Groups that don’t care about people with disabilities

I can no longer support “disability as an afterthought”

Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC
4 min readJun 28, 2022

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Red store sign that says “Improvement” in script with an arrow pointing to the right

Authors note: Because of Medium’s refusal to address its accessibility issues for both authors and readers, I’ve moved my last three years of blogs to Substack. Please sign up there for notices of all new articles. Thank you for your continued readership and support.

You don’t matter

Your needs don’t matter

You don’t deserve to be treated equally

You are in the “we will get to you eventually” group because you have “special needs” and aren’t valuable enough to be included with everyone else

These are the refrains that have been playing in my head for the last five decades every time I hear an excuse or get gaslit over something that creates barriers preventing people with disabilities like me from gaining equal access.

I am really starting to be done with that, and I need people to make noise with me. Here are some of the most important areas where I keep seeing discriminatory, soul-sucking, ableist practices.

Medium doesn’t care about people with disabilities

TL;DR: I’ve complained. Others have complained. Zero action has been taken. That’s why I’m moving my blog to Substack, effective July 1st, 2022. Most of my articles will still be free, but to subsidize my work, a rare few with insights that would have cost you hundreds of dollars in consulting will be a paid subscription.

The Substack native mobile app for readers appears to be quite accessible, I’ve tried it on iOS using multiple forms of assistive technology. If you have issues with it, please let me know.

New York Transit doesn’t care about people with disabilities

People have *died* trying to negotiate the stairs at 75 % of NYC’s subway stations that are completely inaccessible.

But hey, there is good news. NYC is planning on making most (but not all) of those

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Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC

LinkedIn Top Voice for Social Impact 2022. UX Collective Author of the Year 2020. Disability Inclusion SME. Sr Staff Accessibility Architect @ VMware.