Defining Disability

What does it mean to be disabled? Who is disabled? What is disability? Think about the first person you know who identifies as having a disability. If you do not know someone personally, think about a public figure or celebrity and consider these definitions:

• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): "a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity. This includes people who have a record of such an impairment, even if they do not currently have a disability. It also includes individuals who do not have a disability but are regarded as having a disability"

• Merriam Webster: "a physical, mental, cognitive, or developmental condition that impairs, interferes with, or limits a person's ability to engage in certain tasks or actions or participate in typical daily activities and interactions"

• Oxford English Dictionary: "a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities" or "a disadvantage or handicap, especially one imposed or recognized by the law"

These definitions may provide a broad understanding of the legal and medical implications of the term "disability," but they do not encompass the diversity and expansive nature of disability as a minority identity. A disability can be psychiatric (including depression, anxiety, PTSD), sensory, physical, cognitive, intellectual, health related (such as chronic illnesses like lupus, MS, Crohn's), emotional, social, developmental, and communicative. Any person of any age, gender, sexual orientation, race, or nationality may be disabled. Further, disability, in one form or another, is inevitable in old age.

According to the Center for Disease Control:

• 26% (1 in 4) of people in the United States have some type of disability

• 2 in 5 adults over the age of 65 have a disability

• 1 in 4 women have a disability

It is time that we stop thinking about disability as exclusively this:

Instead, we should imagine it as highly intersectional and expansive: