Disability and Accessibility
Hello everyone! This is the first post in the newly made Disability and accesibility community. Feel free to post anything health, chronic illness, disability or accesibility related. If you need a space for support or sharing your experiences regarding all of the above topics, this is the right place as well :)
nex-3.com
> In this post, I seek to understand and explain the pervasive phenomenon of COVID denialism from the perspecitve of disability justice, specifically as someone who remains extremely cautious and anticipates doing so indefinitely. It's not intended to excuse this behavior—denialism is actively harmful to everyone the denialist interacts with and fundamentally eugenicist in effect whether or not in intention. But understanding and even empathizing with people who believe falsehoods and do harm can be valuable, especially when they make up such a huge portion of the world and for many of us are inescapably part of our networks and communities.
www.thenation.com
> For unions, Covid-19 was a wake-up call. Large numbers of unit members were suddenly affected by disability issues: Workers needed paid sick leave, personal protective equipment, workplace accommodations, and help balancing caregiving needs. Disabled union members and organizers, who are often familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and their rights under the law, became especially important. Many disabled workers told me that since the start of the pandemic, their unions have given them more responsibility and that a union’s willingness to collaborate with disabled members is crucial to determining how effective it can be in helping all of its members. --- > Bryan noted that the union framework provides an ideal avenue for ensuring that disabled people’s needs are heard. By design, unions uplift all workers by way of facilitating coordinated, collaborative actions. A collective union action pushing for better ventilation at work, for example, has a much higher impact than a single disabled worker asking for this accommodation. Solidarity between disabled and nondisabled members also makes it clear to bosses that workers are invested in inclusion for everyone—and as a marginalized community, disabled people are more vulnerable to discrimination at work that unions can help them fight. For the CFA, that inclusion started with advertising accommodations and supports at meetings to make it clear that disabled workers would be both welcome and heard, increasing meeting turnout and interest in engaging with the union. She said, “If you put the accommodations out there and let people know they’re there, they will come.”
disabilityvisibilityproject.com
> The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power New York (ACT UP), the flagship branch of the historic and global AIDS organization, attracted controversy on social media this summer around statements related to the Covid-19 pandemic. On July 19, ACT UP angered disabled and Covid cautious people with a Twitter thread that aligned people who criticize others for not wearing a mask with the historic criminalization of HIV patients. As many pointed out in response, people who wear masks are the vulnerable marginalized group currently being stigmatized and criminalized, not unmasked people who spread airborne disease. The thread also offered the nihilistic and deadly proposition that “people cannot prevent themselves from getting Covid in perpetuity.”
A question for those that may be hearing impaired, or otherwise use TV and movie subtitles frequently... Do you have a favorite subtitle font? Do you have any further config preferences, like color or border? I'm working on making a video player script UI more accessible, and I'd love some input.
This is more philosophical than practical and hopefully it's appropriate to the community. This is something I've pondered over since I was young. What first got it running through my head was when my grandfather developed COPD and at about 10 I was tasked with helping him figure out his inhalers because I already had about a decade of experience using them. He was a very physical, active man. He was a WW2 veteran, he was a master carpenter and had built his own company, he was an expert woodsman and survivalist. Then he developed COPD and then Parkinson's. He had opportunities and accomplishments and a life that was forever closed off to me and that was a burden but I think he had at least an equal burden of having the knowledge, experience, and drive to continue to live as he previously had but no longer the physical ability. He had to relearn how to do lots of things with his new limitations as his Parkinson's progressed and it always seemed to me that it was an advantage that I never had to relearn things, I had figured out alternatives that worked for me to begin with. The biggest advantage to our situations was that we both had someone to have real conversations with about what we were dealing with. Someone it was ok to not be ok with.
