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

Anyone else sick and tired of the word ‘uncomfortable’?

Because a tangible, physical disability that severely restricts your life takes priority over a fleeting moment of ‘discomfort’? What next, unplugging someone’s life support to charge your phone because you feel ‘uncomfortable’ with it being out of battery?

This!!

Person B is a dick.

You DEFINITELY have a work culture issue if the other 9 people in the room didn't make this clear to person B at the time.

In a normal place they would be expressing concern to you about person B.

The ableism on this thread is disgusting but utterly unsurprising.
describing this basic courtesy to someone with VI as a performance is one of the most cunty things I think I've read here
fuck sake

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.

In the update it turned out the trainer didn't say 'describe yourself ' they said please describe your top colour or hair colour and only if you want to.

I would have no problem with this. What I have a big problem with particularly is that VI men can demand young women 'describe themselves' to him and that she should be forced to do so under threat of the sack. Others on this thread seem to think this is fine though and name call anyone who should dare disagree.

Because a tangible, physical disability that severely restricts your life takes priority over a fleeting moment of ‘discomfort’? What next, unplugging someone’s life support to charge your phone because you feel ‘uncomfortable’ with it being out of battery?

The mental health needs of people with physical differences (particularly the ones described in the post you quote) or anxiety should not, in my view, simply be tossed aside because someone with competing needs has decided they want visual description of everyone on the meeting.

Some of the online events, usually the arts based ones, I've been on (I'm on a lot of diverse meetings through work) have included a caveat at the beginning that people don't need to turn their cameras on if they don't feel comfortable doing so. In those cases, there does tend to be an acceptance that you don't need to see someone or have a visual image of them in your mind in order to interact meaningfully with them.

On the one hand, that kind of caveat may be reassuring to people with mental health/anxiety issues and so forth, but does potentially create a problem for people with hearing loss who need to lipread. Another example of competing needs...

I agree.

Anxiety is for the individual to deal with, not for the world to work around and avoid completely normal inoffensive human interactions. You can’t ‘work on’ your blindness.

Sounds like something that would happen at Dunder Mifflin.

Surely you're not so silly enough to think a moment of discomfort outweighs a reasonable adjustment for someone who is disabled

Christ almighty

I have a disability myself. I also have a physical difference. I don't think my disability gives me the right to demand that other people with physical differences should be made to feel exposed and uncomfortable in this way. People with physical differences have needs too, some of them have mental ill issues relating to their condition.

Being aware that being asked for a visual description can be problematic for some people is not bad thing for a trainer, I don't think. In this scenario, no matter how it was framed, I think the trainer would have had pushback from Person B because they just sound like that kind of person.

Yes they have, read the thread back.
Somebody said a blind person was in tesco and wanted a physical description of a shelve stacker they should give him one and should be sacked if they didn't. Others agreed. There is very much the attitude from many posters that a blind person has an absolute right to a physical description of people. You might agree with this, I don't.

But asking virtually anything seems to be ‘problematic’ these days .

by the way some posters have responded on here, you would really think the trainer had asked everyone to detail their first sexual encounter, or to describe their naked form in detail.

Oh, and I haven't been rude or told anyone to fuck off or name called.

by the way some posters have responded on here, you would really think the trainer had asked everyone to detail their first sexual encounter, or to describe their naked form in detail.

I don't think this trainer did wrong. They seem to have come up against a weapons grade arsehole.

But as a more general comment, I don't think visual descriptions are quite the neutral thing some seem to imagine, especially the way they are playing out on many of the events I've been on.

And when the presenter starts with a forensic breakdown of their gender orientation, sexual orientation, ethnicity, height, body type, hair type/colour/length, ability status, age, etc, etc, and is promptly followed by everyone else on the event doing likewise, it can be difficult to say, "I'm Jenny and I'm wearing blue dungarees" and leave it at that. A few times I've seen people being asked to expand on their descriptions (although this is far from the norm).,

Out of interest, why did none of the other attendees mention any of this in their feedback on the course? Surely if it was that big a deal at the time then at least one person, probably more, would have said something as it has everything to do with both content and trainer? I'm guessing the feedback was given in writing (normally is) so even easier to comment. OP's vagueness in the beginning ('describe your appearance') is different enough to her update ('A asked people to describe either their hair colour or clothing colour and said this was to help her distinguish between people. Apparently A said "if you don't mind" so there was a recognition in that, I think, that not everyone may want to do so.') to make me wonder if we're getting a different story later in the thread to what actually happened. Particularly since this update was right at the start - if A recognised that some might not want to, why did she ask B again? Why not just accept it? And why did B mention woke, being sensitive, not being dictated to and being obvious they're a woman? There's zero logic there, even if B is a complete asshole. Either OP has made the whole thing up or she's changed the story a lot because lots of people said they weren't happy with providing a description of themselves. It doesn't add up.

Because none of it is real

Surely you're not so silly enough to think a moment of discomfort outweighs a reasonable adjustment for someone who is disabled

It's not a reasonable adjustment. If people want to share this information then thats ok. If they choose to. But really a name and even a brief description of their job role would suffice.

I’m visually impaired and have explained a couple of times on this thread now how having a vague description such as colour of top, hair colour would help me distinguish between group participants at a training session and would make me better able to facilitate the day.

I understand your reasons for not wanting to give a description, and K wouldn’t want to compel you to, but I strongly object to you not believing this to be a ‘genuine exercise’, when actually it is something that would really help me facilitate the day if I were delivering training to a group of people. And yes, I have a bloody good memory.

Ableism, much?

Yeah, why?

I’m visually impaired and have explained a couple of times on this thread now how having a vague description such as colour of top, hair colour would help me distinguish between group participants at a training session and would make me better able to facilitate the day

Why wouldn't name and job descriptions help you distinguish between participants rather then requiring people to physically describe themselves?

Sorry misread the thread!

Anyway re asking for names and job titles. You do that as well, of course.

The reason you need to know colour of top or hair colour is to be able to link the name/job with the actual person, and so that when people move around the room, you have the information necessary to be able to know who is moving where. This is something sighted people do without a second thought.

Knowing there is a person named John from marketing somewhere in the room (but you have no idea where they are or who they are) is not very helpful information. Knowing that John from Marketing is the vague red blur on the left is very helpful and useful information, since if vague red blur speaks, you know that is John and you can address them as John and direct comments relevant to marketing towards them. If John moves to another part of the room, it's easier to keep track of the fact they have moved.

If at the start of the day the person sitting on the left says "I'm John from marketing" but later on John goes to sit somewhere else, and Rachel is sitting on the left, or there's no one sitting on the left, but you as a VI person don't know that. Imagine trying to deliver a talk and you keep referring to Rachel as John (since you have no idea that John has moved), or you keep addressing comments to a piece of furniture as John, and everyone keeps giggling but you don't know why. Pretty humiliating.