“Special Needs” is an Ableist Term

STOP using the phrase, “special needs”—it perpetuates the false belief that only disabled people have individualized needs and that accepting and supporting a person's individualized needs is "special"--harming both disabled and non-disabled people. There is nothing special about having your own unique needs or the desire to get those needs met.

As a society, we like to pretend that non-disabled people's needs are met under typical practices, but the truth is that an education system focused on standardized testing and compliance, and a 9-to-5 job in a cubicle with low wages and a high cost of living isn't working for anyone. It seems to me that corporations and billionaires are the ones with "special needs" and they come at a high cost to all of us.

"Special needs," is also a whitewashed word. It makes it sound like disabled people's needs are supported and cared for and treated as if they are "special"--that's false.

Disability programs often do little more than strip people of dignity, agency, and legal rights while condemning them to a life of poverty. School IEP programs include "supports" such as "planned ignoring," and disabled adults lack marriage equality because they lose their (impoverished) disability income once they get married--how special.

Disabled is not a bad word, but when you don’t use it, it helps spread the myth that it is, all while perpetuating a false whitewashed idea about the way disabled people are treated. I am not ashamed to be disabled—do not be ashamed for me.