A quick note to all my (amazing) able-bodied allies: be careful when talking about the “curb cut effect” in relation to how accessibility affects people. When you mention “prams, buggies, and bicycles” in the same breath as people with mobility aids, you’re conflating “accessibility” with “convenience”.
When disabled people talk about accessibility, we’re talking about “equal access” not “ease of access”. When something isn’t accessible, we’re not mildly inconvenienced; we’re completely excluded. When the lift isn’t working, we can’t get to work. When public transportation isn’t accessible, we’re not troubled; we’re trapped.
This is why our most vocal supporters call themselves “disability rights activists” not “accessibility advocates”. It’s not about the benefits of accessibility; it’s about the direct, long-term harm a lack of accessibility causes.
Most folks don’t realize that the ADA is not a building code, but is in fact a civil rights law. So, the next time you’re explaining how important accessibility is to your able-bodied friends, don’t just focus on how accessibility makes the most common spaces better for everyone.
Focus on how a lack of accessibility excludes disabled people from even the most common spaces.
Tag: disabilities
able-bodied people don’t seem to realise the nuances of disability, they look at it as such a black and white issue when it’s really not. like, i don’t need a wheelchair in the sense that i can’t physically use my legs and i don’t need a walking stick in the sense that i would fall over without one. but i do need a wheelchair in the sense that it could make the difference between my being bed-bound for a day and being bed-bound for a week and i do need a walking stick in the sense that using one today might enable me to do more tomorrow. disability and chronic illness aren’t black and white; using things out of necessity can mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people.
All this goes for most other disabilities too. For example, many people don’t realize that many deaf people have at least a little hearing. And many blind people have at least a little vision. And so forth.
So if you’re deaf enough that you cannot understand speech just by listening alone (because there is too much of the sound missing) then you most likely really NEED captions to have any chance of understanding anything said in a video, TV program, movie, etc.
If you have enough hearing to hear SOME speech, well, hearing 10 percent of what is said still won’t help enough to do without captions. (Some of us might hear vowels without really hearing consonants, or may hear only certain consonants and not others, because some speech sounds are higher pitched than other speech sounds. For example, “s”, “sh”, “ch” are all higher in pitch than “m”, “n” or any of the vowels, etc. Some of us may hear lower pitch sounds better than high pitch sounds. So, yes, many of us hear SOME speech but not enough to understand.)
But suppose you are not deaf, but only hard of hearing, i.e. only a mild hearing loss? So that you can understand most speech by listening alone, without needing visual input? Well, if you’re hard of hearing (and not hearing) then you need completely PERFECT listening circumstances (everyone is speaking clearly, there is no background noise to distract you, etc.) because even minor problems that would only annoy a hearing person can completely disrupt your understanding speech. And even in absolutely perfect listening conditions, a hard of hearing person still needs to invest a LOT more concentration and physical energy into listening. That can make it harder to really process the content of what is being said simply because there’s no bandwidth left over after all that listening.
This is bad if you’re trying to learn really complicated new ideas because then you need to both listen AND do a lot of thinking simultaneously. It’s also harder to really relax and enjoy a movie if you have to work so hard just to understand. So all of this is why even people who can still understand most speech most of the time may still NEED captions.
This is so, so important for blindness and white canes, too. This concept applies so broadly to all of us.
Because you know what? I went 16 years without a cane.
The first 16 straight years of my life were spent without even the shortest singular lesson on using a cane and my vision was no better then than it is now. And you know, I survived. I never broke any bones or had a catastrophic fall down the school stairwell or got hit by a car, and if I wanted to go somewhere without my cane now I could probably live, if it was somewhere familiar and during the day and the weather was just right. I could probably make it to my school and back without any major issues and I would get home in one piece.
But you know what else? During those first 16 years I was terrified. Not actively shaking and consciously thinking about how afraid I was, but it was there, every time I avoided going somewhere new or going out at night or when I stared down at the sidewalk while walking down the street and wondered if people thought I was depressed about something. I didn’t explore, I didn’t try new things, I didn’t feel like it would be easy to go out and check out something new to handle unexpected changes or changes in plans. I stayed inside a lot, and in order to get around somewhere new I had to take a whole day and have a teacher or a parent walk me around it first so I could do it later myself. I didn’t like new places and I didn’t like going out, because there were too many poles and staircases that blended in and broken cracks in the sidewalk and trash on the ground and children running around.
