Full transcript of Let's Replace Disability with Letters like LGBT

This is a full transcript of Let's replace disability with letters like LGBT which we dug out from the archives and re-broadcast on 24 November 2017.

Presented by Damon Rose, Kate Monaghan, Lee Kumutat

DAMON- We all know what LGBT means. We hear it quite a lot these days, don't we everybody?

KATE - It's LGBTQI now, isn't it?

DAMON - LGBT - it seems to depend on who's using it and for what reason and what part of the globe.

LEE - I was going to say, is it geographical?

KATE - I don't know.

DAMON - I think so. So, shall we just go through it? That stands for - do you want to Kate - lesbian…?

KATE - Why Kate?

DAMON - Gay…

KATE- Yeah.

DAMON - I don't know. Because you were in front of me. For no other reason, trust me.

KATE - Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex.

DAMON - Intersex.

KATE - Yeah.

DAMON - And I've also seen them adding plus three.

KATE - Or just plus, which means kind of whatever.

DAMON - Or plus or star.

KATE - I've never seen a star. Anyway, we're not talking about the gay community at the moment.

DAMON - No. All these letters are fascinating and confusing all at the same time. Moving quickly onto disability though - because that's why we're here, right - I was wondering if we can't learn something from this use of acronyms.

KATE - Learn something?

DAMON- That this community are using.

KATE - What can we learn?

DAMON- And that we are included that community and they are included within this community.

KATE - What are we learning, Damon?

DAMON- This is Inside Ouch. With me is Kate Monaghan.

KATE - Yo!

DAMON- And Lee Kumutat.

LEE - Hello.

DAMON - I'm Damon Rose.

KATE - Did you like my throwback to the 90s there where I was like yo?

LEE - Yeah.

KATE - Like I was super cool.

LEE - That really worked.

KATE - It's like when I was telling you earlier, Lee, that someone was MFEO.

LEE - I know, and I was really proud of myself because I got that.

KATE - Do you know what that is, Damon, MFEO?

DAMON- No.

KATE - Another awesome acronym. Come on you can, if you say a couple are MFEO.

DAMON- Well, the first two letters are making me think we shouldn't be having this conversation.

KATE - No.

LEE - Well, no there was context which did help, which is why I cottoned on so quickly, to be fair, Kate.

KATE - This is like kind of stuff that you'd use in the playground when you fancy somebody.

LEE - MFEO.

KATE - And you'd say, you are MFEO.

DAMON- My?

KATE - No.

LEE - No.

KATE - Come on Damon, you can do it.

DAMON- Oh lord! Shall we come back to this?

LEE - No.

DAMON- Can I have a think about it?

LEE - All right.

KATE - Right, have a think.

DAMON- Remind me later.

KATE - It's like NSFW, you really hate these acronyms because you don't get any of them.

DAMON- Not safe for work.

KATE - Yeah, but you only know that because I told you.

DAMON- Oh, it's just all so modern! But anyway I was thinking that maybe we could learn something from LGBT, this use of language. Very few people seem to like to use the word disability or disabled; often we see the capital A ability in the middle, or we see organisations calling themselves Ability.

KATE - Do any of us not like it? Do we have feelings on disability, disabled?

LEE - I grew up calling us people with disabilities because that's what Australia goes with.

KATE - And do you mind that?

LEE - No. I prefer it to disabled people, I must say.

KATE - Damon, do you like disabled?

DAMON- I think I come from that dyed in the wool crip art community and I'm quite happy with disabled actually, disabled people.

KATE - Ah.

DAMON- Social model stuff, isn't it?

KATE - People first.

DAMON- What I'm trying to get around to is: what initials could we use, what acronym could we use for disability to replace the word disability, so that everybody's happier in using the phrase and talking about it and might come together as a community and all those disparate factions and things within the community?

KATE - You see, I worry about this because I think once you start - it's like going down a rabbit hole - once you start adding different disabilities you've got to keep on going.

LEE - Yeah.

KATE - And they'll be no stopping it. So, it'll be like D for disabled, B for blind, D for deaf, P for paralysed, A for amputee, D for…

DAMON- Yeah, but you're doing is…

LEE - H for hearing impaired.

