All people have the right to define their own experiences and identities. This page centers disabled people's expertise on what disability means—across cultures, legal systems, and communities.
There is no single agreed-upon definition of disability. How we define it determines who gets support, who is excluded, how systems treat us, and how we understand ourselves.
Different definitions serve different purposes. Medical definitions unlock treatments and diagnoses. Legal definitions determine benefit eligibility. Community definitions build solidarity and culture. Understanding these frameworks helps you navigate systems, advocate for yourself, and connect with others.
Many disabled people describe disability as:
Under this view, disability is not just "what's wrong with your body." It's also about stairs without ramps, paperwork you can't read, prejudice in hiring, inaccessible transit, and systems designed around a narrow idea of "normal."
This understanding connects individual experience to collective conditions—recognizing that disabled people share common barriers even when our bodyminds differ significantly.
Medical systems often define disability as:
These definitions influence eligibility for treatments, rehabilitation, and insurance. They provide diagnostic labels for medical records and shape how professionals discuss "prognosis" or "risk."
Medical definitions can provide useful language and documentation. They also have significant limitations: they treat disability primarily as a problem to fix, they ignore social and economic barriers, and they exclude people who can't access formal diagnosis due to cost, discrimination, or systemic failures.
Laws and programs create their own definitions of disability, which may not match medical or personal experience.
Examples across different systems:
In the United States, Social Security disability (SSDI/SSI) focuses on your ability to perform "substantial gainful activity" (work for pay). The ADA defines disability as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.
Many countries use percentage ratings or "impairment levels" to determine benefit eligibility. Education laws often define disability categories differently from healthcare or employment law.
What this means in practice: You might be disabled but not meet the criteria for a specific program. You might qualify under one law but not another. People are often pressured to minimize or exaggerate aspects of their disability to fit bureaucratic requirements.
The social model, developed by disabled activists in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s, makes a key distinction:
Impairment refers to the bodymind difference itself—for example, paralysis, chronic pain, hearing loss, or cognitive differences.
Disability refers to the barriers created by society—stairs, lack of captions, rigid work schedules, poverty, discrimination.
Under this model, people are disabled by inaccessible systems, not by their bodies alone. A wheelchair user isn't disabled by their wheelchair—they're disabled by stairs, narrow doorways, and inaccessible transit.
This framework has been powerful for advocacy and policy change. It shifts responsibility from individuals to systems. At the same time, some disabled people note it doesn't always capture pain, fatigue, or internal experiences that are real regardless of social barriers.
Disability justice frameworks, developed by Black, brown, queer, and trans disabled organizers including Sins Invalid, emphasize that:
Disability is shaped by intersecting systems: racism, ableism, colonialism, capitalism, and gendered violence all produce and target disability differently across communities.
Some communities are targeted for debility: kept in states of chronic illness, injury, exhaustion, or premature death through environmental racism, police violence, lack of healthcare access, and economic exploitation.
Our bodyminds are not problems to be fixed in order to be worthy of care, rights, or community. Worth is not tied to productivity or ability to conform to non-disabled norms.
You may see terms like "bodymind," "crip," "mad," "neurodivergent," and "sick" used as proud identities or political tools within these frameworks.
Western definitions of disability often dominate international discourse, but many cultures have distinct understandings of bodymind difference, illness, and community care.
Some Indigenous frameworks understand disability within collective rather than individual terms, emphasizing community responsibility and reciprocal care rather than individual deficit or accommodation.
In many Global South contexts, disability is inseparable from colonial histories that produced mass disablement through violence, environmental destruction, and economic exploitation—while simultaneously imposing Western medical and legal frameworks as the only legitimate ways to understand disability.
This wiki acknowledges these perspectives while recognizing that most of its current content reflects Western frameworks. Expanding to include more diverse perspectives is ongoing work.
You get to define your relationship to disability. You might:
This wiki uses "disabled people" as an umbrella term, following the preference of many disability rights and justice organizations. We also name specific identities where it matters. You're invited to use the language that feels most accurate and liberating for you.
Have lived experience or expertise that could strengthen this page? We especially welcome perspectives from communities underrepresented in mainstream disability discourse.
This page centers disabled people's expertise and is informed by disabled-led organizing globally. For questions or to suggest additions, see How to Contribute.
Last updated: November 2025