Person first / Identity first
2024 11 23 | journal
Well. That was … interesting. I encountered a comment from someone who thinks that the terms "person with disabilities" and "disabled person" are two different things. PWD being someone with lesser disabilities who can work, and disabled people being more severe disabled people who can't work.
Those two terms indicate nothing more than how disabled people themselves prefer to refer to themselves.
Person with disabilities is person-first terminology used by people who favour centring their personhood instead of their disability when they speak of themselves. Disabled person is an identity-first term used by those who prefer to centre their disability, or who are comfortable not focusing personhood, because they don't feel that their disability lessens their personhood. There is some contention over their use in some quarters, so the best thing to do is ask the relevant disabled person what they prefer.
You can see that I tend to use identity first language for myself, though I do use the other term sometimes. It's a more situational thing as to when I might use the term PWD instead of disabled person.