And that right there is why we need to have the first part of this post in the public discourse. Why do you think it’s okay to ask for the medical details of her condition or diagnosis? Especially after reading about exactly why doing so could be harmful?

You must be new.

First of all, the medical model of disability is not actually useful. Second, no one is required to disclose their private medical information publicly in order to satisfy your curiosity nor to have to validate their identity as disabled. This kind of gate-keeping is exactly why many people including myself have trouble accessing necessary accessibility and services, or getting the support we need.

Now let’s take a moment to unpack your implication that a “bad back” is not sufficiently serious to be considered a disability. A bad back usually means chronic pain, which is known to impact sleep quality which can in turn lead to cognitive impairment. Additionally, chronic pain is a massive energy drain making even simple tasks way more complicated. A bad back can limit mobility making movement difficult, limiting your ability to bend, which in turn can impact your ability to perform basic self-care duties like putting on socks, cleaning, can limit your ability to perform work tasks depending on your job.

Disregarding back pain is part of why my spine and hips are as damaged as they are. No one took it seriously enough to question why a teenager would have back pain.

Disregarding chronic pain is one of the reasons why getting access to accessibility devices, and full coverage for my medication has been difficult.

Now on to medical professionals: medical professionals are some of the worst gate keepers. There are endless studies confirming that their biases directly impact patient care and outcomes negatively. Hell this very blog is populated by multiple individuals who are facing severe impairment BECAUSE doctors decided we weren’t actually disabled. There is the person who is blind because doctors ignored them, the one who walked on a broken ankle for five years, the one who almost needed a hip replacement at 19, and that’s just the stories that actually make it to the public eye. My inbox is filled with countless others.

I had no Idea the Disability Gatekeepers made house calls. How easy and convenient.

I apologize that i neglected to submit information on my disability to your personal disability registry. I know it is customary to provide documentation of disability registration and a full set of medical records in the event of using the word “disabled” to describe yourself,” and I know it must be difficult to take the word of a not officially registered disabled person that the years of treatment they’ve received was in fact done by medical professionals, because if it was, surely they would have informed you. I apologize for the inconvenience.

However, i have double checked my records and it seems you received several notifications of my disability from the proper authorities. Perhaps you only skimmed the document in question and missed those specific pieces of information. You’ll want to re-read the above article to confirm of course. I’ll wait.

Ready? Ok. Several items of interest you may have noticed upon re-reading:

Item 1: “I stopped dancing to protect my sacrum, but chronic pain decided one central issue was not enough and sprung up in the rest of my joints in addition to being in my hips and back 24/7.”

Item 2: “My disability is genetic. My mother is in her 60’s and she’s had varying degrees of chronic pain since she was 20 years old, just like me. There is no cure and most of the treatments take years of management to be effective if they are at all.”

Item 3: “If I were to dance again, it could re-injure me, it could put me back months in progress that was mind-numbingly slow and painful to achieve, it could skyrocket my pain and tension, it could reduce my ability to work and maybe even rid me of the ability to walk.”

I hope that that reading the words that i wrote will suffice as evidence that i am in fact disabled, even though my article makes no specific mention of my being “registered disabled.” i hope that you can let it slide this one time and grant me the respected and privileged title of disabled from this point onward.

Don’t get me wrong, I hope your back gets better and it’s a pity you can’t dance but let’s not dilute the term for people who have been assessed as disabled by medical professionals.