BLIND PERSON, OR PERSON WHO IS BLIND?

I’ve been thinking about language, not unusual for me, the one who speaks so often about hope language. But the language on my mind is the language of disability.
I am a blind person. I was born blind, and have been a blind person ever since, though I did start out as a blind kid. Soon I’ll be a blind senior. But some time during my adulthood people started saying I was a person who was blind. They said that made me more of a person, when we said it that way. I have never felt this change in language made me more of a person. I have never doubted that I am a person. I have been called visually challenged, unsighted, without sight, without vision. It seems there is no end to the things people want to call me, as long as they don’t have to say “blind person.”
And I wonder, just what is wrong with being a blind person anyway? I am a psychologist. Nobody thinks I ought to be a person who does psychology, I am a gardener. Nobody is suggesting it would be more respectful to call me a person who gardens. I am allowed to be a storyteller—not a person who tells stories, a mother—not forced to be a person with children. That would never work. We’d have to change Mother’s Day to Person’s With Children’s Day.
As I find myself arguing this point today, with somebody who I know respects me, yet still insists that I will be less respected if I am called a blind person, I find myself asking: Is there something shameful about blindness that we don’t want to face?
I am not ashamed to be a blind person, nor do I think others should be ashamed to be one. I admit it, I am on a rant, I am in a radical mood. I am going against respected professional opinion. If this keeps up, I’ll be saying “I’m blind,” and not mentioning that I’m a person. Who knows what could come of that? People might think I’m an elephant, or a robin!
And why am I writing this on THE HOPE LADY Blog? Well, I get this feeling of hopelessness thinking I will have to change my name every few years so people will respect me. I hope to be allowed to be called what I am. I hope others respect that.