When I got training and learned how to use a cane and gather information from my ears it was life-changing. Using a cane meant the difference between being careful and cautious and avoiding new things, and being out at any hour of the day and walking confidently and comfortably and exploring my neighborhood. It meant the difference between being worried about tripping down the steps at a new place and being able to decide on a whim and I feel like going to this new place because it’s cool and I can. It meant the difference between constantly overthinking and planning my whole day around how I was going to get around and being able to just be normal and just BE without even having to think about whether I’ll be able to get around. It meant the difference between waiting two weeks for somebody to finally be free enough to give me a ride and hold my arm throughout and being able to go where I wanted, when I wanted, without inconvenience to myself or others. It meant the difference between sheltering myself and being actually free.
So yes. I suppose you could try to argue that maybe a cane is not an absolute necessity for me to exist and do the absolute bare minimum, but you would be wrong, because life isn’t just about the absolute bare minimum. Thousands of blind people have this exact same journey with canes and realizing the difference it makes, blind people ranging from those who are completely blind to people who just barely crossed the threshold into legal blindness. So yes, I don’t need a cane in the sense that I am completely blind and entirely unable to do anything without it, but I absolutely need my cane in the sense that most of us do, the sense that that came makes the difference between a stressful experience that was avoided until it couldn’t be and an incredibly comfortable experience that allowed me to do way more, travel way farther, and get a whole shit ton more out of it.
Disability is never a black and white thing, and both abled and other disabled people alike would do well to remember that. and
“Can’t” isn’t always “cannot under any circumstance,” often it’s “cannot without causing myself harm” or “cannot without experiencing too much pain or discomfort.”
When a disabled person tells you they can’t do something, don’t question them. Trust me, we get sick of not being able to do things, too.
“Can’t” isn’t always “cannot under any circumstance,” often it’s “cannot without causing myself harm” or “cannot without experiencing too much pain or discomfort.”
I just cannot stress enough how true this is. Pass it on. Shout it from the rooftops.
Or “It is physically possible, but will leave me stuck in bed for three days to recover”
I can physically put wheat in my mouth and eat it, but the migraine and vomiting aren’t worth it.
I can, in an emergency, function quite well. When the adrenaline stops, I don’t get back up again for a couple days. Unfortunately, without the adrenaline, I get incredibly dizzy, so building stamina isn’t likely right now.
And I can muster the executive function to do The Thing… but there’s probably other Things that get left by the wayside.
Baby can’t adult. Just doesn’t enter her head what to do. If I get hurt, though, she suddenly turns into “nurse mom” – has lots of rules about how to take care of me (correct ones, even) and does all the feedings and medicine administering and keeps people from bothering me until I am well again. Then poofs back into Baby and can’t figure out why to wear clothes and needs LOTS of sleep for a couple of days.
Motivations has strong effects but lots of cost. It hurts to override our disabilities. Just because we can sometimes doesn’t mean we aren’t disabled, it just means we has priorities.
Especially true for physical disabilities, but definitely also applies for neurodivergence and mental illness. Also: allergies; phobias; code switching and other requirements for minorities to interact with the disapproving majority; etc.
Neanderthals With Disabilities Survived Through Social Support
When the remains of this older Neanderthal were discovered at Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1957, his many physical injuries and disabilities were immediately apparent. Analysis of his skull showed that he suffered a crushing blow to the head near his eye socket when he was young, likely causing some visual impairment. His right hand and forearm were missing, the result of an amputation. He likely walked with a serious gait, and he suffered from hyperostotic disease (DISH), which is associated with muscular pain and reduced mobility along the spine.
But a new analysis of this specimen, known as Shanidar 1, shows he had another major disability—one not noticed during earlier examinations. New research published in PLOS One reveals that the bony growths found in this Neanderthal’s ear canals would have resulted in serious hearing loss. So this Paleolithic-era hunter-gatherer, according to the updated analysis conducted by anthropologists Erik Trinkaus from Washington University in St. Louis and Sébastien Villotte of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, was profoundly deaf.
Yet despite his deafness and his other physical setbacks, Shanidar 1 died between 40 and 50 years of age (based on dental analysis). By Paleolithic standards, he was an old man. The only way he could have lived to such a ripe old age is by receiving considerable help from others. “More than his loss of a forearm, bad limp and other injuries, his deafness would have made him easy prey for the ubiquitous carnivores in his environment and dependent on other members of his social group for survival,” said Trinkaus in a statement.