KATE - Yeah.

LEE - A for amputee, A for autism, A for Asperger's.

KATE - Yeah.

DAMON- You're doing what the disability grassroots organisations hate, which is bringing impairments together and listing impairments.

KATE - What would you do?

LEE - Not everybody hates it either.

DAMON- So, I came up with - how about this one? I've got a couple here - see if you can guess what this is: PMSIA.

KATE - PM - physically mentally sensory, PMSI - impaired.

LEE - Intellectually?

DAMON- I've got invisible. You guessed the first three correctly by the way.

KATE - So, what was that? Do it again.

DAMON- PMSIA, so physical mental sensory invisible. And what's the A?

KATE - Ability.

LEE - Autistic. Asperger's.

KATE - No, because it's got to… hold on.

LEE - Abnormal.

KATE - Abnormal! [Laughter]

DAMON- Because I've tried to come up with a list of things which aren't specific impairments.

KATE - All of us. All together!

LEE - All together, one happy family.

KATE - Everyone love.

LEE - Yeah.

DAMON- No, I've gone with acquired.

KATE - Oh, acquired.

LEE - I'm concerned about how much you've thought about this, Damon!

DAMON- I thought about it on the train in this morning and home last night.

LEE - Really worries me.

KATE - Give us another one then. I don't like that one. I'm not sure about that one.

LEE - PMSIA, it sounds a bit like PS - what is it?

KATE - PMS.

LEE - PMSL.

KATE - PMSL. Damon won't know what that is either.

LEE - PMSL, it sounds a little bit like that.

KATE - Or just people who've got PMS.

LEE - That's true.

KATE - Premenstrual.

LEE - Yes.

KATE - Okay, try again Damon.

DAMON- I was just thinking it sounded like a government agency.

LEE - It does sort of!

DAMON - I wanted to throw acquired in there because that is a community that often has the biggest difficulty.

KATE - Do they have physically?

DAMON - In finding an identity within that disability community.

LEE - Are we going to run into trouble by lumping everybody into a community, for a start?

DAMON- This is it though: a lot of people say there is no such thing as a disability community. So, maybe by pulling people together in a different way, using this acronym, this clever acronym that I've come up with, we could get more people on board working together in their separate little umbrella thing, PMSIA thing.

KATE - Okay, try the next one because I think PMS, starting it with PMS is a bad idea.

LEE - Yeah.

DAMON- I think that all PMSIA people are behind me on this actually Kate.

KATE - No!

LEE - Did you hear the deafening silence, Damon?

KATE - [Pronounces as] Pemesia, that's that we'll be called. We'll stop being called disabled people; we'll be called Pemesia's.

LEE - I must say if we are going - I know LGBT is not a word; it's an acronym - but I bet when they were putting that together they were wishing there was a vowel in there somewhere so they could have made a word.

DAMON - Well, there's I, intersex, they could have bunged that in near the beginning.

LEE - Well, they could've, and it would've made so…

KATE - [Pronounces as] Ligbta.

DAMON- Yeah.

LEE - Would have made it so much better, as we've just demonstrated.

KATE - Ligbtaq.

DAMON- Well, it's cool. Look at Flickr, they took the I out, didn't they?

LEE - Yeah, they did.

DAMON- No, actually, what am I saying; they took the E out.

LEE - Yeah, the E's out, yeah.

KATE - Do your next one, Damon. I want to hear.

DAMON- I will do the next one. We did talk about this earlier and I was kind of hoping that you guys would come up with some as well.

LEE - I have.

DAMON- Have you got any?

LEE - I've got one.

DAMON - Oh good.

LEE - I do have one. [Sounds like fizzled men] PHYSLDMEN.

DAMON[Laughs]

KATE - Physically old men.

LEE - No.

KATE - This is the one for people who are just old? Like should we call that to Damon?

LEE - No.

KATE - Hey Damon, you fizzled ol'man. [Laughter]

DAMON- I'm not that old!

LEE - Go on, have a go at what I've done there.

KATE - Okay, let's break it down. So, PHYS, must be physically disabled people?

