Chapter 7 considers the severity threshold in the Act. Examining how the law establishes severity, it asks whether the threshold can be justified – particularly given that the Act’s standard definition of disability (which is based on functional deficit) applies a lower threshold of substantiality. It argues that the severity threshold is out of step with the lived experience of visible difference and explores whether the concept of perceptive discrimination can be used to bypass this problematic threshold. This chapter also addresses the problem of complex conditions – those which include both an aspect of disfigurement and of function – and concludes that, mirroring academic debate about the rigidity of models of disability, the law’s approach is not flexible enough to encompass all types of disabling barrier holistically.