[1][2] Wright State University suggests that the current community definition of crip includes people who experience any form of disability, such as one or more impairments with physical, mental, learning, and sensory,[1] though the term primarily targets physical and mobility impairment.
Emily Hutcheon and Gregor Wolbring stated that crip could be used for 'an action/event/object/person' that did not meet its intended purpose.
While the term cripple was in common usage, it could often be found in the literature to describe characters who had issues with walking, or difficulty using their limbs.
In 1893, novelist Owen Wister referred to a character who was shot in the leg as "Crip Jones".
[15][13] People with disabilities deem crip an insider term as they are the group changing the meaning and usage of the word.
[27][28] With the work of activist scholars like Mike Oliver understandings from the community, like that of the social model of disability, entered academia.
[12] Crip theory developed within this field as an intersection with gender and sexuality[30] and fell within what is known as critical disability studies.
Being able-bodied means that you have minimal impairments physically, mentally, or sensory or not identifying as having a disability.
[34] Due to the assumption of able-bodiedness there is a lack of consideration of the time, energy, or resources needed for people with disabilities.
To accommodate these needs people with disabilities have to be careful when considering what they can do in relation to life and work expectation with the resources they have.
[36][37] Academic views of crip time connected to ideas of futurity, which is based on temporal theory.
It is argued that people with disabilities (and other marginalised identities) are made invisible from our past and futures.
[41] Some claim that the reclaiming of the word crip is done by privileged people, often white and within academia.
Those with this stance argue that, as Kirstin Marie Bone says, crip theory 'silences actual disabled experience and fractures the community, harming instead of helping'.