This year I did GenCon on wheels. In fact, I brought my own.
This year at GenCon had some incredible moments, some weird moments, and one moment where I sat in front of an elevator and cried because I didn’t feel human.
I’m using a wheelchair because over the last year my chronic pain has gotten so bad that walking around at a con knocks me down for a week and I can’t do anything I need to do. So I talked to my doctor, and based on the fatigue my chronic pain causes, she told me that for my safety, a wheelchair was the best way to do my job and not pay for it as badly as I would without it.
I won’t say I don’t hurt. I do. But not the way that I did last year.
So let’s talk about what I learned as a wheeling guest of honor, and how cons are for someone below the regular sightline of your average con goer.
I’m going to start with the worst moment of my con, which happened on Sunday morning. On Sunday morning I went down to the front desk of my hotel (The Embassy “not so” Suites) and made a complaint about their accessibility. Their carpets were so thick I had a hard time wheeling myself to my room, the process of getting into a room with a chair was some tricky geometry, and due to access concerns I could only use the freight elevator. Which was the garbage elevator. I had no time to talk to the people at the front desk about this in the four days I was there because the process of getting to and from all my events took more time than it would for an able bodied person.
When I made my complaint, the assistant manager lookedme in the eye, and repeated over and over again “We are ADA Compliant.”
ADA Compliant does not always mean accessible.
I wanted an apology. I wanted compassion and someone to say “we will look into these concerns.” A discount would have been nice, but honestly, being heard was what I was looking for. And I wasn’t.
So my witness and I rolled out to get my stuff, because I did not want to set foot in this hotel again this weekend. (I know I will have to go back next year to visit people.)
And we got my suitcase, we rolled to the freight elevator, and this is when I broke.
My friends asked some men to get out of the elevator, as I had a panel to get to in a half hour, and I was in a chair. The freight elevator was the only way to get out of the building.
And they said no. They essentially compared me to luggage.
I am not trash. I am not baggage. I am a human being.
And at that point, my tolerance for how I’d felt all weekend? It broke. I cried. I cried in an elevator waiting area that smelled faintly of garbage. I cried in front of my friends, because by that point, I just couldn’t hold it in anymore. I had been dehumanized – and rather than getting angry (even though I knew the angry disabled lady is never a useful thing to be) I just let it all sink in.
People wheeling around cons deserve their humanity, and this weekend I learned just how little of it people with wheelchairs get. I had people ignore security staff members who were trying to create a lane for me to enter a room. I had people not notice me, and throw stuff into my face. I had people just not notice I was there.
And the first time that I was alone at gen con, I felt absolutely terrified because when I hadn’t been alone, I at least had someone else there to witness my treatment.
I joked before gen con, that I would shout “Witness Me” at people at the con, because I had a War Boy and War Rig flag on my chair. Today, I know that isn’t a joke. Today I say “Witness Me”, because what happened shouldn’t, and I felt unseen.
I felt vulnerable. And I felt alone. It was scary. But it taught me a lot about what I believe radical inclusion means in nerd spaces – and it means that we have to watch where we put our feet. We have to watch what we wear (I had more tails in my face than I expected.)
We have to remember that there are more people who don’t look like us than there are of those who are the same.
This was my first year with a wheelchair at Gen Con – it won’t be my last, but I hope next year I’ll have a better sense of what I need.
I am incredibly grateful to the people who wheeled me around Gen Con this year. Without them this would have been a very different experience. Without them, I would have felt a lot more isolated, a lot more afraid, and I wouldn’t have had anyone there to witness me.
So heard. So witnessed.
But let me tell you about the good things, too.
During Gen Con, I announced my new games imprint – Blind Mouse Games. We will make games that make you see the world differently. I intend to promote as many games made by disabled geeks as I can. I won’t ever be a huge company, but I’ll be making games that I believe matter to our community – and from what I heard this weekend, other people think that too.
To the people who came up to me and said that I taught them how to bring their disabled siblings into the hobby – I say AWESOME and I want to meet your siblings next year at gen con.
To the parents who told me they learned ways to teach their kids – I say YAY.
To the disabled gamers who came to my panels, thank you for be there. Thank you for validating what I’m saying. I hope I gave you some new tools.
For every person who stopped me on the con floor, or in a hallway to say that they appreciated me standing up and speaking out for disabled gamers, I felt like I’d made the difference I wanted to make. So thank you.
Next year at Gen Con – I promise to work towards making our community better, to make it more aware of us. To make it more aware of me.
I promise to make games that include us, to make games that are accessible to us, and I promise to keep pushing to talk to bigger companies about ways to make us feel included.
The work starts now. How will YOU promote disability inclusion in the next year?
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Thanks for sharing your story. As my friend who linked me to the story said “It’s not the worst tale of a disabled fan’s experiences that I’ve heard, but the fact that it’s yet another one, in 2015, is still just too damn much.”