Trinkaus and Villotte says it’s not surprising that his fellow Neanderthals were able and willing to provide this level of social support. Profoundly, these extinct humans buried their dead, a funeral act that anthropologists say is indicative of social cohesion, social roles, and mutual support. What’s more, Neanderthals used pigments and feathers to modify their appearance, which the authors say is “a reflection of social identity manipulation and social cohesion.” To say Neanderthals cared for the physically impaired is therefore not a stretch.
Neanderthals With Disabilities Survived Through Social Support
gfs:
like it’s incredibly harmful for these 14yr olds to be out here like ‘i have bpdnpdaspd’ and it should be easy to see why that is without anyone having to tell you that it’s medically unsound.
this applies for everyone but especially when ur personality is still developing, u should not be out here applying diagnoses to urself like they’re fun little badges or pride flags. if u notice you have these synptoms fucking do something abt it. learn methods to change, bc ur young and u have the chance to change. dont make it harder for urself when ur older by wanting and conforming to a personality disorder dx. just don’t do that.
???
Actually, no, I do understand.
When my cousin got his ADHD and depression diagnosis at 19, he spent 2 years in his basement doing nothing. Years of struggling, and then it’s like he just gave up. Kept saying he couldn’t do things because of his disability.
I was so happy for him.
He’d spent NINETEEN YEARS struggling constantly. Everything was harder for him. He had no friends. He hated himself. He had made it to adulthood, blaming all his challenges on himself.
When he go his diagnosis, a huge weight was lifted from him shoulders. He had a chance to recover. Two years spent relearning himself and accepting he might have worth. Trying to figure out how to motivate himself without guilt. Finally getting people telling him that his struggles made sense, that he hadn’t just been lazy, or obnoxious.
Yes, he did even less and acted even more gratingly for a bit. That’s part of accepting yourself.
Now he’s slowly coming out of his shell. Being kinder to his brother and mom. Starting to do things. Learning that a disability isn’t something to hide behind, it’s something to act through.
I went through a similar periods at 13 and 18. When I first figured out what was going on with my brain, and again when I got my formal ADD/Anxiety diagnosis.
I spouted off all the cliches, started acting stereotypically. My son watched Julia, the autistic character on Sesame Street, and starting singing just like she did.
I read all the books and tried to do everything they suggested. I obnoxiously explained every new thing I discovered to my frustrated mama. I searched out other people with similar diagnoses and we talked for long periods about all the terrible things we did.
I’ve thrown away the cliches that don’t resonate with me by now. Only kept what feels natural. But even a few months ago, when I was reminded that the way I waved my hands is actually stimming – I started doing it more deliberately. More often. It feels good, and it’s part of my neurodivergence.
Read lots of books/articles about whatever you’re self-dxing as. Learn all the helpful stuff you can. Don’t worry that conforming to a disorder will make yourself worse. Act stereotypical. Annoy people. You can’t blame all your problems on disabilities forever, but recognizing what is part of your disability takes time. It can spend a little time planning instead of acting. Learning yourself instead of “fixing” yourself.
tl;dr: it’s incredibly helpful for these 14yr olds to be out here like ‘i have bpdnpdaspd’ and annoying the neurotypicals. It’s an important stage and they’re doing a good thing for their developing brains.
hey if u can’t drive/are a slow learner due to a disability or mental illness, just picture historical figures like pirates or the founding fathers trying to operate a car.
it’s only “easy” bc we’ve normalized it.
it would be great for neurotypicals to reblog this
I didn’t get my license until I was 26 because of my mental health struggles. Just sayin’.
Took me until 24 to beat back my anxiety enough to be able to drive, and I still sometimes have almost panic attacks on the road.
30 and still haven’t learned because of anxiety. You’re doing just fine.
I was 28. My anxiety finally moved on to other things.
Dear People Who Smoke
I don’t know if you have considered this but stop smoking in areas where people are forced to wait at. Don’t smoke at crosswalks. Don’t smoke outside doorways. Don’t smoke at bus stops. People with asthma or other breathing conditions or people that idk DON’T WANT TO BREATHE IN YOUR CIGARETTE SMOKE are trying to get to places and need to be able to breathe. Stop smoking in crowded areas. stop smoking in crowded areas. STOP FORCING NONSMOKERS TO SECOND HAND SMOKE.
please im begging you. i feel like im dying every time i go into the city and smokers are on every corner. i cant breathe
Can’t you just like….not stand right next to the person smoking a cigarette?
