Is there a politically correct term for "Freaks"?

Factual Questions
1

I was watching a TV show on Sideshow performers and was just curious. In the super politically correct age when words like midget and dwarf are exchanged for Little People (which I’ve always thought sounds way more condescending) it was odd to hear references to “The Monkey Woman” and “The Lobster Family”. While you can refer to “conjoined twins” or people with osteogenesis imperfecta, is there an all encompassing word for people would once have been called *Freaks ?

Special Needs would seem not quite right as it implies disabilities and some of these people were far from helpless.

If there’s not one, what would you call them? :wink:

2

From most of the books I’ve read, the preferred term within the community is, in fact, Freaks.

No online cite, but I recommend the book Sideshow U.S.A.: Freaks and the American Cultural Imagination.

3

Differently abled?

4

I think we’re referring to two different communities here. There are those who purposefully perform acts of body manipulation, and there there are those born with certain abnormalities which causes them to stand out. I believe the OP was referring mostly to the latter.

Go to any “freaks” based board and you’ll find it populated with people full of tattoos and piercings, as well as other forms of modification.

5

Opposite, actually. Geeks are those who have modified, Freaks are those who were born that way.