Further Reading
Here are some of the resources I was inspired by while thinking about creating accessible welcomes. These resources are in different formats (both media type and history, memoir, and fiction), and cast a wide net of access and inclusivitiy needs (disability, neurodivergence, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity) but I appreciate all of these resources for being easy to understand and from folks with direct experience in creating more inclusive spaces and/or being excluded due to a lack of access.
Friends and colleagues frequently ask me for recommendations on media relating to accessibility and inclusion - this is just a glimpse into what has helped me explore these topics.
Please note:
I have listed the names and pronouns of authors, editors, creative directors to the best of my knowledge
based off of self identification and/or how they are referred to in writing. I have done this in an effort to break away from cisnormative traditions of assuming gender pronouns based on name or appearance. That being said, pronouns and names can change! Please let me know if anything here needs to be updated.
Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body
"Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story."
Harper Collins, 2020
Rebekah Taussig (she/her)
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good
"How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life? Author and editor adrienne maree brown finds the answer in something she calls “pleasure activism,” a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work. Drawing on the black feminist tradition, she challenges us to rethink the ground rules of activism. Her mindset-altering essays are interwoven with conversations and insights from other feminist thinkers, including Audre Lorde, Joan Morgan, Cara Page, Sonya Renee Taylor, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Together they cover a wide array of subjects—from sex work to climate change, from race and gender to sex and drugs—building new narratives about how politics can feel good and how what feels good always has a complex politics of its own."
AK Press, 2019
adrienne maree brown (she/her)
adrienne's website
Why Ugliness is Vital in The Age of Social Media
Gender-nonconforming writer, performance artist Alok Vaid-Menon interviews queer Korean disability justice writer and organizer Mia Mingus and discusses her 2011 speech “Moving Toward the Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability."
2018
Alok Vaid-Menon (they/them) and Mia Mingus (she/her)
99% Invisible Podcast
99pi is an independent radio show produced by Roman Mars that focused on the designed world. All of the episodes are fascinating, but these episodes about disability access and justice are of note.
Episode #102: Icon for Access
Episode #308: Curb Cuts
Episode #360: The Universal Page
Hosted by Roman Mars (he/him)
99% Invisible Website
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
"Crip Camp is the story of one group of people and captures one moment in time. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other equally important stories from the Disability Rights Movement that have not yet received adequate attention. We are committed to using the film’s platform to amplify additional narratives in the disability rights and disability justice communities – with a particular emphasis on stories surrounding people of color and other intersectionally marginalized communities. We stand by the creed of nothing about us, without us. For too long, too many were excluded, and it is time to broaden the number of voices and share the mic."
Netflix, 2020
Directed by Nicole Newnham (she/her) & Jim LeBrecht (he/him)
Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century
"Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together an urgent, galvanizing collection of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers.
From original pieces by up-and-coming authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma, to blog posts, manifestos, eulogies, testimonies to Congress, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse of the vast richness and complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own assumptions and understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and past with hope and love."
Vintage Books, 2020
Edited by Alice Wong (she/her)
Disability Visibility Project website. Contains links to ebooks, audiobook, and plain text versions of the book, along with different resources.
How to Survive a Plague
"A riveting, powerful telling of the story of the grassroots movement of activists, many of them in a life-or-death struggle, who seized upon scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease. Ignored by public officials, religious leaders, and the nation at large, and confronted with shame and hatred, this small group of men and women chose to fight for their right to live by educating themselves and demanding to become full partners in the race for effective treatments. Around the globe, 16 million people are alive today thanks to their efforts."
Knopf, 2017
David France (he/him)
How to Survive a Plague website for documentary film and book