Can’t you just like, wait until you’re not around someone to smoke? Like Jesus, I smoke damn near a pack a day and I have the basic human decency to not smoke around non smokers because it just the polite thing to do. Why is asking smokers to be considerate of others such a big deal? Would you want someone forcing you to not smoke? I didn’t think so. So why would you want to force someone to inhale your cigarette smoke?
And don’t smoke in marked non-smoking areas! Especially if the building owner has told you multiple times NOT TO SMOKE THERE.
EXACTLY THIS. Like, I can’t not stand at the crossing? If I’m standing at the bus stop its because I need to catch a bus? You don’t need to blow smoke around, my asthma isn’t that bad but I know people who could literally die from inhaling your smoke? Please, have a bit of consideration and decency.
^^^^^
It is also worth noting that while second hand smoke is really, really bad for people like me. I’m asthmatic and cigarette smoke is a huge trigger for me. I’m allergic to tobacco exposure often leads to me struggling to breath. And if you smell like smoke, don’t be insulted if I stand far away from you because even if you aren’t actively smoking, it’ll still trigger an asthma attack. It isn’t worth it to me.
Also it’s not just asthma. I get really nauseous and it can induce a migraine or if I have a headache make that into a migraine. I do try not to complain or anything but I really dislike walking down a crowded street (where I can’t move away) and there’s like three people walking and smoking in front of me. I know that’s a specific example and that’s because it happened to me over the weekend. I had to stop walking and sit down for the nausea to subside.
…but where are they supposed to smoke? They’re already outside, there’s already a shit ton of laws that prevents them from smoking inside ANY public place, not to mention a bunch of businesses also make their campuses smoke free, too.
I get that it’s a vice, but so is sugar, alcohol, caffeine, and using our smart phones for 16 hours a day. Seriously, where else are smokers supposed to smoke? Until our society collectively agrees that tobacco should be banned (never going to happen for so many reasons) we should at least let smokers smoke in public.
That cigarette in the morning at the bus stop might be their version of a cup of coffee in the morning, the little thing that makes their morning more tolerable. I get that it’s a public nuisance and people are allergic (I’m one of them, mom smoked my entire childhood and I have residual asthma from it as a result) but the open air in public is all smokers have left to them.
A more tolerant society is built by small steps and actions like just letting the miserable smoking cunts have their cigarette outdoors while they wait for the bus, as miserable as you are having to take public transit in the first place. I’m not even arguing for smoking inside (though I still think it’s stupid that bars don’t allow smoking. Guess what honey, if your favorite hangout is a den where men kill their livers with liquid poison, then you literally have no right to bitch about the air quality of such a place. You don’t go to bars to eat, you go to restaurants for that. A bar that happens to serve food you like is not a pre-requisite for your entitled attitude dictating that your experience in a place that is primarily dedicated to slowly killing their customers be more healthy on your lungs. You don’t see vegans yelling at normal restaurants for serving animal products…wait….bad example) but for fuck’s sake, are you trying to tell smokers their only recourse is smoking their cigarettes at home?
Cuz if that’s the case, I better not see any exceptions for vaping or marijuana. “Vaping is harmless water!” Don’t care, I find the clouds obnoxious and the smells make me gag…almost like my throat involuntarily closes up, almost like I’m allergic to the smell! And marijuana is self explanatory but I’ll just leave it here: contact high is real, and not everyone enjoys the smell. In fact, my best friend’s mom is ALERGIC to pot!
If we’re going to seriously complain about smokers smoking in the very last avenue they have available to them, then I don’t EVER want to see ANY kind of public smoking or tolerance for alternative smoke in the public, ya dig?
Did… you read the specific part of my post where I said “where I couldn’t get away”. Like. I don’t give a fuck if someone is smoking at a bus stop or in public. But if it’s in a confined space where I have no ability to remove MYSELF (because I’m not going to go around and police other people’s behaviour) then I’m going to be pissed because it’s inconsiderate.
Rules about smoking are like rules about nuts. They’re there because people might die or end up in the hospital.
Smoking at bus stops is understandable. It would be nice if you stayed to the side of the stop so I could keep my sister safe on the other side. It would be nice if you stayed close to the other smokers so there was a safe place SOMEWHERE on the block I could wait.
