Disabled students and staff at UNLV, how do you feel about UNLV’s insistence on“person-first language”?

Faculty and employees at UNLV are trained to speak to disabled colleagues using person-first language, and this is taught in some higher-level special education classes here as well.

I wanted to hear from actual disabled students and staff bout how this language actually makes you feel. I’ve heard a lot of different opinions about this both online and in person and it seems like often, the use of this language can be counterproductive to its goal.

If you don’t know what person-first language is, here are some examples:

• Identity-first: “autistic” vs. Person-first: “person with autism”
• Identity-first: “disabled / disabled person” vs. Person-first: “person with disability / person with different abilities”
• Identity-first: “deaf” vs. Person-first: “person with hearing impairment”

I have ADHD and severe mental illness, so I am disabled in that regard, and I’ve spoken to some disabled friends about this, and here are my thoughts on it (censored in case you don’t want my opinion to influence yours):

!I feel like the push for this language takes away the choice to reclaim the disabled identity. I would not like it if somebody called me a “person with mental illness” or a “person with neurodivergence”. I don’t think euphemisms have a place in neutral phrases that are used to describe somebody’s physical or mental condition / status. The adoption of euphemisms that reinforce disabled persons’ humanity suggests that there is something inherently dehumanizing or wrong with being disabled, which is just not true and feels paternalistic. I know I’m not the only disabled person who shares sentiments like this, so I am a little irritated UNLV pushes for this language so hard because I don’t even know if they consulted many disabled people about it. Of course, this isn’t the biggest issue in the world, but I think that for as discouraging as the world can be to disabled people, they should at least get a say in how they can describe themselves and how others get to describe them.!<

Sorry for the wall of text. Again, I know this isn’t the most pressing issue at UNLV, but I do think that language can subconsciously influence perception, culture, and stereotypes, and for as much as UNLV tries to market itself as minority-serving, it should try to ensure that the language it uses to talk about minorities is in itself minority-serving, not just about minorities.