why do you insist on opposing our doing that?
