Neurodivergent glossary
Disability
A word with more meaning than most people realize—describing the interaction between a person's body or brain and a world that wasn't designed for them.
What it means
In neurodivergent spaces, "disability" is a word that carries weight, nuance, and sometimes disagreement. Some neurodivergent people identify as disabled; others don't. Both positions are valid, and the conversation between them is one of the most important in the community.
Under the social model, disability isn't a characteristic of a person—it's a product of the mismatch between a person and their environment. An autistic person who works from home, controls their sensory environment, and communicates on their own terms might not feel disabled at all. Put that same person in an open-plan office with fluorescent lights and mandatory team-building activities, and they become profoundly disabled—not because they changed, but because the environment did.
The word also carries legal significance. In many countries, identifying as disabled unlocks protections and accommodations under disability law. Rejecting the label can mean rejecting those protections. This creates a tension for neurodivergent people who don't feel disabled in their daily lives but need the legal framework that the word provides.
In practice
What this can look like
- You hesitate to check "disabled" on a form because some days you function just fine. But the form isn't asking about your best days—it's asking whether your brain works differently enough to need support, and the answer is yes.
- A colleague says "I don't think of you as disabled" as a compliment. You hear: "I don't want to think about what you're actually dealing with." The word isn't an insult—it's a description of your relationship to a system that wasn't built for you.
Context
Community note
There's no correct answer to whether any individual neurodivergent person is "disabled." The value of the word is in what it makes visible: that the world is built for some brains and not others, and that the gap between the two is where suffering lives.
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