This post was written by guest blogger Lisa Walters. Lisa is a disability advocate and blogger based in St. John's, NL. She runs the blog Damsel in a Dress and is also the founder of Access YYT, a volunteer initiative that highlights accessible businesses, events, accommodations and attractions in Newfoundland and Labrador.
A couple years ago, I ended an Instagram post with the line “less pity more ramps.” I wrote it after I had just gotten home from using my wheelchair in a public space, where I was approached by a stranger who felt the need to tell me they were sorry for me. An interaction like that is unfortunately common for myself and many other disabled people, and it never feels good.
Honestly, I’m afraid to go out in public alone with my wheelchair. Not just because it’s hard to get around our less-than-accessible province, but because so many people feel entitled to stare at me, approach me to ask intrusive questions about my disability, or to shower me with their pity. It makes me feel so othered. Like I can’t simply exist in public like non-disabled people who can usually go about their day without being interrupted by strangers who want to know intimate details about their bodies or to remind them that they make other people sad.
I think most non-disabled people think pity or curiosity is well-intentioned so it can’t hurt. But I promise you that it does. And it is proof that disability is very misunderstood.
Disabled lives aren’t inherently tragic. For me, the biggest tragedy in my life isn’t that I am disabled and use mobility aids, it’s that society has created so many barriers to exclude me when I’m using them. Inaccessibility is the tragedy. And inaccessibility is something that can be fixed.
So if you look at a disabled person and think “aww sin”, you can instead use that energy to advocate alongside of us for increased accessibility. And while accessibility should absolutely include more ramps, it’s about so much more than that.
Advocating for a more accessible community doesn’t have to be hard and shouldn’t only be done by disabled people. If you want to be an ally to us you can amplify disabled voices and also add your voice too. Send an email to a business owner to ask for better accessibility, check that events you’re attending are accessible and ask for that info to be displayed for everyone to easily find, or look into how you can make your business or event more sensory friendly.
You can also take small actions like moving a garbage bin out of the middle of a sidewalk, including alt text to your images on social media, or taking a moment to report damaged curb cuts to your city.
Those are just a handful of examples that come to mind, but there are so many little things you can do that will help make navigating the world in a disabled body easier for those of us who you “feel sorry” for.
And now you can also help by purchasing this shirt that I collaborated on with Make Waves Collective that says “Less Pity More Ramps.” $10 from the sale of each shirt goes to Empower, the Disability Resource Centre - an awesome local non-profit that helps break accessibility barriers by providing advocacy, employment, adaptive technology, and various other important training services to residents of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Together we can make our communities more accessible for everyone. And hopefully we can also agree to leave the pity behind.