Accessibility has come a long way since I was a child. Sports associations took way too long to decide that corticosteroids and anabolic steroids are not the same thing. You had to walk through the smoking section to get to the non-smoking section that was in the same room with no dividers or anything, sometimes even in medical offices. When I went to college I chose the one that I did because it actually had an office for students with disabilities. It was at the top of a hill in an old converted house that could only be entered using stairs and the closet disabled parking was a quarter mile away but it existed. The one counselor in the office basically set up a second office in a library study room so that students could actually meet with her and unfortunately she wasn't always convinced that invisible disabilities were legitimate. She did help with making sure I didn't have back to back classes on the opposite side of campus and she passed information from my doctor to the professor in my physical education requirement so I got what I needed from her without too much arguing. A lot of the progress is really just awareness and destigmatation. It was very important to my parents and kindergarten teacher that I did not have autism, I have Asperger's. They thought that people with autism were mostly nonverbal, never did well in school, and had no future so the testing that said I was mildly autistic disappeared and I didn't find out about it until I was diagnosed in my early twenties and my grandmother told me that "we" already knew. I still don't disclose my disabilities unless I have to but it's kinda amazing how open people can be about their health issues and need for accommodation now.
There is no way to measure the cost of one form of labor in comparison to another in some generalized way. Less labor simply isn't the same direction for everyone, or even always a direction at all. Doing things faster may exhaust you longer, for example, it is always a trade off. On top of this, while many accessibility tools allow people to do things they could not otherwise, many instead allow people to do those things more safely or with another part of their body. The key to accessibility has always been variety, being able to interact with things in as many different ways as possible. Making it simple isn't enough, making the requirements "low" isn't enough. You can't demand everyone take a specific path. I have seen this as a big issue in art, in both ways. First people saying that one type of art takes "no effort", because they discount those types of labor. They see that one type of labor is not used that they expect, and do not realize or care that it must be replaced with another kind of labor. Different varieties of digital art often seem to experience this, especially those that don't start out with visual work and instead start with words or equations. Then there are people saying that other methods of art are "easy enough" to be the moral option you must pick instead. I have seen so many posts of people saying "look, this person with no hands can pick up a paintbrush, you have no excuse to not being doing that instead". Both of those are ableist, and sadly I see them in even "leftist" spaces all the time.
My best friend broke both of his arms and wrists, and will have zero use for 3-4 months. I'm trying to figure out some way for him to play videogames while recovering. Maybe some kind of foot controller? A mouth controller? He's feeling miserable from the pain and I know that gaming would take his mind off of it. Please let me know if you have any ideas.
I hope this is allowed here. With the stuff happening in the UK atm. And honestly since 2010. It really seems time we had a lemmy community specifically to discuse UK issues benifits and advice in general. These things are so specific to each nation. Such forums are a good idea. While I am happy to set one up on feddit.uk . Or join and help anyone else setting one up. Running such a community really will need several people willing to dedicate a bit of time moderating etc. More so as it is more likely for moderators to experience periods were they are less able to be involved. A decent sized mod team following agreed rules. Will allow any members to take a stress break as life gets complicated. I am thinking about a community that allows posting of UK specific news. Asking advice. And rants as long as all members are friendly to each other. About life in the UK with any disability. Even self identified. Although depending on advice asked etc. Self identified disabilities are likely to need to be identified. Please share you opinions.
Description: a toilet door with a multigender symbol and a disabled symbol. Text below the symbols reads "Inclusive| Ira tāngata katoa". For context, this is the disabled toilet in the main art gallery in my country's biggest city. There are the standard male toilet and female toilet right there as well. Edit: sorry, image upload isn't working for me. Basically the one disabled toilet has been turned into an inclusive gender and disability toilet. I love it that there is a gender inclusive bathroom but I don't love it that they siloed it into the disability accessible toilet instead of renovating a new one or changing one of the 4 standard ones instead or as well.
www.huckmag.com
> Amber Galloway doesn’t just do sign language to music – she uses American Sign Language (ASL) and her body, face and vibes to channel the live experience and energy to deaf and hard-of-hearing fans.
If you're wanting to build something accessible but not sure which tools / software to test it with, this is what you need to know: most used screen readers, web browser usage, braille usage, and more!
