A Serious Question

[alliancesjr]

I've seen this term come up in a lot of Internet arguments (Oh, Internet Drama. How I don't miss you.) and I don't know what it means.

What the hell is "ableist" and why is it derogatory? I mean, I guess I understand - from context, mostly - that it means someone who's discriminatory to disabled people, but...what is the reason for the word?

Comments

[nicolars.livejournal.com]

A Doctor Who community I look at occasionally is now deleting any comments that use the word "lame", on the grounds that it is an ableist term. That seems rather extreme to me, but perhaps I'm just being ableist.