LEE - Yes.

KATE - What's the next bit?

LEE - LD.

KATE - Learning disabled.

DAMON- Learning disability.

LEE - Yeah. Men?

KATE - Are you being really sexist and it's just for physically disabled learning disabled - mental?

DAMON- Mental?

LEE - Clearly not mental. I wouldn't ever do that.

DAMON- Mental health?

LEE - Yeah, exactly.

DAMON- So, say it again, PHYS?

LEE - PHYSLDMEN. See, it's catchy.

KATE - I like it but where do you blind these, what is that?

DAMON- What about sensory and deaf people?

LEE - Well, you see the S in PHYS kind of works because we're a community, so therefore it would cover sensory as well.

KATE - Oh right, so it's PHYS, so P-H-Y is for physical?

LEE - Yeah.

KATE - Then S for sensory?

LEE - Yes.

KATE - Old, no LD, learning disability.

LEE - Learning disability, uh-huh.

KATE - Mental health?

LEE - Yeah. PHYSLDMEN.

DAMON- Okay, so we've got PHYSLDMEN and PSMIA on the table. What…?

KATE - Sorry, Damon, but I'm tot's going for PHYSLDMEN above anything else. I mean, I don't care what you say next.

LEE - Did you have one, Kate?

KATE - No. mine was like the longest acronym, trying to incorporate every single disability that I could think of.

DAMON- Go on then.

KATE - Hold on, I've written it down so I need to get it up on my phone.

LEE - How many pages is it?

KATE - It's about seven pages of stuff. [Laughter] Right, I started with LD because I love…

DAMON - This is just going to be an exercise in which disabilities you can name, isn't it?

LEE - Yeah, it is.

DAMON- Go on, go on, let's hear it.

KATE - LD.

DAMON - Yeah, learning disability.

KATE - BD.

DAMON- Oh. Lee, do you know? Bedraggled? [Laughter] Is that a disability? This is going to take a long time!

LEE - BD is something disability. Born with disability?

KATE - No. Come on guys.

DAMON - Burdened with.

KATE - It's you guys, it's you guys.

KATE - Born disability.

DAMON- Blind?

KATE - Blind, yeah.

LEE - Oh. But the D as well.

KATE - And a D. Not all together.

DAMON- Deaf?

KATE - Yeah.

DAMON- Blind deaf.

KATE - Yeah.

LEE - I like what you did there.

KATE - PD.

LEE - People with disabilities?

KATE - No.

DAMON- Physically disabled?

KATE - Yeah. SD?

LEE - So disabled. [Laughter]

DAMON- Sensory? No, we've done that.

KATE - Yeah. Well, I've split it up because I think people might want to be either identified as blind or deaf or sensory.

DAMON - No.

KATE - So, we've got to incorporate everyone.

DAMON- But we've done blind or deaf. Are we saying people without the sense of touch or smell then? Is that what we're saying because we've done blind and deaf?

KATE - Yeah.

LEE - You haven't done visually impaired, low vision. Sorry.

KATE - Hold on, I ain't finished yet!

LEE - Gosh.

KATE - That's why SD, so sensory.

LEE - Okay.

DAMON- I'm not sure that lack of smell is a disability.

LEE - Ooh.

DAMON- It's unfortunate.

LEE - But neither is narcolepsy and that's in the disability index.

KATE - Guys, LD…

DAMON- How many letters in this thing?

KATE - There's quite a lot. LDBDPDSD - AA?

LEE - Autistic Asperger's.

KATE - Yes.

LEE - Yay, I got one!

DAMON- Very good.

LEE - Ding. Where's the bell.

KATE - WU?

LEE - Oh my lord!

DAMON- Walking…

LEE - Unsteadily?

DAMON- Wizened?

KATE - No.

LEE - With umbrella? I don't know.

KATE - No. Wheelchair users.

LEE - Oh okay.

DAMON- Oh good, yeah.

KATE - AD?

DAMON - Oh, audio description?

KATE - LDBDPDSDAAWU - AD? What's AD?

LEE - What's AD?

DAMON- People can just associate with it if they want to.