A while back I was in a business class, and I had this thought, that I really wish there was a way for me to log how many mental spoons* (how much mental energy) it takes to do a task. Something like a period tracker app, or a habit tracker, that could allow me to enter some data, and when it had enough it would be able to estimate how much energy a task would take, and how much energy I probably have on a given day, so that maybe I'd have an easier time managing my own energy. This idea developed into extending to physical spoons, as I've since developed chronic pain. It's not just that I suck at time management, although I do suck at that, it's that I have a hard time knowing how mentally or physically strenuous an activity will be for my mind/body, or how much energy I will have on a given day. The hypothetical app would allow the user to input tasks, state how long they take, rate on a scale how strenuous the activity is both physically and mentally, or maybe have a number of custom scales. Like, for me it would be like, let's say i need to go get something from the pharmacy. I could input how long I need to get ready, how long the walk is, the fact that it involves bright lights in the store but it's usually pretty quiet, aside from cars on the way there and back. I could input that it involves talking to a cashier, which I hate doing but usually is only a few words. So I spend roughly 30 minutes on my feet, the task is low to medium Sensory Bad, has a small amount of Interacting With Humans, and takes a tiny bit of emotional energy due to the People Will Think I'm Stealing anxiety. Using this data and ideally previous data that the app has about my energy levels before and after other similar tasks, the app could then say "this will take 2 physical spoons, 1 sensory spoon, 1 mental spoon." So then I go to the pharmacy and when I get back, I note how tired I am, whether each of these aspects were worse/more draining than I thought, and whether the task involved more types of spoons than I thought, and it could adjust accordingly to future instances. There would have to be a means of quantifying everything, but I think this would help me as a Moss quite a lot. It would be even better if I could also input things like, how much i slept, spoons used the previous day, etc. so that the app could guess how many spoons i have on a given day. I think this would help me manage my energy levels better, both in reassuring me of what I am capable of and reminding me gently that I shouldn't overexert myself. I looked into it briefly, and I haven't found many apps that specifically are made to help disabled people manage their energy levels like this. The closest I think is one called Flaredown, which is meant to help chronically ill folks track their symptoms and meds. I was wondering if y'all had any thoughts on this? I know a small amount of java and C++ (I think, whatever tinkercad uses when you code virtual arduinos.) and while I would definitely need to learn a lot to make this happen, the logic of coding comes easily to me. My ADHD is likely to make it hard to follow through on this project, and it's pretty ambitious, but I still think it would be interesting to try and see how far I get. Do you folks think this is a good idea? Anything you'd like to see in an app like this? Any feedback or tips? *For those who don't know, [spoon theory](https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/) is a framework for thinking about energy made by Christine Miserandino. It was originally used to describe her own Lupus, but has since been extended to a wide array of disabilities)
A relative wants to buy a wheelchair and I can tell there a lot to consider, but I'm having a hard time finding useful reviews of any model's actual usability, so I thought it'd be nice to get a discussion going on which chairs people loved, hated, or would otherwise like to rate. Is there something that is really great or really annoying about one?
Hi there, I've been building a threadverse web app, "PieFed", for the last few months and recently put a bit of effort into making it more accessible. It is almost WCAG 2.1 AA compliant now. However I have no lived experience of using the web with disability so any feedback in this area is most welcome. Please give it a try at https://piefed.social and let me know what you think, from an accessibility perspective. Thanks!
Everytime I leave the house to do anything, I either 1) get shit from people because I am wearing a mask -either minimizing and simply gaslighting comments, or plain agression 2) when they seemy mask they decide to share their grief with me. It is so hard to listen to all the stories of people dying and becoming disabled from covid, shared by maskless people. I tell them masks work, and they should vaccinate. But it is so tiring. I am just trying to survive. I wish others would help each other survive. I am already tired from my chronic illnesses. Seeing the COVID numbers rise and no one masking or doing anything and staying in denial is horrible for my mental health. I am trying my best to hang on to my sanity. I wish you all that you stay sane too.
apln.ca
How do you write alternate text for a work with visual artistic merit? * How you balance too many words versus sufficient details? * What details should come first? * How do you account for different audiences, their needs and preferences? * Should it be written by the original artist or a professional describer? In a recent [IAAP webinar](https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/archived-webinar-details?id=a0A4z000018Qg7ZEAS), inclusive media expert [Joanne Pak](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/joannepak) explained an initiative to answer these questions and more. The Literary Image Description (LID) Best Practices Guide is a Canadian government-funded project aiming to: > offer a more vivid and engaging approach to writing image descriptions in an effort to make art and literature more accessible to all readers everywhere. Visit the [project website](https://apln.ca/literary-image-description-best-practices-guide/) to download a well-researched and illustrated guide in EPUB or PDF. Then maybe next time you see a painting, sculpture, comic strip, or even clever set of visual instructions, you can take a swing at making your own image description*! *But of course, don't publish unless you first talk to the author or do sufficient research into the intent!
