THREAD: I can’t believe I have to explain to y’all why asking disabled people to wait outside and be bought out a coffee - instead of making businesses accessible to all - is unacceptable, but here we are.

(OP name redacted because I don’t agree with Twitter pile-ons)

I’m a wheelchair user (shocking, I know, I NEVER talk about it) which means 80% of shops, cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars, theatres, etc are inaccessible to me. (this is a made up percentage, I don’t know the actual figure - does anyone? it’s a lot).

I can’t go to most places. I simply, literally, can not get in. I am consistently and repeatedly excluded from huge swathes of society.

I can’t begin to explain what that feels like.

So: should we be “willing to cut corners” when it comes to access?

Telling me to wait outside like a dog while - in this scenario I presume I’m meant to have a carer - someone goes in for me, is stunningly offensive.

This is the sort of thinking that places disabled people as second class citizens, hidden away, in a segregated society.

At a time where there is genuine talk in some political circles of keeping “the vulnerable” hidden away while everyone else “gets on with their life”, this line of reasoning is especially dangerous.

Ethics aside (and that’s a pretty substantial thing to put aside) it doesn’t make sense from an economic or social perspective. Disabled people aren’t - contrary to popular thinking - a homogenous group of frail, sad, skill-less blobs. We are Doctors, teachers, lawyers, academics

artists, writers, thinkers. We are also your friends and lovers. We contribute so much, both in terms of culture and economic value (see: the Purple Pound - combined spending power of £250 billion: https://wearepurple.org.uk/understanding-the-purple-pound-market/)

But why am I even desperately justifying to you the benefits disabled people bring to society, begging to be allowed to go to work and spend money in businesses? How backwards is it that I even have to do this?

Why do I have to fight for basic fundamental equality?

I use the Social Model of Disability, which is a fancy academic way of saying that being “disabled” isn’t because of my muscles and my inability to walk, it’s because we’ve built a world that doesn’t work for people like me, and actively discriminates against me.

When I get to a cafe and there is a step, the issue isn’t that I can’t walk, the issue is that there is no ramp. It is society that disables me. And just as it disables me, it enables you.

We are all only as “able” as society enables us to be.

Inside the cafe, you’ll find a whole load of chairs for bipeds to sit down in. I don’t need a chair - I have one. So really, who’s the one with ‘special needs’? We all have needs, but yours happen to be accommodated for. And mine are not - hence why I’m disabled.

It’s not just pubs and cafes I can’t access. It’s university lecture theatres, office buildings, police stations. I have been turned away and excluded from every corner of society.

How am I meant to participate and contribute when I (literally) cannot get a foot in the door?

So, to return to the original tweet at hand. I understand the very real constraints that make access difficult. It is not always possible to remove barriers in the built environment. BUT - remember - the environment is just that - BUILT. We have built things this way.

And just as we have built a society that unfairly discriminates against those who can’t walk (+ all other types of impairment), so must we be aware of this, and work to make things better. Inclusive. Accessible.

That means - meaningfully investing in accessible infrastructure, providing grants to small businesses, rewarding best practice, and disability equality training for customer staff.

NOT telling me to wait outside and have a coffee bought out.

I’m not naive, I don’t expect the world to be fully accessible overnight. I don’t even expect it ever will be. But I - and so many others - work damn hard pushing for access so that one day the world will be a little more inclusive that it is now.

/fin