how to not out someone with a hidden disability.

This is going to be a very sensitive topic to talk about and we all know about the etiquette about not outing someone, who is in the LGBTI community and its unwritten rules about how to talk and write about them and this is something that I want to touch on, is that people need to be aware that there are similar situations that occur in the disability community that isn't taken as seriously as they should be leading to harm and abuse.    

This is why you shouldn’t out someone with a hidden disability  and why it’s so harmful to them

1.        It’s rude to do so and in talking about someone without their express permission, especially a person with a hidden disability or a chronic illness you risk their safety and you potentially have committed a serious breach of privacy that could have serious repercussions for not only the person that you just outed but depending on where you live for them as well, as we see that this is a massive issue that providers don’t protect clients privacy enough and as we have seen with the recent hacks that we need to be mindful of the illusion of privacy but we do have the right to have our private information kept private.

2.       It may put them at risk of losing their jobs or bossiness, so this one is a bit trickier to break down but, if they are in mainstream open employment, it can put them at serious risk of being reported to HR and HR is there to protect the company image not protect the worker that is what unions are for, but then again there are issues that I have with unions that I won’t go into.  

 

If they have disclosed their disability to HR and have asked for reasonable accommodations it is not your business unless you are their direct manager to seek how they need help or accommodations If you can’t do the basics of the job and I am a firm believer in merit-based hiring practices and this means not having quotas as this then just creates issues down the line when people who were brought in to fill quotas are unable to do the fundamentals of the job due to lack of training or experience put the company or business at serious risk.

3.        They could lose business or be deported, I have noticed that there is a lot of New  Australians, that are becoming support workers in the NDIS, and while they do a fantastic job and help some are still on the path to gaining Australian citizen ship and by disclosing that they have a hidden disability or chronic illness they may not fit the criteria for an Australian resident, and this might put them at serious risk if their country of origin is a destabilized country or a country under a dictator. Or if they have a permit to work we see that they might lose their jobs and if they aren’t a resident they won’t qualify for any of Australia’s safety nets in our welfare systems, so they might be deported back and as the billow earl family has shown us the country plays down a very hard line when it comes to visa and rights to work. 

4.        They might cop unwanted health advice from well-meaning but misguided people in what they are saying or even have their health put at risk due to “food trolls” so people who like to “test,” the person's allergies or intolerances with foods that they clearly can’t eat by forcing them to eat it by tricking them, this can cause massive issues because it can cause serious allergic reactions and they might have to follow a specific diet for a procedure or to help with the general symptoms of a chronic illness, and they might have to put the procedure back or to put up with there symptoms being more severe due to someone doing this.

5.       Unwanted and unsolicited health advice and this I have coped so much from well-meaning but clearly clueless people who want to not see me suffer but don’t grasp the concept of a chronic illness, a chronic illness means that the person isn’t going to get better, they are probably going to get worse over time and I get that this is really hard to deal with but we need to understand that if you get sick of them complaining about chronic pain think how hard it is for them to deal with it all the time.

6.        But to you they don’t look disabled, congratulation’s you have just outed yourself as a wanker, what you are really saying here is that you see that they don’t conform to what you expect a disabled person to look like or behave. Some people have what is called hidden or invisible disabilities, and they deserve accommodations as much as the next person they are just as impacted as a person with a physical disability and often chronic illness can progress to full physical impairments,  and these can lead to disability and further isolate

7.       Further isolation, some people with a hidden disability or chronic illness Mask the fact that they are in pain or are struggling because they are at higher risk of isolation, due to the increased cost both fiscal and emotional cost of having said disability or illness and we see that this is where outing them against there will is something that happens a lot of the time and we see that this is a massive issue in that people see that this is an excuse for not showing up to events that they might have been excited to go to and this then causes further issues due to outing them as they might again end up with unwanted food or drinks from well-meaning but clueless people because they might not be able to accept the food to not knowing what is in it or not feeling safe accepting food from people due to not knowing how clean their kitchen is.

 

So in closing keep your dam mouth shut or ask them if they would feel comfortable, disclosing their disability or chronic illness because it would benefit them, be prepared to cop an earful because people with a disability often have thought about whether this would benefit them and often it won’t often it actively harms them in a way that people can’t describe in that they lose relationship’s and potential opportunities to connect with others due to a change in the way that people treats them, and we see that this isn’t great because people will perceive that the person was lying to them about there circumstances and this isn’t great and often they aren’t lying they are protecting that information until they feel safe to do so.