[web.archive.org link](https://web.archive.org/web/20231108202334/https://www.science.org/content/article/how-many-americans-are-disabled-proposed-census-changes-would-greatly-decrease-count) -- excerpts follow. > The ACS uses a set of six yes-or-no questions—related to difficulty with hearing, vision, and other functions—to determine disability status. A respondent who answers “yes” to any of those questions is counted as disabled. > Now, bureau officials are recommending replacing those questions with a set developed by the Washington Group on Disability Statistics ... > Seltzer, for her part, agrees that the more comprehensive WG-SS could “potentially yield greater insights into disability” in the U.S., but worries that many policymakers will use the 8% statistic to cut funding to programs that help disabled Americans. > The proposed change will be [open for public comment until 19 December](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/10/20/2023-23249/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-to-the-office-of-management-and-budget-omb-for), although the National Advisory Committee, which advises the Census Bureau on policy and research issues, [will discuss initial comments on 16 November](https://www.census.gov/about/cac/nac/meetings/2023-11-meeting.html). Landes hopes policymakers will listen to the voices of disabled Americans and not move forward with the change. “The power of the disability community is strong,” he says.
www.theguardian.com
**Cost of living payments for those receiving Pip have been quietly axed, forcing many to choose between charging their wheelchairs or staying warm** It’s getting cold, which means that many disabled people will, once again, have to choose whether to keep warm or charge their wheelchairs. Only this winter, they won’t be getting any additional help with the cost of living. Last year, the government allocated cost of living payments to those on low incomes, and to disabled people who receive personal independence payment (Pip), the main disability benefit. And yet, as the next round of low-income payments start to go out this week, that separate disability payment has been quietly scrapped. If it wasn’t so nakedly cruel it would be absurd. This is hardly the first cruelty. When the original payments were made last autumn and again in June this year, the disability-specific one was less than half the amount of the low-income one. And this despite the fact that disabled people face astronomical costs in order to make the world more accessible to them. The source of these costs varies from person to person; from care costs to taxi fares or prepared food. In 2019, before Covid and the inflation crisis, the charity Scope found these extras amounted to £583 a month on average, rising to more than £1,000 a month for one in five disabled people. Now, Scope puts that figure at £975 a month for households that include one disabled child or adult, or £1,248 for households with two disabled adults. The charity’s research shows that disability-related extra costs are equivalent to 63% of a disabled household’s income, after housing costs. For those with the most complex needs, costs will be much higher. In a crisis born of rising energy prices, it’s important to note the disproportionate effect soaring bills have on disabled people. A wheelchair user with a chronic lung condition may need to work from home to protect themselves from common illnesses – meaning that, if it’s cold, they have the heating on all day. If they get cold their breathing gets worse, so they put the heating on earlier in the autumn than most people, with the thermostat set higher. It’s not hard to see how their gas bill takes up a huge chunk of their income. Add in increased electricity bills associated with charging electric wheelchairs and other equipment, and those figures from Scope start to make a lot of sense. As do recent survey results from the Trussell Trust, which found three-quarters of people referred to food banks say that they or a member of their household are disabled. There is a real crisis here. Which takes us to the other cruelty in government policy on disability benefits – one that existed long before the current decision on who gets cost of living payments was made: Pip isn’t fit for purpose. Not only is it unreasonably hard to claim the benefit, it doesn’t come remotely close to achieving its purported aim, which is to cover those exorbitant extra costs of disability to level the playing field – just a little – for disabled people. The truth is, Pip has never been enough and over time the proportion of the costs it does cover has fallen and fallen. Pip is generally increased each year in line with inflation, but the cost of disability-related essentials, such as energy, has been rising much faster than the average increase. We’re not so much levelling the playing field as we are leaving disabled people to scale a cliff face. A series of exceptional cost of living payments over the next few months is not going to undo the decade-long devaluing of Pip. A payment of a few hundred pounds wouldn’t make up for the relentless inaccessibility, ableism and failure of government services that has created all those extra costs in the first place. But it wouldn’t hurt either. If, as the continuation of payments to those on low incomes would indicate, we recognise that we are still in an acute cost of living crisis that requires at least some mitigation, we must recognise that disabled people are in desperate need of the same help. \-Lucy Webster is a political journalist and the author of The View From Down Here: Life as a Young Disabled Woman
A newmembeer of the GNOME accesibility team talks about current issues and plans
