There Is No Excuse To Have No Access

Community issues with creating inclusion and access for the disabled and neurodiverse community.

I want to address a noticeable trend in my community and others nationwide — a lack of willingness to learn and accept disability and neurodiversity in majority spaces.

Recently, I paid for a membership to a writer’s community. I was excited to get to see the workshops, the opportunities and grow my business network. Unfortunately, I was hit with barriers like a moving brick wall as soon as I clicked “create an account.”

The workshops offered in person and online had no options for captions or transcripts. Zoom is a platform that has both of those features, but the organization allowed individual members that were voluntarily hosting the events to choose what they do or do not have.

Accessibility should not be optional. It should be the default.

The technology is available to create a space for online access to the disabled and neurodivergent community. The choice is there, but people are making the wrong choice.

Moving onto the in-person events, they do not guarantee wheelchair-accessible venues. They do not require the speakers to use microphones, nor do they have any live captioning.

Again, this is a technology that is available and not expensive. I have transcription software on my mobile phone which will pick up what the speakers are saying and transcribe. If there was a microphone.

We live in an age of technology where access is possible if people pay attention. But this community, my community, — is an afterthought.

No one designs workshops to be inclusive. No one takes the time to think, hmm maybe someone attending needs subtitles. Maybe someone attending needs aisle access. Maybe someone attending needs the speaker to speak with a microphone.

Stop making excuses

The disability and neurodiverse community should have the option to attend conferences and workshops without access barriers. The organizations and companies implicitly and explicitly exclude our population. They exclude us because they never thought of us in the first place.

Frankly, I don’t want to hear any of these statements anymore from companies and organizations:

• “It’s too much work”
• “It’s too expensive”
• “No one disabled attends my events”
• “I am a small business and just don’t have time for this”

Create access

Actions speak louder than words:

• Seek venues that have accessibility features for your events. Locally, the public library 21c has an accessible venue. It’s free. It has everything, even a hearing loop.
• Design your content with access in mind. Stop thinking of these elements after you book the venue and create the content. If you put access as a priority then it’s not an “inconvenience” for you.
• Get a contact person at your organization that handles access needs. Even if you are a nonprofit, there are people with knowledge that will volunteer their time to make sure you create an accessible community event. I am one of them!

I want to join a community and simply enjoy the experience. Nondisabled people and neurotypical people get this chance every day.

That’s the thing, it’s about equality. If you never considered any of these, don’t feel shame. Just change it. Make an effort to evaluate where you can improve access and fix it.

It doesn’t have to change overnight.

Care first.

Learn how to change.

Make an effort to fix it.

That is ALL we ask of you.

Just give a damn at the beginning instead of the end.