who is being unreasonable? disabled person 'over sensitive'

[amazeandastonish]

Person A has multiple disabilities and asks if everyone in a group can do something as a reasonable adjustment.
Person B refuses to do so. Person A asks again and explains why adjustment is needed. Person B tells person A they are 'woke', 'over sensitive' and that they (person B) will not be 'dictated to' by someone who doesn't even work here.
Person A complains to me (D&I advisor) and head of HR (my manager).
Neither me, nor manager were present.
Person A is an external disability awareness trainer and the group are a group of staff we had asked them to train on disabilitiy awareness as we had identified a need for it (as you can see!).
We struggled to get sign ups - expecting 30 but only 10 signed up. All other 9 people were positive about the session content.
Head of HR thinks Person A should 'let it go' because we are paying them, they are meant to be teaching us right from wrong, so should have expected that reaction and just dealt with it.
Head of HR thinks Person A was rude to 'single someone out' although neither of us were there to witness it (cause we had 'other things to do' - I did protest!)
I think we should action this but as you can see, my job isn't an easy one!

YABU - the trainer should have expected this / dealt with it themselves
YANBU - the trainer was right to complain and we should do something

Person B needs to be fired. Unforgivable.

It's obvious most of the people on this thread have never actually worked with or spent time with disabled-led organisations or disability-friendly workplaces, or with groups of disabled people.

Maybe go and learn just the tiniest thing before mouthing off? As someone who works for a disabled company some of the comments here are so ignorant it would make me laugh if they weren't so stupid and harmful!

Sounds like you never have either.

You work for a disabled company?

No sorry, if I'm talking to someone 1 on 1 I wouldn't mind describing what I look like. But in a crowd, no I think I'd actually be really uncomfortable. I have a congenital facial disfigurement and I don't actually want to have to draw attention to it, to be quite honest. It's something I make no effort to hide but equally I don't want to draw attention to it. By mentioning it I'd be drawing attention to it but also by not mentioning it, I would be drawing attention to it to everyone who could see it but would notice I hadn't mentioned it. It's something that I believe people notice right away about me and then sort of forget as they get to know me and it's just part of me (I assume that's how it is for most people, as it's how it is for me). But by either mentioning it or conspicuously not mentioning it everyone thinks about it again. It make me think about it. And I hate that. I really fucking hate it. It just comes out of nowhere and makes me self-conscious and sad.

So I while I sympathise with someone someone who is visually impaired, I don't want to describe myself to a group for reasons that are just as valid, and people who don't even think about why it would make someone really uncomfortable are being just as 'ableist' as they are accusing people who don't want to do it as being. To be quite honest, unless the visually impaired person has a startlingly good memory, I don't think they are at all likely to even remember how each of the 10 people described themselves. So I don't think it is a genuine exercise, rather than a way to make people 'check their sight privilege' rather than an exercise to help someone visualise their surroundings.

But you could just say “I have brown hair “

Maybe actually read what I wrote before commenting. I don't want to be put in a position where I don't have to mention it because then everyone knows that I chose not to. Either way, I've just made everyone else think about my face. And I've had to think about it. About what's wrong with me. I'm just going about my life merrily not thinking about something being wrong with my face. And now I've just had to. It's actually really not fucking ok to do that to me. It's unthinkingly cruel.

Huh?

I have a deformity; which is very noticeable. It is what it is, if asked to describe myself I would leave it out or include it depending on what I felt like. It isn’t ‘fucking cruel’ for somebody to suggest you just don’t mention it if you don’t want to, nor is it ‘fucking cruel’ for them to ask you to describe yourself to assist a colleague with limited vision.

We’ve reached the point with introspection now where even the most mundane and inoffensive of social interaction are somehow ‘triggering’ to somebody. It’s getting really ridiculous and actually preventing people from having normal exchanges and relationships with others.

We’re not protecting mental health by accommodating every person’s every sensitivity. What we’re doing is creating unnecessary competing interests, degrading resilience and complicating social interaction by having a unique set of rules for every individual. It isn’t necessary.

The woman patting the guide dog is a massive arsehole and completely in the wrong! Of course she was singled out because she kept doing something she was repeatedly asked not to!! Is she really that fucking stupid?

Do you really think that it's actually going to help the person with visual impairment? Do you really think that someone is going to remember 10 people's names, description of themselves and the voice that name and description came from. Unless they have an eidetic memory, which doesn't appear in non-fictional adults, they just won't.

