Fading Scars: My Queer Disability History, 1st ed., Autonomous Press, June 9th, 2015, pp.13-53
Summary
In this reading, O’Toole explores the boundaries they faced while writing about other disabled people and their stories. O’Toole starts their exploration by explaining their beliefs about why disability should be talked about and how discourse if thoughtless can enable ableist rhetoric. The most significant aspect of O’Toole’s writing is their classification of people as “disabled”, “nondisabled”, or “unknown”. They explain their reasoning for including people’s disability status, is to combat erasure of disability, one of the forms of ableism. Early on, O’Toole establishes their belief of two distinct forms ableism, erasing disability and idolizing perceived struggles. The latter is mostly done by non-disabled individuals and focuses on assumed struggles without seeing the disabled person as a person. This leads naturally into a discussion of society’s relationship to the concept of “normal”. They make a point that the more normal an “abnormal” condition is made the more rights people with that condition will be able to enjoy. This is the main reason they purposefully mention disabilities but do not make it the focus of a person’s introduction in their book. The language used around disabilities varies widely depending on who is speaking. O’Toole voices a hesitance to use medical and “formal” terminology as often that vocabulary is rejected by disabled groups. However, they do express a need to use it as most people who do not consistently interact with disabled people only know the “formal” terminology. They also make a point that outside of the “formal” language used to discuss disability there is not a consistently agreed upon lexicon. So, for the sake of transparent communication they used a mix of the “formal” and the commonly used lexicons. They also acknowledge the potential labeling people has for harm. This is the reason they classify people as “unknown”, to avoid labeling people something they have not chosen to be known as. By using this method, O’Toole is respecting other’s identity while bring awareness and normalizing situations that would otherwise be portrayed as different or downplayed.
Quotations
“Refusing to explore language options for people’s relationship to disability harms the nondisabled people by ignoring the ways that ableism also impacts them as they go through life with disabled people.” (43)
“There is no standard grammatical structure in how people use their chosen disability-specific terms. People with hemophilia call themselves ‘hemophiliacs’. The deaf community has a convention of using ‘Deaf” to mean people that are affiliated with the cultural and linguistic community of people who use American Sign Language and ‘deaf’ to indicate that someone has a hearing disability but is not necessarily tied to the cultural and linguistic capital ‘D’ Deaf community.” (37)
“A significant problem in American culture, as in many Western cultures, is the presumption that preforming ‘normally’ is required for competence to be presumed.” (22)
“When deviations from “normal” occur, our society reacts as if all efforts should be made to bring the deviant back to as close to normal as possible, and if that is not possible, to eliminate the deviant.” (18)
Reflection
I enjoyed reading this excerpt quite a bit. O’Toole probably had the most understandable explanation of “normalizing disability”. To be completely honest, I have been struggling to understand what each of the examples we have seen so far in this class mean when they say they want disability to be normalized. Up until this point, I have just placed the concept to the side as much as I could. That is a very unfortunate way approach the conversation we have been having as normalization is reoccurring theme. I also feel as if O’Toole has given me some of the context that has been lacking in most of the material thus far. The discussion of language and O’Toole’s method was very thorough addressing all sides of the conversation. I think the biggest part of O’Toole’s writing I noticed was their honest attempts to reach all sides. They were purposely tailoring their writing so that it would be understandable to as many people as possible. They were not catering to one group of people but considering all potential audiences. I am interested to hear their perspective on some other intersectional topics. They clearly are very conscious of differences and struggles that relate to those differences. Terminology seemed to be the largest struggle they faced. This is understandable because if used improperly, someone could be offended and/or the original narrative can be completely lost. I found the way they approached labeling interesting. I am personally very conflicted about labels. I at this point pretty much refuse to apply a label to myself in any way. I have never felt comfortable with any label I have been assigned. And I say assigned, because even if it seems that I am the one choosing the label, I am not. Most labels, even chosen ones, are based on how others perceive us and how we relate to others’ perceptions. I do, however, understand that labels really help people feel comfortable. So, it was interesting to see someone make a case for labels and a case against label usage at the same time. Without the explanation they gave, I believe I would have probably taken some issue with them labeling people as disabled or not throughout their writing.