We must consider accessibility in everything we do. Whether we’re working in a physical store serving customers or creating content for thousands of followers from the comfort of our homes; whether we’re organizing an event in a public space or hosting an online gathering for a few people, we all have the power and responsibility to consider the access needs of disabled people and, by extension, all other members of our communities.
Disabled people are everywhere, and we are a vital part of society. If we want disabled people to be able to participate and contribute, our access needs—which disability rights advocate Keely Cat-Wells calls access requirements—must be considered.1 These aren’t just wishful or optional accommodations; they are requirements for disabled people to fully participate in a world that consistently erects barriers to entry. Ensuring that our public and online spaces are accessible means removing these barriers as well as creating new systems that enable the participation of all. Some require larger structural commitment. Some changes are easy once we overcome people’s resistance to change. And we must get into the habit of reflexively confirming that we’ve made these spaces accessible as surely as we add a conference line to a virtual meeting.
We’ve also learned that fulfilling the access requirements of disabled people improves the lives of everyone at the end of the day. This is why disability advocates Alice Wong, Mia Mingus, and Sandy Ho say, “Access should be a collective responsibility, instead of the sole responsibility of it being placed on just one or two individuals. It is all of our responsibility to… [center] access as a core part of the way that we want to live in the world together—as a core part of our liberation.”2
Wong, Mingus, and Ho believe that accessibility should be seen as “an act of love” rather than “a burden or an after-thought,” principles that they outline in their project Access Is Love.3 As they say in their introduction, “Access [is] not only about logistics, but about deepening our shared humanity and dignity, growing access intimacy with each other, and an opportunity to create more justice and love in our world.”4
The fact is that accessibility isn’t just about building a ramp or making sure videos have captions. In the broader picture, accessibility goes beyond disability to highlight the various other inequities in an intersectional world where disabled people are also queer, people of color, poor and working class, parents, and more. This is why accessibility can also look like having a sliding scale for fees, flexible schedules for work, options for online participation, and venues that provide childcare and have gender-neutral bathrooms as well as being mindful of police presence and acknowledging Native communities and the land we work and live on.
Even beyond that, there’s the notion of access intimacy, a term coined by Mingus as mentioned in Chapter 23: Exist in the Contradictions. “Access intimacy is not just the action of access or ‘helping’ someone. We have all experienced access that has left us feeling like a burden, violated, or just plain [expletive]. Many of us have experienced obligatory access where there is no intimacy.” Instead, Mingus says, access intimacy is “the way your body relaxes and opens up with someone when all your access needs are being met… the closeness I would feel with people who[m] my disabled body just felt a little bit safer and at ease with.”5 It’s when we know we’re being seen, heard, and valued.
To me, access intimacy is being able to show up somewhere and not having to ask for help or permission to be there to fully participate. In 2022, I attended my first “camp” with the UBPN, a nonprofit that supports people with brachial plexus injuries. The UBPN hosts this event every couple of years, and that year it was at a YMCA in Estes Park, Colorado. On one of the days, we had the opportunity to sign up for different activities. I’m always up for trying new things in a supportive space, so I signed up for archery.
When I arrived, I was welcomed by a few of my new friends. My friend and fellow TikTok creator Sara Groves filmed the interaction:
YMCA staff member: “Do you want me to hold [the bow] and you want to pull?”
Me: “No, I’m going to try to pull it. What do I pull?”
Sara and friends: “You got it, you got it.” “There you go.” “Yeah! That was good!”
On the third try, my arrow struck the target! I felt really proud of myself, and even though I felt self-conscious throughout, here are a few things I appreciated about the experience: the YMCA staff member was proactive about offering assistance but gave me the option to try the activity myself. The group I was with was supportive, cheering me on the whole time. Everyone was patient and let me try a few times until I got it.
There have also been more times than I can count where I felt the friction of not having access intimacy, like a group of friends organizing an outing to take a pottery class. I asked the friend organizing it if the pottery studio would be able to accommodate my disability. They didn’t know, so I reached out directly to the pottery studio, didn’t hear back from them, and did not participate, even though I wanted to. Pottery is still something I’m excited to try, and I’ve been on the lookout for local studios where I’d be welcome in their space. Even in the example of the first VR headset “equity codesign” focus group, they had known that I was coming and understood the manifestation of my disability, yet I still felt disempowered because the facilitator had made assumptions and did not give me the opportunity to try.
Sometimes access intimacy is knowing that someone like me will be present at a gathering or someone anticipating our needs or working with us during an event to avoid that friction. For example, I attended a conference in Bentonville, Arkansas, a few years ago. Biking was one of the morning activities in the cyclist-friendly city, so I signed up and let the organizers know that I was coming. When I arrived and checked in, one of the event staff recognized my name and said, “Your bike is ready for you.” They had already made adjustments to the bike, making sure the left-handed brake was for the back wheel, the seat was low enough for my height, and it was set in a gear I didn’t need to change.
I’ll share one final example. In 2021, I was invited to a pumpkin-carving event with a women’s community in San Francisco. I had never carved a pumpkin before, and I honestly wasn’t sure if I knew how, but the women’s community was built on mutual support and vulnerability, so I stepped out of my comfort zone and showed up. One way that I’ve adapted to not being able to use both arms for most of my life is by using my feet instead! I let everyone know that I might be carving the pumpkin in my own way, then sat on a mat on the floor, stabilizing the pumpkin with my feet while I carved it. Everyone else was absorbed in carving their own pumpkins, and no one made me feel weird about it. I carved a cat into my pumpkin.
As we take these core principles to heart, we still have to start somewhere. “Accessibility is frequently portrayed as complicated by people who don’t want to include it,” says Sheri Byrne-Haber, an engineering, accessibility, and inclusion leader on LinkedIn. “But accessibility doesn’t need to be complicated.” Byrne-Haber’s solution is simple: one step at a time. Drawing on the quote from American tennis legend Arthur Ashe, Byrne-Haber advises that you “start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can.”6
I was impressed when attending the Barbie world premiere in Los Angeles in 2023. 1IN4 Coalition, a nonprofit focused on increasing disability employment and representation in Hollywood, shared some examples of what it had done to make the premiere accessible, including finding a barrier-free venue (plus step-free access to the red carpet); training staff in how to assist disabled attendees; inviting disabled talent even though the film was not about disability; and providing signage and communication around access, open captions and audio description during the screening, and ASL interpreters onstage during the opening remarks.15
On another occasion, upon arriving at the Belasco Theatre in New York City to see How to Dance in Ohio on Broadway, I was handed a Playbill with an insert sharing accessibility resources, including cooldown spaces around the theater if people had sensory sensitivities. Sensory kits, which included headphones and sunglasses for people who are more sensitive to light and sound, could be borrowed.16
While we can celebrate the wins, there is always more work to be done. Besides ensuring our physical spaces are accessible, we also have to turn our attention to digital spaces.
Remember, a list like this is just a starter guide. You will likely encounter a whole range of situations, different people, and diverse needs over the course of your anti-ableist journey, so you need to be flexible, open, and attentive to the needs of others; to take initiative to meet those needs; and to do so with respect, care, and love.
Improving accessibility is a work in progress. Even it if feels overwhelming, we all started somewhere, and wherever you are is a great place to start.23 Just take things one step at a time, make space for one another, give each other grace to make mistakes along the way, and stay committed to the journey.