Did DEI Dump Disability for ‘Pride And Parties’? Grunwald and Fielding

[RethinkingLife]

Tanya de Grunwald continues her excellent podcast series.

Are neurodiversity, mental health and 'LGBT' winning the war for employers' attention - while disability has been sidelined? Has the 'lived experience' industry become superficial and exploitative? And have staff networks turned into unsupervised - and even dangerous - group therapy sessions in the workplace?

Disability rights campaigner George Fielding doesn't want to 'be kind' if it means endlessly affirming fragility – or pretending that groups who need additional support aren't competing for employers’ attention and resources. And he says the era of 'no debate' is over. It's time to talk. People will have different ideas about priorities and paths to success on disability but ‘We’ll never make progress if we can’t be honest.’ In this groundbreaking new episode of This Isn't Working, we ask:

DO PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES FEEL ABANDONED BY EMPLOYERS who seem to have prioritised issues such as neurodiversity, mental health, and ‘LGBT’ in discussions about DEI (AKA 'EDI' in the UK)? (Spoiler: Yes!)

ARE ‘LIVED EXPERIENCE’ TRAINERS DOING MORE HARM THAN GOOD? Where is the due diligence on the disability consultants who employers are inviting in – and is this expertise, or just oversharing? Do they understand the Equality Act? What unhealthy messages do they promote to impressionable audiences – and will the results only ever be superficial, as opposed to systemic?

HOW DO DISABILITY, NEURODIVERSITY AND TRANS IDENTITIES INTERSECT IN THE WORKPLACE? Is it appropriate for employers to be hosting conversations which result from poor sex and relationship education and mental health support for those with additional needs? If staff networks have become co-rumination bubbles, activist groups or unsupervised group therapy sessions, should employers shut them down and move these discussions out of the workplace?

IS IT UNWISE TO LET SUCH RAW LIVED EXPERIENCE SHAPE COMPANY POLICY? After a long wait, an ADHD diagnosis can feel like a ‘reward,’ says George. This can create a sense of ‘rebirth’ and feed an urge to seek justice for past failure or discrimination. Have you considered this, or taken these employees’ views at face value?

DOES LANGUAGE MATTER? Views will vary, but George isn’t fussed. (There are only three words he doesn’t like!) In fact, he thinks language policing is actually holding back debate. ‘If we’re still arguing over which words we use, we’re never going to have the discussions we need, to move things forward.’

WHY ARE THERE STILL SO FEW PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN SENIOR LEADERSHIP ROLES? George explains that employed disabled people often feel so grateful to be in work that they hesitate when it comes to pushing for a promotion, or risking finding a new employer. Have you considered this?

We share George’s view that this vital conversation has stalled – and employers have lost focus. Despite all the controversy around #DEI, it is hard to find anyone who doesn’t think people with disabilities should be prioritised, and #AccessToWork improved.

The real life impact of making allowances for the needs of disabled people and trans people are a million miles apart. One group is offended, the other can't take part in society.

100% this.

People with disabilities should no more be treated as a sacred caste than anyone else.

I’m picking up the impression that you’ve not listened to the nuanced discussion in the podcast between @GraduateFog and George Fielding. Is that an accurate assessment?

Agree they are a million miles apart but sometimes they compete for resources and intersect, with consequences that can be even more serious for the disabled than for the rest of society.

For example, it is ladies’ and accessible toilets which seem to be increasingly relabelled ‘gender neutral’ or ‘unisex’ in an attempt to accommodate trans people.

This affects my 15 year old niece who has Downs. For her safety, she has had drummed in to her that she must never allow herself to be taken in to a toilet by a man she does not know. Last year, she unexpectedly found a man in the accessible toilet of the community enterprise (a cafe) she ‘worked’ at once a week. He was a male paramedic helping another user who had had an epileptic fit.

To say she freaked out is an understatement, she took days to recover and has never managed return to the place that had been the highlight of her week.

In another venue e.g. a shop, restaurant, train station etc, it might be a trans identified male that she would encounter. She would recognise such a person as male as readily as I do (which is to say every time, because they never ‘pass’, even when they think they do. )

I think the impact of trans on the disabled has not been thought through.