LEE - Already disabled. Acquired disability.

DAMON- Acquired disability.

KATE - Well done.

LEE - Ding!

DAMON- Ah, so you were thinking down the same lines as me, because they are a different separate kind of group sometimes, aren't they?

KATE - Yeah.

LEE - Notice how I didn't think down the same lines as any of you. Anyway go on.

KATE - That's the end of the ones that I came up with this morning, but I think we could probably put more on there.

LEE - Well, yeah. You haven't even started with mental health.

KATE - Oh yeah. MH…

LEE - M.

KATE - Yeah, what else?

DAMON- What about assistance animal user?

LEE - AAU.

DAMON- Yeah.

KATE - What I feel like we should do is feed this into one of those word generators and put all the letters in and see what comes up.

LEE - Yeah.

DAMON- Create the best anagram.

KATE - Yeah.

DAMON- Lots of D's in there for disability though, isn't there? It's like I feel we don't need so many D's.

KATE - Okay, so shall I tell you what we've got so far?

DAMON- Yeah.

KATE - LDBDPDSDAAWUADMHAAU.

LEE - Should we have something about DD, dual disability?

KATE - Yes. DD yeah, I like it.

DAMON - Do you know I can't see Huw Edwards talking about that community on the ten o'clock news.

KATE - Why?

LEE - But he would say PMSIA.

DAMON- He might do.

LEE - Do you reckon?

DAMON- He might say all my PMSIA supporters have…

KATE - Or he'd say TISWAS or whatever it was Lee had.

LEE - Oh, PHYSLDMEN.

KATE - PHYSLDMEN, sorry. TISWAS is something different, isn't it?

LEE - TISWAS.

DAMON- Yeah, that was Chris Tarrant, Sally James - you won't remember.

KATE - No.

LEE - No, I haven't got a clue.

KATE - Right, what's your last one, Damon?

DAMON- Well, I've got PSNLIMH plus D. I thought I'd go with a bit of something fancy at the end.

LEE - Wasn't that the one we did at the beginning? I'm so lost.

DAMON- Can you guess what the plus D is?

KATE - Plus disabilities?

DAMON- No, deaf.

LEE - Plus dyslexia?

DAMON- No, deaf because quite often you get a disability…

KATE - Why do they get a plus D on the end?

DAMON- Because…

KATE - I want a plus EDS.

DAMON- Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

LEE - And why, why, why is there all a community? Why are we separating another community?

DAMON- Well, because deaf people quite often…

KATE - Have their own community.

DAMON- Deaf and disabled we're talking about.

LEE - Yeah, but you can't have a community within a community, can you?

KATE - This is actually making my head spin with all this.

LEE - Mine too.

KATE - I don't think this is the answer.

DAMON- If listeners could just fast forward another ten minutes we'll still be talking about this.

LEE - Yeah.

KATE - Yeah.

DAMON- So, my PSNLIMH plus D - I'm actually losing the will, but…

LEE - Are you going to have it tattooed somewhere, Damon?

KATE - Please do it.

DAMON- Physical sensory neurological learning invisible mental health plus deaf.

LEE - Notice how you didn't answer my question.

KATE - Have you worked out what MFEO means yet, Damon? It's somebody you love.

DAMON- David Bowie?

KATE - No, no, no.

LEE - Sorry about that, Damon.

KATE - Your wife. You and your wife would be MFEO.

DAMON- Oh. My… no.

KATE - No.

DAMON- Mother? No, I don't want to go down that one.

LEE - God, that's a scary insight!

KATE - That's a whole different podcast.

DAMON- My wife?

KATE - Yeah.

DAMON- She's the mother of my children.

LEE - That's the one.

KATE - You say you were MFEO.

DAMON- Married?

KATE - No.

DAMON- Forever.

LEE - Time's up.

KATE - Time to tell you. It's made for each other.

DAMON - Oh, isn't that the sweetest thing ever.

KATE - Yes.

DAMON- And with Valentine's so close I'm so glad we brought it up.

LEE - Me too.

KATE - Exactly.

