In my treks over the internet, I have seen various people (mostly social justice people) worrying that they are somehow harming Real disabled people if they use a wheelchair if they can still walk …
Excerpt:
In universal design, there’s something called the curb cut effect. Basically, things intended to benefit people with disabilities wind up benefiting everyone. Curb cuts, which are intended for wheelchair users to be able to get on sidewalks, help bicyclists, parents with strollers, delivery people, and a dozen other nondisabled groups. Similarly, closed captioning, which was originally meant to benefit Deaf people, helps people who have trouble with auditory information processing (hi!), people who like talking during films, and people trying to watch TV in noisy bars.
The curb cut effect is accessibility activists’ secret weapon. You see, people don’t generally want to accommodate disabled people any more than they have to. Accommodating disabled people is a pain in the neck, and disabled people are generally a small and relatively powerless group with limited ability to complain. However, if any TV network tries to remove closed captioning, they won’t just have to put up with complaints from Deaf people. They will have to put up with complaints from everyone who has ever tried to watch TV in a noisy bar. The latter is far more likely to strike fear in the TV executive’s heart.
Furthermore, pretty much anything that’s limited to disabled people only has to have some sort of process for figuring out who’s disabled. This presents numerous issues. Many disabled people don’t know they’re disabled. (Raise your hand if you’ve had a conversation with someone who thinks that ADD or depression isn’t real because everyone acts like that, right?) Many disabled people struggle with feeling like “fakers” and won’t ask for accommodations that they need. Many disabled people who do know they’re disabled can’t prove it: healthcare access is often limited for poor people, people of color, trans people, and so on; navigating bureaucracy requires skills like being able to talk to people, show up places at a scheduled time, and do things that you intended to do, that many mental illnesses and developmental disabilities make difficult. Every time you say “this is for disabled people only”– whether by limiting it to disabled people institutionally or by criticizing people who do it and whom you don’t think are disabled enough– a lot of disabled people don’t get access to it. [...]