I don’t agree with Ashkeys, but think they have an important point.

Which I hope no one tries to get deleted for ableism.

We have to discuss how we improve services for everyone including those with barriers to accessibility, and how we avoid groups subverting that process in their own interests.

And perhaps discuss if it is ever acceptable to say no.

Because we do say no- money does run out, services can’t always be provided everywhere they are needed.

What pees me off at the moment is the money wasted fighting against provision. The Fife case, and all those local authorities going to court to deny children EHCPs. Just spend the money on the kids.

No group should be treated as a sacred caste to the detriment of others, I agree.

Just for clarity, making certain accommodations for a specific group to allow them to be treated on an equal level to others in society does not automatically signify a sacred caste.

By sacred caste I mean above criticism. There seems some shock on here that I am saying a group of individuals with learning disability, downs, autism etc could be activists or come up with unhelpful or even harmful interventions. My DC has been the victim of one such group providing ‘lived experience’ training in school that took weeks to untangle. Not trans related. He also attends another group for those with learning disability across a range of ages. Before he started I had to have an argument concerning safeguarding as adults with learning disabilities are adults even if they have the understanding of a younger child.

I am really enjoying this podcast. I've been looking for something insightful and interesting to listen to now that Gender: a wider lens has finished, and this fits the bill. It's interesting hearing these issues discussed from a HR point of view.

@AshKeys has anyone on this thread said people with disabilities are above criticism? It was unclear why you jumped so harshly on Arran2024's post. Now you've explained how your own experience has coloured your perspective it makes more sense.

This is all at a bit of a tangent to the OP and the subject of the podcast.

They produced a nice, accessible version of the forms you fill in at the annual learning review by the GP for people with learning disabilities for example. They weren't rewriting policy documents! They were recruited by 2 individuals who worked for the LA on the Sen code of practice.

They are nothing like a group of highly motivated trans activists. They mostly did it for the free pizza and an opportunity to meet in a supported environment.

I simply cannot believe the things you are saying. It's not as if they started issuing demands. They attended sen conferences because the LA staff organised it and they turned up.

An IQ of 56 doesn't give you much chance in life. My daughter deserves to have her voice heard and I am astonished and deeply, deeply upset by this conversation.

I think I understand whare Ashkeys is coming from here - it's often the case that a small number of members of this or that group get into a position where they are suppose to represent the whole, and it can easily go wrong if it's not carefully managed.

Employment networks are a good example, it doesn't really matter if they are based on sex or being autistic or black or what. Those individuals don't necessarily represent the needs and views of that larger group, in fact sometimes they are quite atypical. And yet their ideas and approaches are seen as representing the whole, which can be really reductive.

For example - in my workplace a number of items were bought by an outside agency for use for the visually impaired. We have a local user group of visually impaired people who tried them out, found many inadequate, and were annoyed and recommended we get rid of them. When we contacted the donor, they explained the basis for those choices, which made sense. And in fact, among our general population of users we did in fact find people who liked those items and found them helpful.

It tends to be a lot worse IME where it includes political views, because the fact is that any group like this will have people with many different political and policy views. And the ones that go in for joining these groups may have more in common around politics than they do based on their identity group.

But even where the issue is something more concrete, like disability, or sex, where there are real material factors, it can be a danger that the group come to consider itself as representing the "real" experience of the group and claims authority to mediate that.

I strongly recommend listening to relevant parts of the podcast if time prevents listening to the whole.

@GraduateFog and Fielding discuss these matters with nuance and informed perspectives on relevant statutory duties and legislation.

But you are viewing it through the lens of the truly worthwhile input of your lovely DD.

With checks and balances I’m pretty sure it’s always a good thing.

Without checks and balances, the needs of a young person with specific needs become templates that control access for everyone, even if that raises barriers to others. It’s not hard to imagine an enthusiastic parent or two get their visually impaired DC on a panel at their workplace, and sweeping through replacing all kinds of things with ‘accessible’ alternatives, and unintentionally disabling loads of people with different access needs. Sometimes the vulnerability of that DC is offset by the privilege of their parent, and you suddenly have multiple barriers for everyone else, and a refusal to make changes.

