>AMANDAW

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I, and others, have been mulling over how to refer to people who are not disabled. Roughly, our options seem to be:
  • normal, or non-marked identity: centering a certain body/mind as “normal” … It tends to imply that “normal” is accepted as good, while non-normal is bad …
  • able-bodied, which seems to be the settled-upon term: excludes people with non-physical disabilities … and it just makes my heart cry.
  • temporarily-able-bodied: at any time in life, you may become disabled, due to age, injury, late-manifesting genetics, or social barriers …
  • neurotypical, physiotypyical: terms used in the autistic community to describe persons whose makeup conforms to the expected norm …
  • normative: it emphasizes the social conformity rather than some inherent difference; think heteronormative.
  • non-disabled: functional, but we tend to want a specific term to describe the privileged category …
  • abled, fully-able: I have been leaning on these terms as the most neutral of the set of options, but they still just don’t seem to describe …
… I’ve finally settled on the term I’m comfortable with: temporarily non-disabled.
ETA: This is somewhat US-centric: UK disability advocates tend to use “disabled person” and “non-disabled person” as opposed to “person with a disability” or “person without a disability” (people-first language). And other countries may have different approaches as well. Something to keep in mind.
ETA 2: Many people in comments bring up the word “currently” in place of “temporary” and most people seem much more comfortable with this terminology (i.e., currently non-disabled).

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