For the record, I’m not even a fan. I did 9 panels, most of which were about diversity in games in some shape or form. My job is to raise awareness and develop access, so while this isn’t the worst story, it certainly isn’t great.
Keep up the good fight Elsa. It was great being on (one of) the Diversity Panels with you. I don’t think disabled gamers could have a better advocate than you. You not only show us all that accessibility is important for our community of players, but how much disabled people have to offer the industry as creators. If you don’t do it already, you’d make an excellent professor and are welcome to guest lecture my class any day.
Luke – shoot me an email! I’d love to come speak to your class (and I miss teaching so so much.)
Welcome to my world as wheelchair user. Virtually all academic conferences present significant physical and social barriers. The conference topic does not matter nor does the location. Conferences are invariably an invitation for social abuse. ADA compliant is meaningless. I suggest you read Steve Kuusisto’s recent posts one of which is about the AWP. You need a thick ski for sure. When your critical comments are heard but not listened to if possible go up the proverbial ladder at the hotel. And sadly getting mad does not work.
I stayed calm through the whole complaint process, because I knew if I got mad it wouldn’t work.
And yeah, I will read that piece.
Hope you’re well.
I blog about a similar subject over at doctorstrangeroll.wordpress.com (I have two blogs) because my wife attends in a wheelchair. It’s electric, so she has different challenges than you, but the amount of rudeness and clueless I’ve witness over the last several years is staggering. I expend so much energy running interference for her and just trying to keep her from getting hurt, that the convention ceases to be fun around day 3. I intend to continue doing everything I can to spread awareness.
I am a disabled attendee. Three years ago I purchased an electric wheelchair. The two years prior to that my husband pushed my manual one. The issues that require me to use a wheelchair at the convention are different than yours, but we share the three-foot-high perspective.
2013 was the first year my husband ran a table in Author’s Avenue. As a handicapped attendee, I realized quickly that me pushing myself in a manual wheelchair would not be a realistic option, and my husband could not leave his table every time I needed to use the facilities. The past few years he has written some tips especially for folks to be aware of attendees with physical challenges: https://doctorstrangeroll.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/gen-con-tips-advice-from-doctor-strangeroll/
I’m truly sorry you had this experience. I wish I could tell you it was a one-time thing, and that this sort of thing doesn’t happen. My daughter used to work in one of the hotels downtown (left when she got married and moved to another state), and I know if you write a thoughtfully worded letter or post a thoughtfully worded review on tripadvisor, you might actually get an apology from the management team at that hotel. My family teases me about my “strongly worded emails.” 🙂
You should never have had to occupy a freight elevator. You should never be treated or referred to (no matter how ambiguously or unambiguously) as garbage. When it’s the last straw, I cry, too, and it pisses me off that I cannot avoid having my emotions spill out that way. I understand just how it hit you in that moment. It’s not right. ADA laws are the bare minimum, and many facilities don’t go beyond what is the bare minimum. And, as someone pointed, out ADA accessible does not always mean accessible to everyone.
If you return next year, I can put you in touch with a few local companies (my husband and I are local Indianapolis residents) that rent scooters and electric wheelchairs. I don’t know if this will be helpful to you, but I am aware that some of them deliver to the hotels for the convention. I’m also happy to have an offline conversation with you about my electric chair. It disassembles for easy packing into a car. I don’t know if that is something that might interest you or if it is practical for you. I know it has enabled me to be 80% independent at the convention, and I prefer to be as independent as possible.
Thank you for posting this. I think increasing awareness is the crucial forerunner to making changes.
Thank you so much for reaching out! and I WILL be back! I believe in making nerd spaces better and I will be speaking with Gen Con as a part of my work to make things better.
I think I met you at last year’s Gen Con talking about carpet when I was using my manual wheelchair (this year I used a TravelScoot & got to experience the battery draining power of the Indy Convention Center’s carpet…wow)! I’m seriously thinking about rigging one some sort of exclaimation point to my chair that makes me look like a quest-giving NPC (plus have cards to give out about convention access issues if people ask for a quest). I’m also wanting a shirt or sticker for my chair that says +5 wheelchair of invisibility 😛
+5 Invisibility sounds like such a great idea for a statement. I hate how true it is, though.
Elsa,
My heart aches that this happened to you. Since I walk with a cane now, I’m so much more cognizant of ableism and how abhorrent people can be.
Thank you for posting this. I’ve tweeted it out on the GeekGirlCon side and I hope that it continues to raise awareness.
I can’t wait to see what Blind Mouse Games does! If you need any assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out! I’d be honoured to help <3
Thank you for putting your experience so eloquently, and so shortly afterwards. After that dehumanizing treatment, I’d be fuming in the corner, too frustrated to speak, much less write.
Cons can and do improve, but it requires constant action. My experience with a volunteer-run con is that every department must be gently reminded of the access implications of all their decisions. Every year, and that requires a lot of energy!
I’m so sorry this happened to you. Public places are nightmares for us wheelies. Thank you for your hard work.