It's easy for somebody to get a positive appraisal for pretty posters and handouts about being nice to everybody - just requires a computer and time to create them (or type a prompt into ChatGPT).

Actually noticing that the entrance to the building is blocked by litter bins on the ramped side, there are potholes in the tarmac to get that far, having had to dice with death crossing the road from the bus stop, there's posters and shit cluttering up the actual door (which weighs a ton), the lift is jam packed if it's even working, there are bumps, lumps and steps along the corridor, there's no heating in that part of a tiny office and the desk was designed for your average nine year old, who then has to squeeze their way in through all the clutter and cupboards scattered around because nobody has ever thought of leaving clear paths, getting permission, maps, information, funding, finance agreement, booking contractors for plans and quotes, getting site on board, the office staff and everybody else to actually move shit and fix shit and actually think for ten seconds about somebody who is actually in physical pain?

Maybe working out that some people are deaf and don't actually benefit from having a phone call or a phone number to call to arrange things compared to an email address, or that old computer equipment's hiss and buzz is picked up by hearing aids, so the fan and monitor is going to really annoy them and rebuilding the service so that people aren't put off because everything's done by phone?

• now, that's really hard to mark as Achieved.

It's so easy to say be nice - but sorting out systemic discrimination and exclusion in the built environment, the work environment and the policymaking environment, though? That's not. And if you're a) not actually that interested in boring, possibly unattractive, probably not at any significant employment level to even be noticed in the first place, physically disabled staff if they aren't using the handy shorthand of a wheelchair (and that's at best, wheelchair users get fucked over by the built environment lots of the time, too) and b) are paid on the basis of a successful appraisal showing you've met all of your KPIs for the year with a convenient section to upload a couple of documents and a poster - why would you even think for a second about physical disability?

The direction of travel has been to include people with learning disabilities in decisions about their lives. There is criticism where it is left to supporter organisations or parents or carers - the dilemma is how to get the views of a group who cannot group and advocate on their own needs on their own. They need help to be able to do it.

This is where the LA comes in. The employees of the LA fed back information from the group, to inform best practice. Like I said, this is part of the SEN code or practice. It is not as if a group of learning disabled young people got together and thought they would set a committee to force through unreasonable demands on the nhs.

And it didn't involve parents either. I had zero input to the committee.

It gave young people who normally have no voice some kind of voice.

It is nothing like activists or parents getting what they want.

This involves people who were transported by carers to a LA meeting room for a couple of hours a month and closely supervised and then picked up again.

How else can their needs be heard? Through Mencap? Through parents? This is actually the opposite of pushy carers.

You are so right! I have had personal experience of new builds with wheelchair ramps at the side of a building that have a hairpin bend in the middle of them, which is impossible for a wheelchair to get past. I've seen new buildings with all sorts of wheel-chair friendly features - but internal doors so heavy that a w/chair user can't open them.
I personally was told that in order to register as a deaf/hard of hearing customer who couldn't manage voice calls, I had to .. phone the access department! No alternative offered, it had to be a voice call to say I can't do voice calls.

These are the everyday adjustments that people with disabilities need; some of them are big, like rebuilding those useless ramps; others are really easy, like providing email contact for people who can't do voice calls.

But they are all obviously less glitzy and fashionable than flags and Days and pronouns...

Thread about recorded recent decline in effective literacy and numeracy. Useful sidelight on the value of plain language for official documents and dealing with bureaucracies.

NEW 🧵: Is human intelligence starting to decline?

Recent results from major international tests show that the average person’s capacity to process information, use reasoning and solve novel problems has been falling since around the mid 2010s

https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1900537267308937416?

Thread reader https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1900537267308937416.html

TwiX thread about disability rights going backwards

https://x.com/rosemaryfrazer/status/1900546826178056693?

in print in today's Times. Baroness Grey-Thompson: "If you are disabled and terminally ill and your benefits are cut, making life intolerable, it's obvious more people will feel forced down this route to end their lives early

https://x.com/nmdacosta/status/1900492012060573699?