Time: 12pm noon Date: Monday 30 October 2023 Place: Caxton House, 6-12 Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NA Hashtag: [#NoMoreBenefitDeaths](https://kbin.social/tag/NoMoreBenefitDeaths) Join Disabled People Against Cuts and allies to protest against the government’s proposals to tighten the Work Capability Assessment. These proposals threaten to remove essential income from Deaf and disabled people and to subject many more of us to distressing and punitive work search activities and benefit sanctions. Their argument is that Deaf and disabled people can work from home now. They want to remove assessment points for social anxiety, communication difficulties, mobility issues and bladder/bowel incontinence. We know that working from home does not overcome these barriers. Research has shown that disabled people benefitted less from home working than non-disabled people, because we are less likely to be in the kind of jobs that can be done from home. If the WCA is tightened in the way they propose, many more Deaf and disabled people unable to find sustainable paid employment will lose benefits [ESA support group/Universal Credit LCWRA component] and lose protection from conditionality and sanctions. Monday 30 October is the last day that the government’s consultation on their proposals is open. The consultation will not only inform immediate changes to the WCA. The consultation will also feed into the Tories’ long-term plans to: – scrap the WCA – remove ESA/Universal Credit LCWRA altogether – replace them with a new Universal Credit health component that will be dependent on eligibility for Personal Independence Payment – subject all Deaf and disabled people to conditionality and sanctions at the discretion of individual work coaches. These plans will be a disaster for anyone who faces barriers to paid work. They will unquestionably lead to a considerable increase in avoidable harm and more benefit deaths. And we \*\*cannot \*\* trust Labour not to keep any changes to tighten the WCA if elected. Please support the protest however you can and let people know about the consultation and the government’s despicable plans. For help with travel costs for DPAC members email: mail@dpac.uk.net Consultation here: [https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/work-capability-assessment-activities-and-descriptors](https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/work-capability-assessment-activities-and-descriptors) Template response from DPO Forum England here: [https://dpac.uk.net/2023/10/template-response-to-the-wca-consultation/](https://dpac.uk.net/2023/10/template-response-to-the-wca-consultation/) Government white paper setting out their long-term plans here: [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transforming-support-the-health-and-disability-white-paper](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transforming-support-the-health-and-disability-white-paper)
www.linkedin.com
This Tuesday, 2023-10-24: [Women Who Code Advocacy Town Hall](https://www.linkedin.com/events/advocacytownhall-radicalinclusi7102027533658812417) moderated by AmyJune Hineline ( [@volkswagenchick@drupal.community](https://drupal.community/@volkswagenchick) ) From the event description: > - Hiring Process, Getting the Job, and Support at Work: Know the challenges and opportunities for individuals with disabilities throughout the hiring process, workplace support, and career growth. > > - Visible and Invisible Disabilities: Understand and define visible and invisible disabilities, and how they affect individuals in the tech industry. > Legal Rights and Responsibilities: Learn about legal rights and responsibilities in hiring practices and actionable ways to advocate for yourself and others. > > - How Allies Can Be Advocates: Explore how allies can play a role in advocating for individuals with disabilities and creating inclusive workplaces, and how technologists can develop with accessibility in mind. > > - Access to Resources: Gain insights into accessibility resources and how you can find more support
www.tpgi.com
Shared by [@onsman@aus.social](https://aus.social/@onsman/111222278445498173), a list of experts and organizations to follow for news and ideas on digital accessibility.
Disability and Accessibility
!disability@beehaw.orgAll things disability and accessibility related, and advocacy for making those things better.
See also this community's sister subs Feminism, LGBTQ+, Neurodivergence, and POC.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.