Title:
They Changed the Pronouns. They Didn’t Change Our Lives.
California AB 1575 is moving through the legislature right now, and if you skim the bill text, it looks sweeping. Entire sections of the Lanterman Act—the legal backbone of services for people with developmental disabilities—are being rewritten. Language is updated line by line. Terminology is replaced. The structure is cleaned up.
At first glance, it reads like reform.
It isn’t.
AB 1575 is officially classified as a technical, non-substantive housekeeping bill. That designation matters. It means lawmakers themselves acknowledge that, despite the volume of edits, nothing material about the program is changing.
No expansion of services.
No reduction in barriers.
No strengthening of rights.
No fixes to the system people like me depend on every day.
What the bill does do is modernize language.
It replaces gendered references like “his” with “their” when referring to the Governor. It shifts terminology from words like “consumer” to “person eligible for services.” It cleans up phrasing, grammar, and statutory formatting.
All of that is real. None of it is substantive.
And that’s exactly the problem.
The Illusion of Change
There’s something deeply misleading about bills like this. When you see pages of redlines—words struck, words added—it creates the impression that the system is being updated, improved, rethought.
But AB 1575 is a perfect example of how form can change while function stays frozen.
The Lanterman Act is not broken because of outdated pronouns. It is not failing people because of commas or phrasing. The challenges are structural:
- Inconsistent service access across regional centers
- Administrative complexity that families have to navigate constantly
- Funding constraints that shape what is actually available in practice
- Gaps between what is legally guaranteed and what is realistically delivered
None of that is touched here.
Instead, we get linguistic refinement.
“Consumer” vs. “Person Eligible for Services”
One of the more notable shifts in AB 1575 is the move away from terms like “consumer” toward “person eligible for services.”
On paper, this reflects a broader trend toward person-first language. It signals an attempt to be more respectful, more precise, more modern.
But let’s be honest about what it does—and what it doesn’t do.
Changing what the state calls me does not change:
- Whether I can access the supports I need
- How difficult it is to secure those supports
- Whether the system works consistently or fairly
It changes the framing. Not the reality.
There’s a growing gap between how the system is described and how it is experienced. AB 1575 widens that gap.
What This Feels Like
I rely on the Lanterman Act. This isn’t abstract policy to me—it’s daily life. It’s the difference between functioning and not functioning, between stability and instability.
So when I see a bill like AB 1575 moving forward—clean, organized, likely to pass—it doesn’t feel neutral.
It feels like misaligned priorities.
It feels like watching the legislature spend time polishing language while leaving the actual lived experience of disabled Californians untouched.
And yes, it feels absurd that there is clear momentum to update the Governor’s pronouns in statute, while there is no comparable urgency to address the real, persistent issues in the system.
That contrast is hard to ignore.
I am Self Determined, but the California Governor doesn’t think about my daily lived experience as valuable data into program reform.
The Bigger Issue
This isn’t about being against language updates. Language evolves. That’s normal.
The issue is proportionality.
If the state has the capacity to systematically modernize terminology across one of the most important disability laws in California, then it also has the capacity to:
- Fix access problems
- Reduce administrative burden
- Address inequities
- Strengthen enforcement of existing rights
But those changes are harder. They cost money. They require political will.
AB 1575 requires none of that.
Nothing Changes Where It Matters
That’s the bottom line.
AB 1575 will likely pass. The statute will read more cleanly. The terminology will be more current. The Governor will be referred to in gender-neutral terms.
And for autistic Californians like me?
Nothing will actually change.
Not in how the system functions.
Not in what we receive.
Not in how hard we have to fight to get it.
The words will be different.
The reality will be the same.
Abolish Regional Centers 
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