This week has been difficult for me, for many reasons and I’d been struggling to put my finger on what keeps causing all these annoyances. Then I put my figured it out, of course, it’s accessibility. Accessibility comes in many forms, it’s not simply having ramps and lifts in a building. It’s accommodating people’s entire experience in said building.
For example, I went to a nail salon a few days ago. It was a friend’s idea, I’m not really too bothered about things like that but I went along anyway because I thought it would be nice just to do something out of routine. My friend called in advance to check if they would be ok with my shaky hands and though she literally said “my friend has cerebral palsy” which I feel like they wouldn’t have understood, she also explained that it would be hard for me to stay still. The person working there assured her that it would be fine, so we set off to the nail salon. We arrived and sat at the desk, there were barriers between all the people getting their nails done so we sat with another customer between us. The girl doing my nails didn’t make eye contact with me, she turned to my friend and asked her what I wanted. After my friend told her to speak to me, she asked me to choose a colour which I did and then she began painting my nails. My hands shook, she kept telling my friend that I needed to stay still and my friend kept explaining that I was trying my best, but eventually the girl started shouting at her manager about me. I couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying, but the glares they both shot at me was enough. The anxiety I felt at that moment was immense, I knew I was the problem and the shouting was making me feel sick. I think I went into fight or fight mode, and feeling under attack by their tones, I ran out of the shop into the street. I felt stupid, crying in the street but looking back I realise that I was just scared and felt like I had to get myself out of the situation. I cried a lot, just from pure stress but I got home and started to replay the situation in my head.
Things like this happen all the time to disabled people, we are just told that our disability can’t be accommodated because it’s not what people expect. People believe that we have enough accessible buildings and therefore change doesn’t happen.
After a while I realised that this was all an accessibility issue. Accessibility isn’t just getting through the door. Accessibility is accommodating every aspect of someone’s experience, and if the ways in which you usually accommodate people doesn’t work for someone, then you need to find a way around that. The standard for accessibility can’t just be being allowed in. It needs to be being allowed the same kind of experience as the able bodied people around you, even if this is experience achieved through different means. Disabled customers also need to feel as welcomed as any other customer. As my mother has told me time and time again, not being able to accommodate a person because of their disability should be viewed the same as not being able to accommodate a person because of their gender, race or sexuality. Discrimination is discrimination regardless of the reason.