Usually called the doctor. Or the caretaker.

For seven years I was the main point of contact between my disabled partner and the rest of the world. I was able to get about as accurate an idea of what it's like to be disabled in an anti-disability world as an abled person can get, in that time. I really wish that more abled people paid attention to the kind of things they take for granted, and to what the world looks like as a result. Because, of course, there are a lot more disabled people around than just the guy with only one arm who begs outside the grocery store, or the woman on Lofstrand crutches in front of you at Starbucks, or Stephen Hawking and Michael J. Fox. A friend of mine uses a tag for her disability-related posts that reads "my disability can see you"--the point being that her disability is "invisible". To everyone but her, of course.

There are a couple of problems that I see in my world right now as regards the disabled. (By "my world," I mean the US and Canada; I've lived in both and currently live in Canada.) The first is the able-bodied believing that they not only can tell who is and isn't "really" disabled, but that they have the right to make judgements based on their perception. The second is a social climate that makes it difficult for the disabled to admit their disability and to ask for accommodation. And third, there is a one-size-fits-all attitude of the abled toward accommodation. Folded into this is a public policy problem, or rather a couple of them: the persistent problem of lack of funding, or misused funding, too-little-too-late ADA compliance, and the appointment of "disability coordinators" who are not disabled, do not have any close friends who are disabled, and in many cases, who are made profoundly uncomfortable by dealing with the disabled.

Let me address these issues, necessarily rather briefly.

( Cut because it's not possible to make it *that* brief. )