Microaggressions Toward People with Disabilities

For decades, studies concerning microaggressions were primarily limited to those based in racism. While more recent research has expanded to microaggressions based in gender and sexuality, minimal research has been conducted on how microaggressions are experienced by people with disabilities. For the current study, ten adults with a congenital or acquired disabilities participated in semi-structured interviews where they shared their stories of microaggressions. Our qualitative analysis identified two sources (i.e., kids vs. adults; inside/outside the disabled community) and seven forms of microaggressions (i.e., denial of identity, denial of privacy, helpless treatment, spread effect, patronization, exoticization, and social distancing/isolation). Toxic positivity, a form of denying identity, and pitying, a form of helpless treatment, also emerged in our participants’ experiences.