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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