If you’re interested in getting a bit of background to the phenomenon I call Cultural Intrusion – ie, the idea that increasing numbers of people are choosing to identify as disabled for economic or political reasons – then I would highly recommend watching this Channel Four Dispatches program. To be honest, I’m becoming more and more convinced that I’m not just imagining it, and that more and more people are choosing to identify as disabled when they previously might not have. This documentary just confirms it, detailing how the number of people on long term sickness benefits has gone through the roof in the last few years. The primary reason seems to be financial, as such benefits give people a guaranteed, regular source of income which they might not get through employment. Be that as it may, I can’t help wondering where that leaves guys like me, who have been disabled all our lives, survived the special education system, have to put up with being infantilised and treated as second class citizens etc: are we not having our social positions and life experiences usurped and commandeered by people who know nothing about what we have been through?