Backstage access. VIP access. Early access. All-access pass. Access to the lounge, tier, beta, club. Every single time, it means something extra or granted. Something most people don’t get, handed to you by someone who had the authority to bestow it because you’ve been deemed worthy.
It’s the same word we use for me getting into a building.
Nobody has ever described a person with fully functioning legs as having access to a staircase. They walked in, the stairs were there, they used them, and the entire process produced no vocabulary to describe it. It didn’t need a word, because nothing happened worth naming.
I get a word.
Access is what you ask for. It’s a request, and requests can always be declined. You can be denied or granted access. It’s a permission structure with a person on the other end of it deciding, and the word has that built into its bones no matter how kindly or pleading anyone says it.
Compare that to how everyone else moves through the world. They don’t have access to the grocery store. They just go to the grocery store. They don’t have access to their office. They just work there.
The difference isn’t the ramp or elevator. The difference is that one of us is doing something society has deemed ordinary and the other is receiving something out of goodwill.
Then there’s the other problem, which is that “accessible” is a yes or no question covering about forty different things.
Somebody asks if a place is accessible and someone else says yes, and both of them believe they’ve communicated. Typically, neither has any idea what the other one meant.
Accessible could mean there’s a ramp. It could mean there’s a ramp and also the bathroom is a broom closet with a grab bar installed at what I can only assume was eye level for a Victorian child. It could mean the front door works and the second floor is a rumor. It could mean the building is fine and the event is on a raised platform with no ramp, which happens constantly, at conferences about politics and disability.
In 2016, I was asked to do stand up at a DNC event in Philadelphia. The building and room were accessible, but the stage was elevated, which made me have to do my set in the front row of the audience. An event that prided itself on diversity had no problem making me perform different from everyone else.
The hypocrisy of identity politics at its finest.
The word flattens all of that into a checkbox which is something an institution can complete. It’s the reason why the word survives because it lets a place declare itself finished when it has no idea what true access is.
I don’t think I’ve ever entered a building that was finished.
Somewhere in the last twenty years, access became a profession.
There are accessibility departments now, along with accessibility consultants, accessibility audits, and accessibility statements at the bottom of websites. Some of that work is genuinely good and the people doing it are often the only ones in the room who’ve put any thought into this.
But, the word floated up and away from the body while it happened. Access became a compliance category, a line item, or a thing you achieve a certain percentage of. It stopped meaning “can he get in” and started meaning “are we exposed.”
It puts the question in a department. Departments have budgets and budgets have priorities. Now, whether I can use a bathroom or not is competing for resources against a software upgrade.
That’s the logical outcome when a word gets professionalized. It means the thing I need has been translated into a language I’m not qualified to speak, discussed in rooms I’m not in, and by people who are measuring it against other things that cost less.
You know what I want?
I want the word to be boring.
I want access to be as unremarkable as a doorway. I want it to be so unworthy of comment that nobody builds a department around it, the way nobody has a Stairs Department. Stairs are just in the building. Nobody audits them or writes a statement about them. Nobody asks whether the stairs are on the roadmap this quarter.
The goal isn’t better access. The word needs to stop being necessary.
It doesn't look like everyone being very good at accommodating me. Instead, it’s just… nothing happening. It’s me going somewhere and there being no story afterward, which I realize is a strange thing for a writer to want, and I want it anyway.
When you hear the word, listen to which way it’s pointing.
If someone says they provide access, they’re describing something they give and can take away at any time like a season dinner menu. If someone says they need access, they’re describing something they’re missing. Both of those sentences have a gatekeeper in them, and the gatekeeper is the real issue.
I don’t want access to the building.
I want to go inside like everyone else.
Solidarity forever.
-Steve
As an advocate I can't unsee all the barriers on multiple levels for people with disabilities. Physical barriers exist. Communication barriers exist. Sensory barriers exist. And no one can ASSUME accessibility. The world is not accessible if you have to call ahead to check!
This really made me stop and think about the word “access.” Sometimes we don’t even realize that the word we’re looking for is access until we encounter a barrier ourselves.
I think that’s one of the biggest things people without disabilities sometimes misunderstand. They may look at a building and think, “There are stairs, and this person can physically climb them, so what’s the problem?” But accessibility isn’t simply about whether someone can technically get from point A to point B. It’s about whether they can access that place, service, information, or opportunity safely, independently, and without having to struggle unnecessarily.
As a totally blind person, I think about access in many different ways. For me, access isn’t just about physical spaces. It can be accessible websites, screen readers working properly, accessible documents, transportation, communication, signage, accommodations, and having information presented in ways that I can actually use. Something can be available to everyone and still not truly be accessible to everyone.
And I think there’s another important piece here: people shouldn’t have to prove that a barrier exists by struggling through it first. Sometimes the person experiencing the barrier is the one who has to explain what needs to change, request an accommodation, and educate everyone around them about why that accommodation matters. That can become exhausting.
Your point about people discovering the word “access” really resonates with me because language matters. Once we have the language to describe what is happening, we can start having better conversations about how to remove those barriers.
I’d love to hear more about how you think we can get people to understand the difference between something being technically available and something actually being accessible. How do we get organizations to start thinking about access proactively instead of waiting for a disabled person to encounter a barrier and ask them to fix it?