It's not actually helping people, it's a performance. A performance that is making other people feel very uncomfortable. Ok, it wouldn't have made you uncomfortable, but it would have made me. And it would have made the numerous other people who have said it would make them uncomfortable, uncomfortable. And all of us who have our reasons to not be made feel uncomfortable in the work place, have a right not to want to be made uncomfortable. It's all exactly as you describe in the last paragraph, but I'd argue that by having everyone make a ridiculous performance of describing themselves to be supposedly helpful, we are creating unnecessary competing interests, degrading resilience and complicating social interaction by having a unique set of rules for every individual. Someone who is visually impaired absolutely needs to have accommodations made for them. But they don't get to ask for everyone else to be put in a position that will make many of them uncomfortable just to show how 'kind' they are in a performance that isn't actually helpful.

PP who is visually impaired said it would help her, and that’s enough for me to know a moment of ‘discomfort’ is the right thing to do.

I don’t know why you keep calling this a reasonable adjustment. Not patting a dog when asked not to do so is not a reasonable adjustment, it is just basic manners. I am not blind and if I tell somebody not to pay my dog they shouldn’t. No reasonable adjustment here, very surprising that a law firm haven’t got a better grip of what reasonable adjustments mean.

And then on to the describing yourself, well I would refuse that too. It is not a reasonable adjustment, unless somebody is drawing me, I don’t see how me describing myself is a reasonable adjustment that I need to make to enable them to do their work.

I think you did get a poor trainer in to be honest. There is obviously no need for anybody to be rude to a visitor of course.

Person B sounds like a cunt. I would be very worried about how they might respond to a client with disabilities. It's really shocking that this is a law firm OP

@Wanderingowl do you have a disability? If not, I think you need to own your privilege and take a few mins. discomfort.

It is not a reasonable request, it makes no sense as a request whatsoever. She can either see sufficiently to distinguish between people, or they would have to describe themselves every single time they speak, “I’m April, the fat one in a green dress”. How is that any more helpful than me just saying “I’m April”.

Indeed...

People with VI have commented on this post to explain why descriptions are helpful

Unless you're visually impaired who the fuck are you go say it's not helpful and merely a performance

And (some) people with physical differences have explained that visual descriptions would make them feel uncomfortable/triggered, etc. Competing needs, etc.

I don't think there's been too many (any?) who don't think Person B in this scenario isn't a horror though.

I don’t think being triggered or made to feel uncomfortable outweighs a blind person’s needs. It just doesn’t when the request is one as innocuous as this.

Why would the trainer need to know what someone looks like? Would it make a difference in the way she treated them?
What difference does it make to her if someone is blond or brunette? Short or tall? Fat or thin? etc.
Describing myself to a group of people would make me very uncomfortable and I would struggle to understand the motive of the trainer in asking me to do this.

I don’t think being triggered or made to feel uncomfortable outweighs a blind person’s needs. It just doesn’t when the request is one as innocuous as this.

Then I'm afraid we're going to have disagree on this point. I think the rights and needs of of people with physical differences (some of whom are, of course themselves, disabled) should not simply be thrown uncritically out the window when they come up against someone with competing needs.

Seriously? Being "triggered" because someone has asked them to describe themselves?

Yes it would seem being asked to say “I’m eyeballs I’m short with dark hair wearing a blue dress” apparently sets off all kinds of deep psychological trauma

Seriously? Being "triggered" because someone has asked them to describe themselves?

You can't imagine how people with physical differences could feel very uncomfortable in a situation where they are asked to visually describe themselves?

If the visual description was given certain parameters, ie, the trainer said, "could you describe what colour of clothing you're wearing", it seems harmless enough to me (if likely to be pointless when a dozen people respond with "black!"). But that's rarely how I've seen it framed and responded to. Rather in my experience so far, people have tended to respond with a rather more detailed description of themselves - race, sex, hair colour, sexual orientation, gender orientation, body type, ability status, age, room background, etc, etc).

Could be the kind of calls I'm on. In some cases it's taken an age just to get through the visual descriptions and onto the main business of the event.

And yet, quite a lot of people have already said that it would make them feel uncomfortable. Just because you are happy in yourself, it doesn’t mean everyone is. I wouldn’t want to describe myself as I am overweight and I don’t particularly want to say this out loud, but yet not saying it and people might think I am oblivious. I would find it a very uncomfortable situation. I don’t know what triggered means and I wouldn’t be traumatised but I don’t want to do it and don’t see why I should.

I would also maintain that this is not a reasonable request necessary for somebody else to perform their duties. I would suggest the trainer needs to actually study what reasonable requests might look like before selling their services as a trainer in such matters.

@Wouldloveanother

I don’t think being triggered or made to feel uncomfortable outweighs a blind person’s needs. It just doesn’t when the request is one as innocuous as this.

I disagree. Why does the blind persons feelings need to be prioritised over other peoples? There can be lots of obvious reasons people don't want to describe themselves. People in transition, for instance, or who were severely burnt or are visually disabled. All very obvious descriptions with which it would feel silly to describe yourself as wearing a blue shirt. One disability doesn't trump anothers.