Zoe Berg, Staff Illustrator

When Gretchen Knauff moved to New Haven and became the city’s director of Disability Services last year, she began to examine the city’s laws concerning people with disabilities. She quickly noticed that many of these laws featured outdated terminology.

Now, thanks to an ordinance submitted to the Board of Alders by Knauff, that language will be updated. The ordinance calls on the city to use “person-first language,” which emphasizes an individual’s personhood before their disability, according to Knauff. For instance, under person-first language, “handicapped person” changes to “person with a disability.””

“Language is important. How we talk about people is important; the way we portray them is important,” Knauff said. “I see this as something that’s truly basic that needs to be done to show that individuals are valued members of the New Haven community.”

Knauff submitted the ordinance to the Board of Alders July 5, and the Board passed it on Sept. 19. Mayor Justin Elicker signed the ordinance into law Nov. 3. 

The ordinance only updates terminology and does not affect the intent of any laws.

“Updating and modernizing the terminology used in our ordinances to be more respectful and honoring of people with disabilities was the right thing to do and, frankly, long overdue,” Elicker stated in a press release.

For Carmen Correa-Rios, executive director of the Connecticut organization Center for Disability Rights, the change brings New Haven law up-to-date with the language many disability rights advocates have been using for decades.

Correa-Rios said that seeing a change in the legal terminology was personally meaningful to her, both as a disability rights advocate and as a person with a disability.

“I can’t explain to you how excited I am about this, and I hope that other towns follow and do the same thing,” she said.

The update follows a larger cultural and political shift in the language used to discuss disabilities. In 2010, President Obama signed “Rosa’s Law,” encoding the terms “intellectual disability” and “individual with an intellectual disability” in federal law.

For Shanon McCormick, executive director of the Down Syndrome Association of Connecticut, it has been encouraging to see local governments adopt updated language around disabilities.

“Disability isn’t a disaster, it’s a fact of life. And we need to address it as if it’s a fact of life,” McCormick said.

McCormick described person-first language as a way of seeing a person as an individual beyond their disability. 

“My son, for example, is a young man who has Down syndrome,” McCormick explained. “Down syndrome is [one thing] among other things – he also has a great sense of humor, and a desire to sleep late most mornings. It’s just one part of his life.”

She added that not all people with disabilities prefer person-first language, and the language an individual chooses to identify with is a personal decision.

Knauff hopes the ordinance will act as a jumping off point for further legislative action to support people with disabilities. Next, Knauff is looking into improving sidewalk accessibility and updating elevator ordinances to ensure that people with mobility disabilities can receive alternative arrangements if the elevator in their building is out of service for more than 48 hours.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, around one in four adults in the United States have some form of a disability.