Happy ADA Day! Thirty-three years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by President H.W. Bush. The ADA is a civil rights law prohibiting discrimination against disabled people in all areas of public life, with the goal of making sure that disabled people have the same rights and opportunities as their non-disabled peers. Despite its groundbreaking nature and admirable goals, the law is limited and doesn’t go far enough to protect disabled people and enshrine their rights.

 

 

So, what would it take to get there? We asked five disabled people (based in the U.S. and Canada) about what true accessibility would look like for them.

Responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.
 

What I want for the future of accessibility as we journey towards true accessibility is an abundance of choices that disabled people can choose from and that which will affirm our autonomy. I also want more people to understand that accessibility is a collaborative and imaginative process that should be explored alongside other members of the disability community. It is our willingness as a community to share what we have learned that makes learning accessibility and what is available to us possible. I want true accessibility to feel like an open dialogue and a meeting place where we all come to know ourselves through knowing the experiences and wisdom of one another.
 

True accessibility means equity. There’s a lot of nuance and variation to this word, but to me, it means giving everyone access to care and devices that makes their life easier without judgment. For example, I am an ambulatory wheelchair user. I can walk short distances with assistive devices, but when I go out on errands, I use a wheelchair. Many people with “invisible illnesses” such as POTS, ME/CFS, or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome struggle with outings but may not feel they are “disabled enough” to use a wheelchair or have a disabled parking permit though it would make their life much easier! True accessibility means you don’t get questioned on whether you’re qualified for or deserving of help. It’s important for society to accept that there are going to be things they and others need accommodations for, and it will help us all in the present and future.
 

Accessibility means freedom of mobility, freedom from loneliness, and freedom to be included in all of life’s activities. True accessibility involves instilling life in every part of the day with the world catering to those who are often overlooked, not the other way around.
 

True accessibility is broad. It involves flexibility, trust, patience, information, and empathy. Accessibility involves looking at things from a different perspective—allowing for different possibilities to exist for different people, and ideally putting the work in place to allow for as many of these possibilities to exist as you can. As marginalized people, there is so much around us that makes us feel that we can’t, or we shouldn’t take up space, that we don’t belong. Even the concept of “accommodations” highlights that the world wasn’t built with some of us in mind, we are only accommodated into it. For me, true accessibility means being granted the freedom to be as I am, and do what I can, without feeling like an afterthought or a burden. As someone with chronic pain and a chronic illness, this means being able to communicate my needs freely with my colleagues, my friends, and my family, without feeling like I need to divulge specific medical details, or downplay what I need.
 

Lately, I’ve encountered workplaces that think because the ADA exists, and because an individual can request accommodations, that means the workplace has done their job in providing “accessibility.” This framing neglects the multitude of disabled and chronically ill individuals who are unable to receive a diagnosis or do not have a provider who will support their requests. It doesn’t acknowledge the amount of paperwork workplaces require to have those accommodations, and individuals’ fear of retribution from the workplace when they do make a request. Accessibility means a world in which the burden no longer falls on the individual to deal with the barriers of “obtaining accessibility,” but rather a society which is built for and around disabled individuals from the start. In my daily life, accessibility for me looks like my disabled friends providing care and community for each other when capitalism makes it hard to exist.