The line between on the one hand seeking information in order to support someone, and on the other straying inappropriately into deeply personal areas, can be a difficult one to tread. IP Ability committee member Megan Rannard (Marks & Clerk) considers this issue based on both personal experience and wider research, and provides some useful guidance for those of us who want to help without causing upset.
Megan writes:
Curiosity is a fundamental human trait (and it also killed the cat, if you believe the proverb).
It is only natural to ask questions of each other and to seek a deeper understanding of people we know and the world around us. It is also natural to want to ask questions about things that appear different, or outside of one’s norm. However, sometimes it is important to stop, take a minute and decide if what you’re about to ask someone is too personal.
As a disabled woman with a condition that fluctuates between being visible and invisible, I have had to become used to people asking questions when I least expect them – on the train, at restaurants (“Is that all you’re eating?”), in the supermarket or even just in the street. Why am I doing/wearing/using something, or even why am I not doing something? “What’s that on your arm?”, or “What’s wrong with your leg?”
Whilst these questions might appear innocently curious, and most likely do not have any bad intention, it is easy to quickly feel uncomfortable or to find myself eventually feeling compelled to share personal details about my health and personal life that I would otherwise never have intended to share, or that cause me embarrassment or even sometimes upset.
These interactions are often described by psychologists as “forced intimacy”, which can be defined as “the common, daily experience of disabled people being expected to share personal parts of ourselves” (Mingus (2017)).
At the outset, I must acknowledge that this is of course a deeply nuanced issue, as shown clearly by the responses to the UK government’s #AskDon’tAssume campaign in 2023. The campaign aimed to tackle assumptions made in relation to a disabled person’s needs or capabilities, and to encourage people to ask questions on these topics rather than assuming that they already know the answer. The value of this cannot be underestimated, again particularly in the context of reasonable adjustments – the individual is always best placed to advise on their needs at work, whereas an assumption of the adjustments that may be required is unlikely to result in a positive outcome for all parties involved.
However, the #AskDon’tAssume campaign faced some backlash from the disabled community given the fine line between asking an appropriate question and crossing personal boundaries. In my opinion, Forbes summed up the issue well:
“There is … a big difference between discussing disability issues and talking about our personal pains, humiliations, exclusions, and traumas. Talking about accessibility, discrimination, and the pros and cons of disability policy is one thing. Sharing how much we hurt… is quite another matter.”
It is important to consider forced intimacy in all interactions with others, both in our personal lives and at work. In the context of work, we should reflect on the appropriateness of questions when having discussions with disabled people about their workplace needs, for example. It is almost inevitable that a discussion about someone’s disability and their needs at work will cover deeply personal topics and can be very uncomfortable for the person concerned (as touched on in more detail in my article for Trademark Lawyer Magazine in 2023).
Whilst it is important that an employer has sufficient information to make appropriate adjustments for an individual and to cover all of their needs, the method of questioning used to reach this stage is crucial if the conversation and outcome are to be beneficial for all. This is particularly important if an individual’s needs change and fluctuate over time (as they often do) meaning that these sensitive discussions will need to take place more than once.
Overall, determining an individual’s boundaries needs to be handled incredibly delicately, especially since everyone will feel and respond differently to discussions about their disability. Reminding people to ask questions rather than assuming they know the answers, whilst highlighting that asking questions or making comments relating to someone’s health or disability can sometimes go too far, is clearly contradictory and I certainly wouldn’t profess to know all the answers or to always get it right. However, I believe this is still an important issue to discuss in order to ensure that these types of topics receive the necessary attention in the context of DE&I in the workplace and that we are all at least acknowledging the issue and bearing it in mind in our interactions with others.
The Forbes’ article also provides some points to consider in terms of how we discuss disability and health conditions, and when questioning might stray across someone’s personal boundaries, that may be valuable in considering this topic. For example, I would suggest rather than asking “What’s wrong with your leg/arm/hand?”, maybe ask whether someone has any accessibility needs that you ought to be aware of.
Acknowledging that everyone is different is vitally important, but I believe it is also possible to accept that people are different from us without having to know all the reasons why.
Page published on 19th February 2026
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