Welcome to c/disabled, an anticapitalist community for disabled people/people with disability(s).
What is disability justice? Disability justice is a framework of activism which centers disabled people of multiple intersections. Before participating in in this community, please read the Ten Principles of Disability Justice.
Do I count as disabled/a person with disability(s)? "Disability" is an umbrella term which encompasses physical disabilities, emotional/psychiatric disabilities, neurodivergence, intellectual/developmental disabilities, sensory disabilities, invisible disabilities, and more. You do not have to have an official diagnosis to consider yourself disabled.
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As of December 2025, there is a Matrix Chat Room that adheres to the same rules as the community. If you want to join, it is an invite only server. Just knock to join. Should you have trouble with the link, you can contact the mods for help: https://matrix.to/#/#Hexbear_Disabled_and_ND:matrix.org
This post would not have been possible without the dedicated feedback and work put into it by the community of c/disabled, and I wish to extend the mods heartfelt thanks to all who pitched in to help make it better.
If anyone has questions, the disabled community is ready to listen and help explain. Thank you to you all for reading and caring enough to check the post out! 
Would you like this post site-pinned for a couple days, or no?
I'd appreciate it, yes, thank you!
others are so restricted in their diet that they can’t eat vegan or vegetarian
I appreciate the acknowledgement! it sucks because you can try your best, but your body ultimately determines what they will eat and not your mind 😩
I feel you comrade, I am myself struggling with this exact same problem, and I would like to go full vegetarian at the minimum. However, recent developments in my own health now force me to stick with eating specific types of meat. It's frustrating, it makes me feel bad even though I know it's not my fault. 
On the blind usage, another way to phrase it if you want to be snarky or show you think the person is intentionally missing something is asking if they are being deliberately obtuse or just calling them obtuse
This is a very good example too! Thank you for sharing it <3
I finally made time to read through the first link with a large list of ableist terms - it is clear up front that:
Many of the words and phrases on this page […] may not actually be hurtful, upsetting, retraumatizing, or offensive to many disabled people.
And we can see that even playing out in the comments on this post where there’s disagreement about at least one of the listed terms.
Setting that aside, though, what struck me the most was a blurb about words I used in this thread - and no, I don’t mean “blind”:
-Phobic (examples: homophobic, Islamophobic)
Appropriates description of a specific mental illness / psychosocial disability, frequently to describe hatred, fear, bigotry, or oppression, or else to describe something disliked or unpleasant. This is not ableist when it refers to someone who actually has a phobia such as agoraphobia, claustrophobia, emetophobia, etc.
Consider instead: anti-Muslim, queer-antagonistic, fatmisia, bigotry against, bias against, hate of, prejudice against, oppressive, etc.
I’m certainly open to hearing other opinions, but in this case I don’t think I can be convinced that this is actually ableist. Phobia/phobic are very commonly used suffixes and the fact that they’re used in a psychiatric context is just a result of being derived from Greek. I’m sure I could dig up other suffixes commonly used in medical contexts that are derived from Greek or Latin that don’t appear on this list but are similarly also used outside of them.
frequently to describe […] fear
That’s literally what the suffix means.
hatred, […] bigotry, or oppression
I’d argue these aren’t separate from the irrational fear, but derived from them. In the psychiatric contexts, hatred of the feared thing is often also a manifestation of the phobia.
-misia as an alternative suffix
Yes, this more accurately describes hatred. Yes, hatred is a major component of what these words are often describing, but again, I would argue that this is hatred that arises from a fear of things which are different. I’m not opposed to using this suffix, but I don’t think phobia is an inaccurate suffix nor misappropriated when used in non-medical contexts.
Gonna copy a couple definitions:
-phobia
noun combining form
-phobia
-phobia
All of these, IMO, back up the usage in both psychiatric and non-psychiatric contexts.
i've seen proponents of -misia around and they're correct but it's very difficult to change language like that, and there are a shitload of uncontroversial words where the current meaning doesn't exactly match the etymology. it's probably some kind of mistake to worry about whether parts of words mean the same thing they did a thousand years ago in another language.
that list is maximalist af, that doesn't mean it's totally wrong or anything, there are lots of cases where communities don't have consensus on these matters. If we want to adopt that for the site that's fine we can do that; or if you're in an org and want to use it as part of a style-guide it's good to over-correct a little bit for official coms and i would vote for it in that context, but there's a kind of dictionary perversion to it that isn't suitable or reasonable in all casual contexts and whatever circles you're in will normatively pick and choose what is a problem and what isn't.
