Happy Pride Month, fellow queers and allies! I come to you with a report from Cleveland Pride, hopefully in time to influence the organizers of other Pride events this summer. Cleveland.com reports that “This year, the LGBT Community Center has emphasized accessibility in its plans”. However, we found the event to be more inaccessible than previous years’ pride events. What changed?

This year, Pride was held on grass, with the rows of stalls laid out along the grass lawn as well as having fun social events such as oversized chess or dodgeball on the grass. Have you ever tried to roll a wheelchair on grass? Or a walker, or a stroller? It’s incredibly difficult to manage. My partner, who is an ambulatory wheelchair user, had to walk down the aisle rather than roll so that they could do any shopping at all, and they ran out of stamina and pain tolerance after about two booths because of it. Is visiting two booths at the expense of significant pain and exhaustion with pain lasting until the next day what those of you that are not in a wheelchair expect from a pride? Or is this a second-class experience?

In the disability community there is a saying: “nothing about us without us”. If you want to have an accessible event, you need to hire disabled people to help figure out the weak spots in your plan. And I do mean hire — this work is worth paying for, since it makes your event better; so long as you’re paying anyone to organize the event, those consultants should be given a fair share. If you need help with this, church members Ahmie and William Yeung (yeungfamilycle@gmail.com) are excellent people who are putting together a nonprofit to do just that: evaluate the accessibility of buildings and events for those with varying abilities.

But if you must organize without disabled people to speak for ourselves, then you need to do three times the work: considering your event from the point of view of both abled and disabled folks. Does your event take place in a place where wheeled vehicles like wheelchairs and scooters can attend? Do your activities require legs? Hands? Vision? Hearing? Do you have ASL interpreters for your speeches? Do you have sensory-safe places where people who are overwhelmed by the music and crowds can calm down and rejuvenate? Do you have medical staff on hand trained in not only physical injuries but calming panic attacks caused by large crowds? Are there curb cuts leading off the sidewalk and are they accessible? Are there parking spaces with hashmarks for transport vehicles? Are you close to bus lines?

Once more, I wish you all a happy Pride month. I hope you have access to the events you choose to attend, and I hope that soon our community can be welcoming to all.