New Resource Helps LGBTQIA+ People With Disability Access Inclusive Services & Self-Advocate

It’s no secret that people with disability are at a disadvantage when it comes to accessing services and support and even more so if they are also LGBTQIA+.

Among the barriers LGBTQIA+ people with disability routinely face when accessing services are a lack of inclusivity, discrimination from both the disability and LGBTQIA+ communities, and insufficient accessibility accommodations that some people with disability need to be able to participate. Many are also forced to choose between their identities as a queer person and as someone who is disabled in order to feel safe or to access services.

Leo*, a disabled transgender man, is all too familiar with the challenges faced by LGBTQIA+ people with disability when it comes to trying to access the services and support that most people take for granted. When enrolling in a Diploma of Nursing a few years ago, Leo faced a lot of resistance from the educational institution when trying to seek accommodations for his disabilities and recognition of his gender identity.

Because Leo hadn’t yet legally changed his name at the time of enrolling in the course, he faced an uphill battle to get the institution to enter his preferred name into their system and for them to actually use it. Leo says that it took a month and a half for the institution to approve his preferred name and then it was rarely used.

“When I was spoken to in class or stuff like that, [my preferred name] wasn’t used. When I complained, [the institution] said that it was up to the lecturer to use it if they were comfortable.”

Leo also found that his requests for accommodations, such as being allowed to have his assistance dog on campus and receiving lecture slides in advance to help with processing delays, were refused or ignored and that the material being taught in class was very cis and straight oriented. When he asked about queer perspectives, Leo was told they weren’t relevant and that he could research them in his own time.

Exhausted by the institution’s ongoing refusal to recognise his identity and provide reasonable accommodations, Leo dropped out of the course after just two months, saying that he was made to feel unwanted and that this was the institution’s way of forcing him to quit.

Drawing from this kind of lived experience, Leo and other LGBTQIA+ people with disability have launched a co-designed Service Access Tool to help queer people with disability find inclusive services that meet their specific needs and to advocate for themselves when dealing with service providers.

This tool is an initial version developed by LGBTQIA+ disability service provider ColourFull Abilities as part of a larger collaborative project led by social enterprise B-HART. It is the product of a five month peer leader program run by ColourFull Abilities for LGBTQIA+ people with disability and includes a checklist of things a person can look for when choosing a service provider and examples of the types of things they can say to advocate for themselves when using a service.

In addition to designing the Service Access Tool, participants in the program were involved in a series of seminars and workshops aimed at developing them into advocates for their community.

“We know from our work in the community that finding accessible and supportive services as a queer and disabled person can feel nearly impossible, with many of us having to choose to accept a certain level of discrimination,” says Ollie Keane, Community & Training Officer at ColourFull Abilities. “This Peer Leader program was an important project that brought together voices from our community as we asked ourselves: how can we support people like us to advocate for themselves?”

With ongoing funding for the project until 2027, the initial version of the Service Access Tool is being shared early to support the queer disabled community and to learn from feedback, with more resources to be released soon as the project continues.

* Name has been changed to protect identity.

Disclaimer: The author was a participant in the ColourFull Abilities peer leader program and involved in designing the Service Access Tool.