DAMON- Well, that was interesting, wasn't it? I was going to come on to talking about the disability symbol, the wheelchair one, and how a lot of people think that doesn't include them. And I was remembering how on the internet about ten years ago people were circulating an image of a replacement idea, instead of that wheelchair-user stickman, woman, person, it had somebody standing up who had one leg, there was a sort of graphic in head suggesting learning disability, and sort of a broken heart symbol in there suggesting you might have heart difficulties. And this was the suggested alternative to a wheelchair.

KATE - I don't like that because it's as if like if you've got a disability you're broken-hearted about it.

LEE - Yeah.

KATE - I was sort of on board before.

LEE - I was with hit, yeah, me too.

KATE - But then the heart thing just went no, don't like it.

DAMON- Because there is a trouble that if you showed that image people wouldn't immediately think, ah disabled.

KATE - I know how that relates to you.

DAMON - In the same way that hearing PHYSLDMEN or PMSIA…

KATE - You're never going to get a symbol that - I mean, you could get closer with a word - but you'll never get a symbol that accurately represents. Like for me I can walk a tiny bit and then I use a wheelchair, so you'd need a symbol that showed walking and wheelchair.

LEE - Yeah.

KATE - How would you do that?

LEE - And crutches and blind dog.

KATE - And crutches, yeah.

LEE - And cane and hearing aids and… you know.

DAMON- So, you think in the same way we're never going to be able to come up with a word or an acronym that everyone's happy with?

KATE - Yeah, never.

LEE - I think we should just give up. There you go.

DAMON- But I'm guessing that the LGBT community are relatively happy and feel included.

LEE - Well, do we know that?

KATE - Do we know that?

DAMON- And the I and the Q help, don't they?

LEE - Do they not have this discussion on podcasts?

KATE - Yeah, I think the fact that we're always adding letters to it shows that people aren't feeling included by it.

LEE - That's true.

KATE - And that's the whole point. It's like defining sexuality is a bit like defining disability: it's so hard to do that it's almost not worth it. And as with LGBT you get close, you've got close enough to try it, and I think that's what we've got with the word disabled.

LEE - I was having this conversation with some friends of mine the other day, and to be fair I don't call myself the same thing all the time. It depends on my audience. If I'm speaking to someone I don't know I might not come out and say I'm blind because sometimes they misunderstand me and they think I'm saying I'm blonde. People just react really odd.

DAMON- Really?

LEE - Yeah.

DAMON- Are you?

LEE - No, I'm brunette. So, they look at me and go, but you're not. But the thing is I might say I can't see, which is a little bit more descriptive than saying I'm blind; that one clanging word that sometimes falls in between you. So, I don't always refer to myself as the same thing. It depends who your audience is sometimes.

DAMON- I think everybody has different identities within different contexts, don't they?

LEE - Yeah.

KATE - Yeah.

DAMON - I was always a sweet and lovely little boy in front of my grandma.

LEE - Yeah, but were you a blind boy or were you a boy who can't see? Do you always use the same thing to describe yourself? Do you ever say I'm visually impaired? Do you always say you're blind?

DAMON - It really depends what mood I'm in.

LEE - There you go.

KATE - Yeah.

DAMON - Because blind is such a clanger of a word. Disabled as well I think, isn't it? It's almost like you are pinning yourself to an identity; a negative thing to an extent.

LEE - If we don't always refer to ourselves in the same way how can we possibly expect other people to?

DAMON- Though sometimes I see it as positive.

And how does this link back to the initials though, my suggested idea for…?

KATE - Well, it's just about how you identify yourself, isn't it?

LEE - Yeah.

KATE - I'd be really interested to hear from people who think that the word disabled is good, or the word disabled is bad, and what acronyms they might suggest to us.

LEE - It is a bit that old chestnut, isn't it, but it's interesting.

KATE - It's an interesting one. So, give us a tweet @bbcouch on the Twitter, or comment on this podcast when you see it come up on Facebook and let us know what you think the acronym should be, or if we've just wasted all of our time because acronyms are ridiculous. Find us on Facebook /bbcouch.

DAMON - So, until next week this has been Inside Ouch and goodbye.

LEE - Bye.

KATE - Bye.