‘It can be disabling but it’s not a capital D disability’: disability (dis)identification in Tourette Syndrome

Tourette Syndrome (TS) occupies an ambiguous position in what Thomas (Citation1999) calls the ‘borderlands’ of disability. Although TS involves pain, injury, and social exclusion, its classification as a disability is complicated by its within- and between-individual variability in severity, concealability, and impairment. Disability studies research on TS remains limited, particularly regarding how adults with TS interpret the condition and its relationship to disability in their own lives. Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews with adults with TS, this study analyzes how participants understand and articulate their condition in relation to disability, including how they position themselves as disabled, non-disabled, or in-between, and how they negotiate these identities through medical, social, or social relational models of disability. Participants located themselves along a spectrum of disability identification, from outright disavowal to full embrace, by selectively mobilizing these models. These results contribute to ongoing efforts to theorize liminal or fluctuating forms of disability.