Visibility and Invisibility

Some physical and mental impairments are clearly visible in the bodies and behavior of people with disabilities, while others are not. The latter are often referred to as “invisible disabilities.” The equally common expression “hidden disabilities” has been criticized for its implication that the disabled person is actively choosing to conceal his or her impairment. Within contemporary disability studies and political movements, invisible disability is sometimes used as an umbrella term meant to include all those who have not been represented by the first wave of activism and scholarship: people with mental illnesses, cognitive and learning disabilities, developmental disabilities, and/or chronic physical illnesses. Yet not all of those disabilities are invisible, and not all disabilities traditionally recognized as such are visible. Some of the most compelling accounts of passing as nondisabled, for example, have been written by blind people—yet blindness is not included in the “invisible” umbrella because of a long history of cultural recognition of blindness as disability. Thus, the phrase “invisible disability” carries both a literal and metaphoric meaning—literally referring to impairments that are not visible on a person's body or behavior, and metaphorically referring to impairments that have not been well represented or recognized in the disability rights movement or scholarship. Some have advocated severing these meanings by referring to literally invisible disabilities as “nonvisible.” However, in current usage, there continues to be considerable overlap and inconsistency in the use of these terms.

People with highly visible impairments, such as amputees, wheelchair users, people with facial markings, and people of short stature, tend to share a common experience of being stared at, often in the context of being pointed out, mocked, touched without permission, or asked intrusive questions. Disability theory, thus, has been deeply concerned with analyzing and counteracting “the stare,” while disability activism has often sought to subvert or reverse this dynamic, as in the title of the 1997 anthology Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out. The “hypervisibility” experienced by many people with disabilities, which continues to have a significant impact on everyday experience, employment, and relationships, has also been creatively adapted and challenged by many artists and performers with disabilities.

Many other people with disabilities exist in a fluid state of intermittent invisibility—as when using a prosthesis, when sitting down, when not communicating, or when taking medication that temporarily conceals an impairment, and visibility—as when using a cane, brace, or splint; when speaking in sign language; when asking for assistance with a specific task or activity; or when fluctuating symptoms such as a limp or tic temporarily appear. Even a person traditionally defined as visibly disabled, such as a full-time wheelchair user, can transfer to a sofa, fold her chair away, and join the ranks of the invisibly disabled for a time.