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Board of Alders Majority Leader Furlow introducing legislation Monday.
The term “handicapped person” will be changed to “person with a disability” in city law, thanks to a comprehensive legal-language update approved by the Board of Alders.
Local legislators unanimously signed off on that set of changes Monday night during the latest regular bimonthly full Board of Alders meeting, which took place in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.
The alders took a final vote in support of an ordinance amendment to “modernize city ordinances to reflect language that is respectful to people with disabilities,” according to the title of the law change itself.
The law change was first proposed by city Director of Disability Services Gretchen Knauff earlier this summer with the goal of recognizing “the power of language” by scrapping outdated references to people with disabilities in favor of so-called “person-first language.”
In that vein, the now-approved legislation will change legal references throughout the city’s Code of Ordinances from “handicapped person” to “person with a disability.” It will also change references from the outdated term “mental retardation” to the currently accepted term of “intellectual disability.”
It will not have any fiscal impact, per Knauff’s presentation to the Legislation Committee in August, and it will not change any “handicapped parking” signs.
Click here to read a previous Independent article about these change, and here and here to read the now-approved law change in full.
Some things are being conflated here. Getting rid of the language of "handicap" and "mental retardation" is not the same as getting rid of "person first language." Eliminating those terms is simply the elimination of outdated language that has historically had phases of derogatory uses.
As for person-first language, this would have been considered best practice in the early 2000s. We are not in the early 2000s. Interestingly, while the city "finally" does this, many (though not all) disabled communities have long since moved from person-first language to identity-first language (even as our parents and caregivers still often push for the use of person-first language).
If you Google identity-first language you can get educated. I use identity-first language for myself because it marks the political nature of my disabilities. Instead of my disabilities being a personal difference, they can be understood as the experience of being disabled by communities designed for only certain types of bodies and minds. You can google the Social Model vs Medical model of disabilities to learn more about that.
I encourage people to listen more to those of us who are disabled. I don't recall this article quoting a single disabled person. Did it? Perhaps this decision was made in relative absence of disabled people. We are not of one voice, we do not all think the same, but our communities have found some common preferences and are politically active advocating for many changes, this not being a popular one.