Invisibly Disabled People Don’t Experience “Less” Ableism Because Our Disabilities are Non-Apparent
People with invisible illnesses often struggle to have our symptoms accommodated and believed.
There is sometimes an assumption in social justice spaces predominantly led by non-disabled people that disabled people with invisible or “non-apparent” disabilities experience “less ableism” than individuals with visible or “apparent” disabilities.
This assumption stems from the belief that non-apparently disabled people experience less oppression because they are able to gain access to privileged spaces through “passing” as non-disabled. While there is some truth to this assumption, it simplifies the reality of the disability experience.
“Passing” can be defined as when individuals with marginalized social identities are interpreted as members of the dominant group in order to gain access to privileged spaces. In reference to disability, passing can mean that a disabled person “looks” or “seems” non-disabled, often because their disabilities are read as “invisible.”
This is particularly relevant to people who struggle with physical illness or mental health. However, as Ellen Samuels discusses in her brief essay about passing, disabled people who “pass” in certain contexts as non-disabled also often face difficulty accessing rights and resources that are often only granted once a disability is determined legible or apparent.
Of course, there can be benefits to “passing,” as non-disabled while disabled. For example, passing can allow other people to assume competence, intelligence, trustworthiness, and other positive traits associated with being abled. Hiding a disability when you believe it might be targeted or unwanted can also help minimize discrimination or stigma in certain hostile spaces.
However, “passing” as non-disabled for people with non-apparent disabilities more often means gaslighting, disbelief, and denial of access. This is because “passing” as non-disabled doesn’t actually mean you are not in need of access or accommodation. It also doesn’t mean that your bodily needs don’t exist.
Personally, I think a lot about how “passing” has functioned for me in medical spaces. Because I don’t often “look” disabled when I go to the doctor, and because I am a young woman, I am often met with disbelief, delayed care, or denied diagnosis. In this setting, the discrimination I face because of my invisible disability intersects with my gender. For Black women, this discrimination is heightened not only because of gender and disability but because of myths about race.
On the flip side, people with “visible” disabilities frequently experience ableism and violence for being visibly disabled. Apparently, disabled people are often met with stares, stigma, assumed incompetence, and difficulty securing jobs due to discrimination. At the doctor, we may be perceived as so ill, frightening, or pitiful that doctors see our lives as not worth saving. I remember and honor disabled ancestors Bill Peace, Carrie Ann Lucas, and Michael Hickson, who lost their lives in part because of ableist quality of life determinations from hospitals, insurance companies, and guardianship agencies based on their apparent disabilities.
My disabilities (several chronic physical illnesses and a mental health condition) are primarily invisible but fluctuate and sometimes are extremely visible. There is no clear boundary defining which of and when my disabilities appear a certain way to others because disability is dynamic and contextual.
I have navigated both invisibility/visibility, and neither feels “better” or “worse.” I have been sexually violated and targeted because of my mental health conditions, which are typically understood as “invisible” but at times “visible” when my cognitive differences are perceived as an apparent divergence from the neurotypical norm. Additionally, neither invisibility nor visibility makes me feel that I experience “more” or “less” ableism.
Rather, the ways I experience ableism based on how my disabilities are perceived are just different. It was much easier, for example, for me to get a disabled parking permit when I had hip surgery and was on crutches than it would be if I tried to for my chronic physical illnesses, which are both invisible but still significantly impact my mobility. I received fewer questions about “why” I needed services from accessible transit when I was on crutches than I do now, even though I still require accessible transit without crutches.
Additionally, when I have been both visibly and invisibly disabled, I have faced barriers to accessing my housing. At one point, I was discharged from a hospital prematurely because my weakness was non-apparent, and I collapsed on my apartment’s flight of stairs, leading to a hospital readmission. Another time, I was discharged from the hospital on crutches. While the apparentness of my disability made doctors refuse to discharge me until I could walk with the crutches, I still faced barriers accessing my second-floor apartment because of the lack of affordable housing without stairs.
Disability fluctuates in intensity and visibility on a daily basis for many disabled people, so invisibility/visibility don’t impact everyone the same way. For one disabled person, invisibility could be a benefit, but for another, it could just mean denial of access. Attempting to “rank” disabilities on a hierarchy of who has ableism “the worst” isn’t particularly useful, and it obscures the need for intersectional analysis. My worst experiences of ableism have not occurred because of my disability alone but because of the way my disability has intersected with my age, class, and gender.
Oppression is contextual. Attempting to rank disabilities on a hierarchy only reinforces ableism and the myth that there is a hierarchy of oppressions. It’s more useful to think about ableism in context, not on a pre-determined scale.