Good reply, and thank you for putting that much effort in, I appreciate it! 
The point of the list, as you correctly quoted, is to address words that can be ableist and/or have an ableist origin. Just like with "lame" in the other comment thread, I think the term "phobia" is a thing of subjective perception. In general, I would recommend reading the List of Terms to Avoid as a loose guidebook on how certain expressions can be perceived as slurs or degradation, some plainly are, and others have ableist origins. The point really isn't to say "You're not allowed to call it x-phobia" anymore, but to be aware that there is, as you correctly and elaborately explained, a double meaning, historically and presently to the term. The awareness and consciousness about the origins of certain terms (even if only in part) is essential to understanding how pervasive ableism is. Sometimes, we do manage to reclaim these words, but these things take time, and effort. So thank you again for putting in the effort of highlighting the complexity of phobia as a term and how one may see it as ableist or not.
Incredible post comrades!
I have struggled with saying something, realizing it is ableist, but not knowing what to say instead. Some stuff like the r-word I haven't used in years, even prior to finding out I am autistic, because I knew it was bad to say, other people around me however refuse to drop that word from their vocabularies and it makes me mad, specially because it's one that's rather easy to just not use at all. I'll make sure I check which words to avoid using from now on and find replacements for it.
Also to complement the quote about language being political, in the very first chapter of The Wretched of the Earth, Franz Fanon talks about how language is also a form of violence, in the book it's in the context of colonization, but its still something important to keep in mind.
Ableist Language is still present in most media and as someone who learned English from Movies and Books, it's definitely hard to know what may be ableist because I mostly 'repeat' lines of English than 'speak' English, if this makes sense.
Makes total sense. I learned english from mostly playing games then watching content in english, mainly youtube, so I totally get that, sometimes I still do just repeat some lines without really thinking about it.
One thing that works well for my autistic brain is that when I notice I say something mildly ableist, I correct my language as I'm speaking and it really helps shift my monotropic brain that clings to habit like a baby monkey clings to its mother.
So I might say "That was a stupid thing for me to do... I mean foolish." or "...foolish, rather." because the more I associate saying foolish instead of stupid, the more likely I am to reach for the right word instead of the ableist one.
It's also a process. If you try changing everything at once it's overwhelming. My advice would be to start with the most over ableist language that you find yourself using, get comfortable with using better terms, then move on to the more subtle words over time. I deal with verbal shutdowns and communication issues already and if I had to ovethink my words even more than I already do I'd probably stop talking entirely. So, give yourself the space to change and be patient with the process.
in the very first chapter of The Wretched of the Earth, Franz Fanon talks about how language is also a form of violence
Frantz Fanon? Never heard of the guy! /s
Oh I see, thanks for the tip! Having a lot of social anxiety makes it kinda difficult for me to correct that in the spot, but I'll try doing it anyway. I don't really go non-verbal but I get overwhelmed rather easily, so I'll make sure to give myself the necessary time and space to change.
That's understandable. Trying when you are able to do so will make a big difference anyway, even if it only happens when you're thinking out loud to yourself or you do it when you're talking one-on-one to a person you're comfortable with and the anxiety levels are lower.
I don't really go non-verbal
I'd be remiss in my duties if I didn't talk about this, especially given the topic of the post. This is a call-in not a call out.
The preferred term is "non-speaking" since non-verbal implies that only the act of speak words out loud "counts" as "valid" form of verbalizing and it doesn't recognize that people can verbalize by signing, using AAC, or by writing.
But that term applies to people who do not speak and use alternative means of communication and this is essentially considered to be a persistent state. For yourself, it seems like you do not speak at times in a transient way and the preferred term for that is "verbal shutdown" because it's important to make a distinction between people who are non-speaking and the people who lose their ability to speak temporarily due to certain factors. The (unintentional) harm caused by referring to oneself with the term nonverbal while being able to speak most of the time is that it creates a societal expectation that people who identify as nonverbal/nonspeaking or are labeled as such can speak, and that can cause all sorts of problems.