I don’t want to take the little sister back to the hospital, again. I don’t want to be in so much pain I can’t figure out how to get OUT of the situation, because my headache has shut down my problem solving abilities.
For structures that have no entry steps, ConvertaStep also makes ramps of three sizes that come in a manual as well as automatic version.
(via ConvertaStep | Wheelchair Accessibility | Ramps | Convertastep – Freedom In Mobility)
This welcome mat converts into a fully accessible wheelchair ramp. Beautiful and functional design. I want it.
Some more info, for people who are interested.
First of all, I can’t believe this has almost 3,000 notes. I’m so glad that people are sharing this – both as a cool design, and also as an important accessibility feature.
Thanks to pseudosoph for linking to additional info (above) regarding weight limits, lift height, and product background – the creator is a wheelchair user himself! Very cool stuff. Keep sharing!
ok, my first thought was that it was a trap to spring upwanted visitors away, but this is good too.
Okay but this is amazing? I’m totally going to look into this for when we start redoing the entry to our house for better overall accessibility.
hey, do you have any tips on how to make comics accessible? I’m working on 2 comics with blind characters and I feel really shitty that I, a blind person, am drawing comics about blind people, that are not accessible for most other blind people (unless they have enough vision to zoom in and read comics like I do). I was thinking of posting scripts with image descriptions of each panel or even writing a story version of each chapter? idk i’m still pretty new to the whole blind thing tbh
accessibleart-deactivated201707:
I think when it comes to writing captions for comics, it depends on the amount of detail. For example, comics by @everythingliar are drawn with simple designs, so not very much needs to be described. ( Click here to see a link ). But on the other hand, this drawing I reblogged from @patrexes has more details so it needs more description. @qjusttheletter has a good post about captions here.
hey sei, adding in as a blind artist/writer – image descriptions for long-form comics do absolutely exist: comics empower is a comics company for blind readers, for example.
another option you can play with is something that i’ve been experimenting with a lot recently and that i think has a lot of promise: using tactile graphics in combination with blocks of color (for those whom that helps) and clarifying labels. if you wanna talk more about concepts for that, you know where to find me!
also, auden @thequeerwithoutfear has transcribed a couple comic books for me if you want to either just flip through and check out the methods and level of detail they used, or you can totally talk to them directly – they really care about comics accessibility and theyre sighted but Good
Milton’s Last Rose, Unseen
Dick Grayson and Slade Wilson fan fic. Gen. Approx. 3,700 words
Rating: strong T for canon-typical violence and language. This is a Tumblr-exclusive chapter of my WIP “Interval of Shadow” but can be read as a complete stand-alone. All you need to know is that a few months earlier, Nightwing lost his sight due to a traumatic brain injury that occurred during a fight with Clayface.
This story details a tense encounter between Dick and Slade.
Missions used to consist of things like single-handedly securing a prison, defeating and outsmarting supervillains and metas in the process. Some missions involved interstellar travel. Stakeouts when he had to be effectively still for hours. Leading a newly reassembled JLA against an evil sorceress. Hell, he’d even been Batman.
Today, Dick’s mission was to walk six blocks from the Wayne Foundation Building to a small diner, eat a meal on the premises, then return. Nothing that should be challenging or remarkable in any way, except that it would be his first completely solo outing since the encounter with Clayface a few months ago. His first solo mission since going blind. Dick wasn’t even worried about whether or not he could do it – he knew that he was more than capable of it – but he was concerned about any potential awkwardness.
What if someone assumed he needed help and wouldn’t take no for an answer? What if the server did that weird thing of talking to him really loudly, as if he was deaf instead of blind? He’d encountered that plenty of times already, either being shouted at because the person assumed he couldn’t hear, or having all questions addressed to his companion instead of himself. It was such an odd reaction, Dick mused, since the other common misconception seemed to be that he now had super hearing. Dick wanted to not only accomplish his mission, but complete it with style and assurance.
Wow! I loved this chapter! It’s nice seeing Dick like this – being unreasonably quick to anger. This is pretty much exactly as I see a canon interaction going. Dick feeling free to take out his frustration with the situation on Slade, Slade being more casual than their relationship actually warrants. Dick has been cooped up and unable to fly for quite a while, I’m assuming. Of COURSE he’s going to take the first safe chance to fight he can get.
I love your writing, and this was an extra refreshing read. Give me ALL the petty, unfair, quick-to-anger Dick! And Slade is just a DELIGHTFUL character. Perfect foil, here.
kiragecko 