Using Identity-First vs. Person-First Disability Language
#SayTheWord: On Disability, Language, and the Mechanics of Social Change
It's a question that isn't asked enough, but when it is, it usually yields conservative responses. For starters, what's correct in the newsroom is using language that aligns with how a subject self-identifies, and that's a grace that's rarely given to disabled people to begin with. Really, nondisabled people have no place in deciding for disabled people how they should relate to their own disabilities, one way or another. But past singular subjects, many guidelines about this question resist complexity for the sake of reducing liability.
It's easier for editors to advise against identity-first and for person-first definitively than it is to acknowledge the nuance and leave any room for error, but it's not an open-and-shut case. Person-first language is rooted in a tradition of self-advocacy that's important, especially as it pertains to disability rights in the US from the '60s onward. Many elders use person-first language in a spirit of care, which isn't to be ignored, either. Person-first language signals a shift in movements for social justice that tends to be born out of material need (not everyone can disclose their disability safely, for example).
But just as the person-first language of colorblindness or "not seeing race" leaves us without the ability to talk critically about racism, it's widely accepted today that person-first language like "see the person, not the disability" effectively erases the language necessary to deconstruct ableism.
Journalistically speaking, person-first language tends to make identity an afterthought, literally. Disability advocates I've spoken to wince at the thought of only being referenced with person-first, citing that it denies their dignity and autonomy as a proud community of self-advocates with a rich culture: not unconnected people who happen to be disabled. That's why the pivot to clear, liberatory, identity-first language around disability (and beyond) is a victory that's vital for us to observe.
Disabled people have value beyond their proximity to ability.
Disabled people have value beyond their proximity to ability. Black people have value beyond their proximity to whiteness. Queer people have value beyond how closely they can reproduce straight relationships, and so on. That's the truth that identity-first language underlines, and as long as the media denies disabled people the grace to self-identify as they choose and be affirmed in our newsrooms accordingly, we are standing in the way of making social equity a reality.
Marie Soledad served as a sensitivity reader on this story.
