Disabled space: creating belonging

On access, inclusion, and places to call our own

Hello, happy Tuesday.

Last Wednesday, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel on inclusive design hosted by my friends at Sociability. Sociability is an app that shows disabled people which places - pubs, restaurants, bars - are accessible to them, and the panel focused on how we build to be inclusive to everyone, whether that’s wheelchair users, hearing or visually impaired people, neurodiverse people or diverse families.

The Sociability event

I learned a huge amount - particularly about the fascinating concept of deaf space - and I’d really encourage you to get involved with Sociability by listing the access arrangements in places you visit. They’re also doing some really interesting work on helping and encouraging employers to tell potential applicants about accessibility before they apply. The dream. Go check them out.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about space and how we inhabit it as disabled people. We’re so used to contorting ourselves to fit in, whether that’s being carried upstairs or not going to the loo or struggling to communicate because it’s too loud or too dark or too much. And so, rightly, a lot of access conversations are about how to make these ‘mainstream’ spaces better and more inclusive, so that disabled and nondisabled people can interact within them on equal terms. As I said on the panel, the built environment could and ought to be a way to enable, not disable, all of us.

Disabled people belong in cultural spaces

All of this was in the back of my mind as I was chatting with a friend (hi pal!) about the cultures that emerge within minority groups, often as a result of oppression and/or segregation. Often, these groups create - or are forced to create - spaces where they are the majority, and where they can express themselves and their culture in relative safety. These are places of shared understanding, where you can, ideally, drop the façade you create in order to pass through a world in which you are the other. They are also often places of resistance, community, and love shown through solidarity.

Disability culture, as I have argued before, is as vibrant and real as any other. And yet, by and large, we do not have our own spaces, set aside from the mainstream, in which to socialise freely as ourselves. Counterintuitively, I have become more aware of this lack of ‘disabled space’ by being at events which are majority-disabled, and noticing just how differently I feel and behave. As ever, it’s all in the little things. I don’t feel self-conscious about how much help I need from my PA. I don’t fight to keep my head up and still. I’m not on guard for the look of panic when someone realises I have a speech impediment. I’m not trying to guarantee acceptance with a self-deprecating joke, not trying to gauge how much ableism might be coming my way. My anxiety quietens. I am more open. It is, frankly, a much happier experience. And I know that others feel the same way.

The reasons why ‘disabled space’ hasn’t developed are complex, but much can be attributed to the institutionalisation of previous generations of disabled people, and to the fact that social factors - inaccessibility, poverty, inappropriate or non-existent care - still conspire to keep us apart. But perhaps there is an opportunity now for disabled people to create these spaces, for and by ourselves. My best mate Paul and I have been jokingly planning a ‘disabled bar’ - with a variety of disabled loo layouts and different types of seating - but there’s a kernel of seriousness in the joke; we long for a place to call our own. Disabled spaces of resistance exist, but mostly online, and there would be such power is rooting it in the real world, in bringing disparate disabled people together in one room to act in solidarity - and to organise. Paul, of course, would be the life and soul behind the bar, making sure, as he always does, that everyone is both in on the joke and adequately inebriated. And me? I’d be in the corner, getting everyone’s kids involved in painting placards for our next protest. We all have our own skills.

It’s a fantasy, of course, but on some level it is also an aspiration; a sense of what would be possible if we allowed ourselves to create spaces on our own terms. I can almost touch it; the freedom, but most of all, the relief.

What does disabled space mean to you? How would you create it? Let me know in the comments.

See you next week,

Lucy

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Links of the week

• I wrote a piece for the New Statesman about how charging for LFTs is a charge on disability

• 15 senior women of colour have left the BBC in the last year. This Variety piece asks why