Top three most excruciating moments at the inclusivity listening session:
3. Loudly and excitedly exclaiming about where we're all sitting like it signifies something, like I'm sitting AT YOU, like can I please just exist in public without shrieking scrutiny, like I'm already a member of 2-3 groups who are regularly infantilised do not talk to me like you're my primary school teacher
2. Having attempted to explain intersectionality, telling us to write all our intersectional identities on a shared webpage. 'Anonymous' is not actually anonymous when it's a small group sat around a table and you can see who's typing and for how long and we know enough about each other that we can figure it out by process of elimination. You outed someone to me who had not come out to me in all the years we'd worked together.
Expert facilitator and boss of the entire service suddenly interrupting the activity to exclaim over my use of a fidget spinner to keep myself calm and on-task. All I could do was freeze like a rabbit in headlights and blurt out "I wasn't looking to have a conversation about it." If someone is using assistive technology to help them participate in an activity, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES stop their participation to make it a public spectacle.
+ 1 having obviously zero intention of finishing on time. Finishing on time is an access need for oh, at last count and off the top of my head: people who need to budget their energy; people with caring responsibilities; people who need medication or food at certain times; people who are too anxious to say they have to get to another appointment now. FINISH ON TIME. Whatever you're saying is not more important than whatever other real human beings have going on. You're not the main character and they're not NPCs.