Danger Will Robinson --- Heirarchy of impairments -- *!!*
Impairment hidden or otherwise is not the point, disability is, that is the say the degree to which the decision maker is more or less empowered than the decision follower, and the degree to which xe shares the social stigmatisation and disadvantage.
Anyway put it this way, and it is hypothetical cos neither case applies to me, if you wore a colostomy bag, ought you to wear it inside or outside? and as for pacemakers, do you even have the choice ?
Epilepsy, Migraine, I dunno what .... should you wear a yellow star?
BTW my third nipple is not really an impairment, just a fairly common difference but it usually is not on view :)
Someone needs to rethink the way they parse the colloquial here and start thinking beyond it as to what disability is.
Larry,
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The Disability-Research Discussion List [mailto:DISABILITY-
> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Harvey Cowe
> Sent: 23 February 2010 19:05
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: User led organisations of disabled people and people with hidden impairments
>
> Dear All,
>
> I am a trustee of my local user led organisation of disabled people and have
> become increasingly aware of how most of the decisions are being made by the
> chief officer, who is nondisabled and other waged members of staff who I
> assumed were also nondisabled. When I mentioned the fact that as a user led
> organisation, the trustees, all of whom have visible impairments, should be
> making decisions and not following decisions made by non-disabled people, I
> have been accused of failing in my duty as an employer, making assumptions,
> being a hypocrite, an angry man, trouble-maker and a barrage of other
> personal insults.
>
> They are right, I have made assumptions about who is and is not disabled
> within the organisation, but what else can I do if the people choose to hide
> their impairments.
> I understand that a person does not have to disclose impairment to employers
> and I can totally understand why someone would hide their impairment from
> the general public –in order to avoid being subjected to prejudice and
> discrimination. I can also understand that a person might deny their
> impairment to themselves as a way of defence mechanism, “I’m not one of
> them” kind of thing. But I find it difficult to understand why someone
> would want to hide their impairment from other disabled people within an
> organisation of disabled people.
>
> I thought that peer support was one of the reasons we had organisations of
> disabled people, to help negate the emotional effects of disablism, to help
> take away the shame etc. More importantly, how does this logic pan out
> when a user-led organisation stipulates that a certain percentage of the
> board have to be disabled? If a person does not have to disclose whether or
> not they are a disabled person or have impairments then how would they know
> how many disabled people are on the board? This means that such
> organisations can only be sure by taking on people whose obvious impairments
> can be displayed rather than disabled people with hidden impairments
> otherwise people looking from outside might begin to make assumptions.
>
> I would be interested in any other people’s thoughts on the issue.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Harvey Cowe
>
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