As a person who experiences verbal shutdowns myself I think it's very important that we avoid colonizing that space carved out for nonspeaking people because it's crucial that they have it and the recognition in society (however small) that comes with it.
There's no need to apologize or to feel guilty over this btw. These misunderstandings are a product of the discourse within the autistic community, especially online, being of an abysmal quality and having a strong tendency to import a lot of ableism in from mainstream discourse while, intentionally or otherwise, talking over higher support needs autistic people etc. (Honestly, that shit gives me a migraine and it's so difficult to drive culture change in that space.) You're not to blame for picking up what prominent figures in the autistic self-advocacy community normalize without consideration for higher support needs people and others who do not speak. (Btw Sienna Stims is a creator on social media and they are really good at critiquing the internalized ableism and lateral ableism within the autistic community, especially from content creators, and I'd recommend you give them a follow so you see their stuff in your feed.)
Damn I really liked 'bonkers' and how it sounded. I always associated it with getting hit on the head (no idea if that's how it relates then to ableism or not) and always imagined a 'bonk' effect. Thought it was super harmless, but I learned something new today! Good post, thanks for the info!
Also super happy to find "dipshit" on the list of acceptable replacement words. That's one of my top ones that are at least still mean to use on fascists.
bonkers is unknown etymology.
also it looks like the usage is divergent between commonwealth and american english. on a website we might choose to be more strict but if you're in the states it's contextual rather than ableist by default.
I'm neither, thankfully! Just gonna be on the safe side and not use it anymore.
On a personal note, and not as a moderator, I would like to point out something that struck me while reading the comments all of you made in this thread. There are a lot of terms both on and off the Ableist words/terms list that don't feel insulting to some but feel (immensely) insulting to others, and that is okay. We all perceive things differently, some words are always slurs, others depend on the person and/or context. The point I wanted to make is that I feel it's important that we give each other grace when it comes to terms that we perceive as hurtful or not. If someone doesn't mind using a term or being spoken to with that term, that is fine, but at the same time, if a conversation partner does not appreciate or tolerate being addressed with the same term, we should not use it. Making conversations and language accommodating doesn't mean that words are forbidden from being mentioned. But it is important to understand that just because something is okay for you, it doesn't have to be okay for someone else.
Anecdoctal mention of my own experience: While I am disabled, I severely dislike being called disabled by other people. I've been bullied in school for having a disability pass, and people would mock and tease me for needing special accommodations. To me, being called disabled by other people still feels like a slur, even though "disabled" is by no means one.
good post
common disabled community W
Good post.
I wish I had saved it but one person in the comments of one of the rules change posts had a nice effort post on the issues with insults generally. It sounds obvious to say it but it's demeaning by nature and almost always involves a comparison to some group that shouldn't be viewed negatively, whether the insult is racist, sexist, ableist, etc. The "acceptable" insults tend to just be facts, i.e. "they're a fascist." Don't want to go too deep into it since this is a post about ableist language and that can extend into more than just insults ofc.
Great post! Thank you to all the comrades who have taken the time to think about this.
Trying to be better with this every day. 
Thanks for the post I appreciate it.
I find myself often unable to express my extreme distaste for things without resorting to ableist language.
Is there a good lists of insults somewhere?
Atrocious, antithetical (to...), awful, appalling, craven, cowardly, classless (the bad kind), despicable, dreadful, dire, deplorable, detestable, ghastly, ghoulish, gall/galling (personal favourite), horrific, horrendous, hateful, heinous, inimical (to...), ignorant, insipid, Milquetoast, mealymouthed, loathesome, laughable, nasty, odious, obnoxious, objectionable, reprehensible, revolting (the bad kind not the good kind), rotten, risible, repellant, tasteless, tactless, vile.
Loredrop:
One time in grade school my teacher threatened us with having to read the dictionary if we forgot to bring out book during reading time.
Me, having been raised by wolves and needing to test boundaries in order to feel some sense of security and to establish trust in authority figures for being consistent and reliable while not acting punitively, did what I did and tested the boundaries. So I ended up reading the dictionary during the reading period. Turns out I found it fascinating. I didn't do it every reading period but I definitely did it for quite a few of them. So now you know where this comment originated from.
"annoying"