How my e-mail signature helped me claim my disabled identity

Please excuse general typos in this message...

Keyboard Computer by AJ Montpetit

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Author’s note: I am offering my template to any disabled person to use or remix. Just copy and paste and place it somewhere in your email signature. I insert mine a few lines after the end of my signature:

“ Please excuse general typos in this message; I have a disability that requires dictation of most messages, but don’t hesitate to reach out if I’ve said something truly confusing! ”

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Please excuse general typos in this message; I have a disability that requires dictation of most messages, but don’t hesitate to reach out if I’ve said something truly confusing! Any recipient of an e-mail from me will see this (often surprising) message. First, it’s an open admission to the recipient that I have a disability at all. In the disability community, this admission is known as disclosure. Many disabled individuals, especially those with an invisible disability like a chronic illness or a mental health condition, choose to disclose only to close friends and family. We hold this information close for fear of job performance being scrutinized and fear of societal stigma. The choice to disclose or not disclose is a privilege, though it feels like a heavy secret to keep. Even though I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) at seventeen years old, I didn’t start openly disclosing until I was thirty-five. A major flare caused me to become visibly and permanently disabled — I use a cane when walking in public, and I often need supports for fine motor tasks like writing or typing. For years, I hid my diagnosis, considering it irrelevant to the “normal” and “healthy” life I was leading. Today, I use identity-first language, introducing myself as a disabled writer, educator, and parent.

Many people with disabilities prefer not to disclose via email, or ever. I wholly support this choice and see the reason behind it. If a person already has a visible disability, meaning their disability is obvious due to mobility aids like wheelchairs, or due to physical appearance like short stature or limb loss, then that person loses the privilege of disclosure. It makes sense — disabled people like myself want to be known for our communication, insight, talent, and wit and not for our disability alone. Unfortunately, the not-currently-disabled general public often sees our disability first. In the seminal work, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring physical disability in American Culture And Literature, disability scholar Rosemarie Garland-Thomson argues that upon first meeting a visibly disabled person, a not-currently-disabled person can experience emotions including, “fear, pity, fascination, repulsion, or merely surprise.” Further, for first meetings, not-currently-disabled people have a tendency to reduce or ignore the disabled person’s whole self and personality, remembering a “single attribute,” their disability, after the encounter. 

Initially, I added the phrase to my e-mail signature because I was embarrassed by frequent typos in my text based communication. At the time of my disabling event, I had spent twelve years as a high school English teacher, and I cringed every time I read over a “sent” message with your / you’re or affect / effect written incorrectly. After flushing with frustration many times, I realized that my “problem” was a lesson in humility. A few weeks into using the signature, nobody had even mentioned it — perhaps they weren’t judging me after all. I kept the signature because it freed me to loosen up my self-imposed standards. Today, I no longer feel embarrassment at my grammar, and I am proud of my disabled body. The funny part is, the longer I taught high school English, the more convinced I became that grammar is a form of gatekeeping. If I am being true to my beliefs about the necessary and continual shift of language, I cannot insist on “proper” grammar for myself. My signature reminds the recipient and me that factors outside of my control have limited my abilities, and it also asks us to drop a preconceived and fundamentally incorrect notion about language. It feels true. 

I don’t specify the cause of my disability in my disclosure; I only note the supports required for me to write an email. When I dictate an email, I often use my fingers on a keyboard to fix misinterpretations and typos caused by imperfect apps. I am able to use devices like keyboards without voice supports, but doing so would cause a pain flare within ten to thirty minutes, and that seems exhausting to explain. I could get specific and note that I have fine motor impairment from advanced Multiple Sclerosis, but that feels too personal. Recipients might read it as an invitation to share about their friend, or mom, or cousin, who also has MS (I say this with love and I’ve written about the phenomenon). It’s not that I don’t want to discuss MS, I do! It’s just that I don’t want my disclosure to disrupt our reason for communicating in the first place. I find that the phrasing allows for just enough information. It’s a little bit fun, it’s unapologetic, and it allows me the freedom to be my whole self. Disclosure is a privilege, and I hope to use that privilege to give other disabled individuals a tool that might prove useful (at least for typos). 

Happy Disability Pride / Precarity / Inclusion Month, 
Erin

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Erin Ryan Heyneman (she/her) is a disabled educator, creator, and speaker. She is also a Commissioner on her city’s Commission on Disability. Find the rest of her work here. Oh, and please excuse general typos in this post; Erin has a disability that requires dictation of most messages, but don’t hesitate to reach out if she’s said something truly confusing!