Sounds like a friend of ours who was/still is paralyzed from the waist down from a racing accident. The guy was hell on wheels in every sense of the word. Has a wicked sense of humor, could drink you under the table and beat the living snot out of you playing pool. And, he was a chick magnet at every bar even with average looks.
*Racing blue hairs for the gimp spot * this is just priceless.
I do that to. And the"gimp stall" in a public restroom. I don’t do these things within earshot of anyone…just if I’m relaying a story to someone who isn’t a handicapped person. Usually my father or husband.
The disabled people I’ve known have generally disliked the use of “handicapped” and any of its variants due to the fact that when used for sporting events, if you “handicap” somebody, you place him at a disadvantage because he’s a better athlete than the others. This is the exact opposite of what “handicapped” parking spaces and other things are for.
I know a handicapper. His name is Eric Alwin and he works at Sunland Park Race Track.
I’ve never heard the word used to discribe a disabled person until this thread.
Be my guest. I don’t go near the malls in December (I’m not THAT impaired!) but you can’t have my parking tag. 
‘mentally handicapped’ is (in my experience) far more common than ‘mentally disabled’, but for physical disabilities, ‘disabled’ is more common than ‘handicapped’.
This terminology has been subject to quite rapid change though.
I’ve never heard “handicapper” in the disabled-person sense either. It strikes me as slightly insulting – kind of like, “She’s one of them women’s-libbers” – but maybe not everyone who says it is using it to be insulting. It’s still kind of unusual though.
Some in the disability community find the term 'handicaped" offensive, as it supposedly derives from the term “hand in cap”, meaning a beggar.
I’m too lazy to look up a cite - I work in special education, so the research would feel like I had gone back to work.
Whistlepig
It comes from hand-in-cap, but has nothing to do with begging: http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/handicap.htm
Thanks, in Snopes I trust.
Whistlepig
Thank you all for your responses. He won’t stop doing it, of course, even when I make it clear that I’m offended by it. He’s not an asshole per se - well, he sort of is, but he doesn’t hold disabled people in any particular disregard.
I indeed think it’s strange, and it’s worth noting that when I searched google, the only references in the first few pages of results for “handicapper” referred to sports.
Anyone else notice that the less syllables a term has, the more likely it is considered or feared to be considered offensive or out-of-date?
Handicapped person => handicapper
Japanese => Jap
differently abled => disabled
I know I’m a bit late but as the brother of mentally-retarded person (cerbral palsy and numerous other birth defects) and the friend/employee of a disabled woman, I would be offended by anyone using the term “handicapper”. It sounds dismissive and derogatory to me.
And the “gimp” discussion has my stomach churning.