RIKKI: If you are an LGBTQ person or an ally even,
and you are also someone who frequents Pride,
you need to watch this video. Trust me.
(OPENING THEME)
Hello, and welcome back to your friendly bisexual's channel.
See, I even did this today to go with it.
A little while ago, I asked you, my disabled friends,
about what you wanted to see at Pride in terms of accessibility.
And this was inspired by an incident last year.
Last year, my friend Chrissy and I, we went to Pride with another friend of mine
and we noticed some things about accessibility that just went wrong.
So I wanted to, instead of just talk about my own experience,
I wanted to get some other input from other disabled people
of various other disabilities.
Let's go.
The first one, and this is the experience that I had,
ASL interpreters.
Now, the Charlotte Pride last year which, by the way, is in August,
we had interpreters. That was fantastic.
Except the accessibility, in terms of interpretation, fell flat
because the parade was in front of us, and the interpreters and the announcers
were behind us.
So, you know, when you're watching the parade, you also wanna know
what's going on.
You wanna know the information about these specific groups, organizations.
So typically, you should have the interpreter and the announcers
in front of you, somewhere.
But instead, they were all the way in the back.
So you know what you had to do if you really wanted to get your information?
Look to the back. Look to the front.
So your choice is to watch the Parade but miss out on the information,
or get the information but miss out on the awesome parade
that you came for in the first place.
So, yeah, accessibility, get it in the front.
If you could get captions, also good, because not all deaf people sign, so...
Places to sit with cushions.
I like this one.
I agree with this, because, as someone with chronic pain,
this would be very, very helpful.
Now, because it's in downtown Charlotte... I'm just gonna use my own city
as an example, but, you know.
At Charlotte Pride, it's downtown, restaurants have their,
you know, tables outside that people sit and eat at, you know.
But they're really hard chairs, or you're just having to sit
on the... not the gravel like on the sidewalk,
although there are people who sit on the sidewalk,
but you know where there's like plants and stuff and you can sit on a little bench?
They're not comfortable at all.
So when you have chronic pain, chronic fatigue,
it would be nice to have seats with cushions on them,
and an actual, you know, back for if your back hurts.
Because if you're just sitting with nothing to support, it's not really fun.
It's really painful and Pride isn't that much of a sit-down activity, really,
not from what I have experienced myself.
Accessible bathrooms and walk ways.
This is especially important for people who use wheelchairs.
Pride is very crowded.
I've noticed that walkways, you can't really get anywhere
in a wheelchair because one, everyone's kind of, you know, just surrounding you
and they're just, they wanna get somewhere
and they like to block the smaller people, you know.
But you need an accessible wheelchair area for the Parade especially.
You need accessible bathrooms.
So many bathroom stalls are so small and a lot of able folks also
like to take the wheelchair stalls as well.
So we need more wheelchair stalls.
And also if you're abled and don't need the bigger stall,
the wheelchair stall, don't use them.
Save them for the wheelchair users, or even the cane users.
Just save them for the disabled people.
I'm trying to be inclusive of all the mobility aid users.
If my wheelchair-using friends have an issue with that,
just let me know in the comments.
Let me learn.
And don't block anything in the walkways downtown.
We have scooters and people like to leave their scooters in the middle
of the walkways, their bicycles.
It's so frustrating.
Get 'em out of the way, please.
A quiet area for people who have sensory overload.
This is common in autistic people, to my knowledge.
Pride is very loud, lots of shouting, lots of screaming.
The mics and the speakers are loud.
The protesters are also loud.
So it would be nice to have a designated quiet area.
If I could, I would lend you my ears, but that is
unfortunately scientifically impossible.
I make that joke all the time to my hearing friends
when they're so annoyed with any noise.
I'm like, "Well, would you like to borrow some?
You can have them overnight.
There you go."
Deaf perks, man, deaf perks.
And last but not least, number five, medics who are trained
to treat disabled people.
Not only a straight up treat, but to communicate with them.
I've had horror stories in a hospital when I've been in a car crash.
And the nurses and the doctor did not want to write to me.
This was before, you know, I signed at all, really.
Nobody wanted to write.
There was no ASL interpreters, not that it would help me,
but, you know, anybody else.
I have friends who don't really like being touched,
or if you wanna communicate with them,
you kind of have to warn them a little bit.
You know, there's just different ways to communicate
with various disabled people.
And also if you're chronically ill, you have the horror story
of people being like, you don't really need this or just suck it up.
Like, there are doctors who say that stuff.
So it would just be really nice to have medics who really know
what they're doing and actually really care to help and treat disabled people.
So those are the top five tips I have for those who are organizing Pride events.
There were a lot of replies in the Twitter thread,
but I wanted to condense it down to five, so I will link the Twitter thread
down below, so if you want to read more answers, there you go.
I really do hope that these steps were helpful.
And if you've already had Pride be past,
if you're an organizer watching this, implement this next year.
If you're someone who hasn't had it yet
like Charlotte, waiting for August, get that stuff rolling now if you can.
You should. Just don't... not 'if'.
Do it. Do it, do it, do it, do it.
If you have any other tips, feel free to leave them
down in the comments below.
Everyone's different.
Let's get knowledge in our brains.
If you would like to help translate this video, I would very much appreciate it
and I will leave a translation link down below.
Thank you so much for watching
And I will see you later. Bye.
(OUTRO MUSIC)