Disability Chic and Toxic People

Don't be fooled, this badge is a lie

Check out this masterful piece of PR. According to circulating reports, two women are selling these lanyards around Gretna, Nebraska, a small town between Lincoln and Omaha. They purport that wearing this badge gives wearers liberty to enter public places without masks. Gretna mayoral candidate Angie Lauritsen reports that the makers actively sell their lanyards by claiming their magic powers derive from the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

I won’t waste time debunking this claim; smarter reporters than me have done it already, and extensively. Briefly put, it’s complete bullshit. More interesting to me is the attitude that these vendors, and the people who buy from them, have about disability. They apparently believe that, first, disability is something you can assert, like joining a church, or supporting a political party. And second, that claiming disability gives them some kind of super-rights under American law.

The underlying philosophy behind these lanyards, and other similar scams sold by online hucksters, is that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) permits blanket exemptions from private rules, public laws, and common decency. If you simply assert you have some disability—which, the vendors say, you needn’t justify with evidence—private businesses must play dead. Voilà, you’re instantly special; you have rights other people don’t.

Functionally, this attitude is identical to people who believe that African Americans, LGBTQIA+, and other designated groups have “special” rights simply because their rights are protected. When groups who have historically been marginalized start having their rights recognized and defended, those who’ve been protected by the status quo have a pathetic tendency to whine. They apparently can’t imagine others having rights, except at the expense of the majority.

I’m reminded of Mitt Romney, Senator and former Presidential candidate, who in 2012 appeared on a smuggled video recording claiming that, were he Hispanic, his election campaign might be easier. This statement was, admittedly, ambiguously phrased. He might’ve simply meant that more Hispanic voters, a growing and lucrative voting demographic, might support him. But he might’ve also meant life is easier for protected minorities, which Romney isn’t.

This insistence that protected people groups live on the gravy train achieves a particular level of silliness with disabilities. Unlike African Americans, Hispanic Americans, or women [sic], people with disabilities often look remarkably similar to the general population. Though our stereotype of disabilities remains stuck on paraplegia, a stereotype reinforced by the wheelchair-using parking spot, we’re increasingly aware that many disabilities don’t have obvious external markers.

Proof of the standing stereotype
of what constitutes a disability

Respiratory problems like pulmonary fibrosis or extreme asthma may diminish a person’s ability to perform routine mechanical tasks. Same with movement disorders like Huntington’s disease or dyskinesia. I’ve recently become aware of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which erodes a person’s connective tissues, leaving them progressively fatigued from even minor exertion. All these conditions leave sufferers severely disabled, without the photogenic disfigurements of traditional disabilities.

Briefly put, we’re aware, in ways we weren’t just fifteen years ago, that not all disabled people look disabled. This means a gold rush for people who want some form of protected status. White, male, heterosexual Americans who feel aggrieved that their rights don’t need spelled out (because the deck isn’t stacked against them), now believe they can claim protected status, just by asserting they have some undefined “disability.”

Which returns us to the Gretna lanyards. I called them a “masterful piece of PR,” and I meant it. The rhyming slogan makes them memorable and lets them occupy a piece of your head rent-free, like “birds of a feather flock together,” or “if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Stating “please be kind” makes it look like they’re seeking mercy. The final tag, “disability rights are human rights,” ties the lanyards’ lie to a verifiable truth.

But that doesn’t make it any less odious. Healthy, able-bodied people attempting to circumvent science-based prevention measures, by pretending to acquire disabilities, disgusts me. Not only do they think they have some God-given right to inflict their infectious microbiome on everyone around them, they’re ultimately damaging the infrastructure of protections for people with actual disabilities. This will create long-term consequences for vulnerable people.

If you think asserting a “disability,” which you don’t have, makes you glamorous, or that there’s anything sexy about falsely claiming membership in a historically dispossessed people group, you’re worse than wrong. You’re a garbage person. Because any ill-informed or misguided wingnut can be wrong. But it takes a special self-infatuated asshat to go from merely not knowing the facts, to actively hurting others. That’s what this lanyard does.