ABSTRACT
As society frames it, disability is a loss and a deficit—seemingly pathological in its very existence. This is also the personal experience of a large portion of the disability community. Each portion of the disabled community expresses their gain differently: each disabling condition has its unique effects, and each individual experiences those effects differently. Disability is by nature diverse, and it is our differences that we have in common. The impetus toward redefining from loss to gain is perhaps strongest in the Deaf community, which has one of the most, if not the most, strongly codified culture. The conditions that are misnamed disabilities themselves are instead impairing. As Eli Clare defines it, citing another of Oliver's works, impairment is 'lacking part or all of a limb, or having a defective limb, organism or mechanism of the body'. Disability gain is a very new concept still being defined by the disability studies community.
