This is who we are. This is who we serve. The phrase “Nothing about us, without us,” came from the disability rights movement in the 1970s — stop telling us what we need and doing it to us; let us be part of the decision-making and the action. The disability community is an incredibly diverse group of people with all kinds of access needs and all kinds of lived experiences. We follow this community’s lead.
Participants on an accessible outing, Sweetwater Wetlands, Tucson, Arizona. Photo: Freya McGregor.
For example, the cultural shift in preferred language from ‘handicapped’ to ‘disabled’ has been spearheaded by the disability community: “Just say ‘disabled’, it’s not a dirty word.” So, we do. Many members of the autistic community prefer identity-first language (“I am an autistic person,”) over person-first language (“I am a person with autism,”), so we say that too. (There’s more on inclusive language use in our Guidance Documents.) We do our best to listen, learn and apply, in order to serve our people the best we can.