Disabled or not?
When Asperger's as a disability is discussed, people seem to be thinking along the lines of, "Disability must be severe to be called disability." That's true only in the legal sense, when it has to prevent you from working.

Many Aspies feel they aren't disabled. Sometimes it's true; sometimes it's just a way of saying they don't mind having Asperger's, that it doesn't stop them from doing what they want in life. But there's a difference between that and not being disabled.

Disability is in large parts a social construct; it compares someone to the requirements that society places on him, and asks whether he needs anything more than most people to fit into that society--whether it's extra energy, extra education, technology, or outside help. Move someone to a different society, and he may no longer be disabled.

Realistically, though, there are an awful lot of conditions that are disabilities and yet don't hamper you too much once you have adjusted. For example: Let's say you're self-sufficient but you use a wheelchair. You have access to ramps and elevators. Nothing's really closed to you--even mountain-climbing has become accessible. So are you still disabled? Most everybody would say yes, you are, because you can't walk... Okay, so let's take a Deaf guy with a talent for lipreading. He learns to speak with what sounds like a bit of an accent. All he has to do is look at someone to understand them. Is he still disabled? Most people would say yes, he is, because he still can't hear...

But how is that different from an Aspie who has learned to cope in social situations? You still have the basic difference that cause you to put forth a lot more effort when you're in a social situation--like the deaf guy who's using a lot more brain power to lip-read than he would watching people sign.

Disability can be mild. It can be almost or completely compensated for. And in those cases, the only reason it's still called a disability is because you do have to use extra effort, or extra technology, or accommodations of some sort, to compensate. Disability isn't always something you can NEVER do.. it's often something you do differently. Like an Aspie's socialization.

Some Aspies aren't disabled, but I would not call it that until they got to the point that they take no more effort than an NT when they socialized, got no more stressed than an NT from sensory input, and could, if desired, spend no more time on special interests than an NT spends on hobbies... Only the milder cases get to that point, and usually not until middle adulthood. Whether that's necessarily better than staying "disabled"... I doubt it, really. It's life, either way; doesn't have much to do with happiness.

And to complicate matters, some things aren't thought of as disabilities when they really ought to be; for example, ADHD can cause more problems than Asperger's, but it is not commonly categorized as a disability until it reaches an extreme level. Without the technology afforded by eyeglasses, someone with 20/200 vision can't drive and can't navigate well--but because so many people wear eyeglasses, it isn't considered a disability. Chronic illness is on the borderline, too; diabetes requires extra effort and extra technology, but it too isn't quite considered a disability.

A whole society is determining what "disabled" means. Depending on how unusual a condition is, it might be put on either side of the line without real thought. Some things that cause less trouble than Asperger's are considered disabilities just because they aren't the norm--for example, having a prosthetic leg. (Granted, that causes more trouble than Asperger's at the beginning; but let's say you were born without the leg and grew up using a prosthesis)...

Let's face it: Society determines what "disability" is. And our society thinks socializing is awfully important--possibly the most important skill, if you don't count basic self-care, or even if you do count it. Many Aspies are considered disabled; and because disability is determined by society, that means that at the base of it they ARE disabled, just because of the mismatch between what society demands and what they can give; because they have to fill in the gap with extra effort, extra education, extra technology...

The Aspies in question--disabled because society says they are--usually do not think this is a tragedy or an impediment to doing what they want with their lives. But that is true of so many people who are disabled by any measure of the term--everything from Down syndrome to quadriplegia to blindness. People exist with those conditions and just about any other who consider themselves to be quite functional, not deprived or "worse off" than anybody else, not impaired in doing what they want to do.

Just because you do not think that having a certain condition is a problem, doesn't mean it isn't a disability--because what you think isn't in the definition, really. That's why the disability community is so important; our status is defined by those around us just as a racial minority's status; and what those around us think of us affects us quite a bit more, psychologically and socially, than the actual impairments we deal with.