Hello,
Last Friday I went to the National Diversity Awards.
It was truly an honour to represent the disabled queer community and to have or work with Every Body Queer recognised with a shortlisted nomination.
But unfortunately the event was mired by ableism.
It started before we had even arrived when I was asked to pay £100 for my PA to be able to accompany me at the meal. They said she could come for free but not eat, but she couldn't go and eat somewhere else because I can't feed myself. Although they eventually changed their mind after quite a bit of pushback, I can't help but wonder how many people with the highest support needs have simply not attended over the years. Indeed, when I posted about the experience on Instagram, I heard from a lot of people, including other nominees, who had been forced to either cough up, attend without the support they needed or not go at all.
I was also surprised to learn that while everyone else entered up a beautiful, stepped main entrance, wheelchair users were sent round the side to a grotty lift. No effort had been made to spruce it up, and none of the communication about the event had let wheelchair users know in advance that we’d have to go around the back. Yes, we got in, but for an event about diversity, it didn't seem right. (The lift was also quite small and I’m not sure it would have been accessible to those with the largest powerchairs or people with assistance animals).
What was unsurprising but deeply unsettling is that most of the waiters ignored me in favour of asking my PA about me or simply not asking me a question they’d asked everyone else. Even when I answered for myself. It's concerning that at this kind of event the staff hadn’t received disability awareness training and I hope disabled people are paid to provide it next time to avoid this happening again.
Not all of the failures were institutional. Some were, sadly, from other nominees. Many only spoke to my PA or, when they struggled to understand me over the background noise, simply gave up trying to talk to me. The prolific use of the phrase "special needs" - including, at one point, in reference to me and my work - at my own table and in many of the VTs, was also deeply unpleasant. As everyone nodded and clapped, I felt myself flinch over and over. For a phrase so roundly hated by the disability community to be bandied around so casually at a diversity event was profoundly alienating. It goes to show how, even in the diversity sector, ableist attitudes are entrenched.
All in all, even though I didn’t speak to many people, the message I received was loud and clear: some people are too disabled for the National Diversity Awards. For those of us who need a PA, communicate differently or know what attitudes phrases like “special needs” tend to betray, it was a thoroughly unwelcoming environment. Personally, other people’s visible discomfort meant I felt desperately out of place in one of the few where I thought I might belong.
I say “thought I might” because I had an inkling that it was going to be an odd night, and not just because the PA ticket situation was a giant red flag. Corporate diversity spaces, while an important piece of the puzzle, have always been built for someone more palatable - less disabled - than me. It shouldn’t be a surprise that an event sponsored by HSBC and Manchester Airport (where disabled people have crap experiences all the time) didn’t do inclusivity in the radical way we might have hoped. I could feel in the taxi to the venue that I was braced for a little weirdness - although I was still taken aback by the scale of it - because, sadly, that’s just what I’m used to when it comes to events where disabled people are in the minority.
So yeah, maybe I am one of the people who is too disabled for the National Diversity Awards. Judging from the comments on my Instagram post, others were too visibly queer or trans. Surely, we can do better. Hopefully, one day we will.
Speak soon,
Lucy