How would a dragon regulate body temperature without fire breath?

[JBCrowson]

Certainly. Although just from personal experience it can easily become toxic, to the point where the disability part is kind of ignored, which again, defeats the point. It’s also really personal, as in you’re probably going to offend just as many people as you’ll reach by working with that sort of subject. Everyone has a different perspective on it. You could have fun with a disabled dragon character though, maybe the hot water filled knitted jumper idea would be fun to read, that is if it were more a fantasy-comedy, with some serious subtext in there.

Graham Edwards in his dragon charm series has magic and non magic dragons, with the non magic being regarded as disabled. They have to use their wings to fly rather than flying magically. Was an interesting idea, there were a couple of other interesting ideas in the series as well.

 

[JBCrowson]

It's a very complicated concept because disabled people are dehumanized in a myriad of mutually exclusive ways. Many disabled people feel that they don't want people to focus on what they can do, because, well, we don't make a big deal when abled people do those same things. They feel that by emphasizing their abilities over their disability, their challenges are being ignored, trivialized or otherwise invalidated, preventing them from receiving the kind of support they actually need. It's a fine line to walk between not writing someone off because of their disability, and respecting the fact that they do in fact have that disability. Using my autism as an example, people might assume I'm absolutely useless in social situations. But if they see that I'm not, in fact, completely out of my depth in any given social situation, they might assume that I don't struggle at all, or more insultingly, assume that because I have been able to overcome certain challenges, I have become "less autistic" as a result. And actually, I think I want to touch on these very points in my story. To make a long story short, my characters' disabilities will never be superpowers. Disabled people may possess exceptional talents as a result of their life experiences, but that's how it works for everyone— not to mention, a person's worth should not be determined by the degree to which they are exceptional or excellent.

I agree it's a fine balance, and asking a person's view and needs rather than assuming them is a good start. I come at this as father of a son with Down Syndrome, where it was assumed when the prenatal testing revealed that fact that we would want to terminate the pregnancy. He's now 12, in main stream school, and did his science project last year on grasshoppers, in French.