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I am about going to gripe about something that’s been really annoying me lately.
Jul. 10th, 2025 08:13 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
sakon76_tumblr_feedI am about going to gripe about something that’s been really annoying me lately.
First let me start with a disclaimer that I am speaking generally here. Of course both the U.S. and Europe are both massive and diverse places containing hundreds of millions of people, and a lot of regional differences. Neither the U.S. or Europe are a monolith (although a lot of people on the internet speak of both places as a monolith, which I wish people would stop doing, since neither are).
I could be wrong about this, since I don’t live in the U.S., and haven’t visited everywhere in Europe. But between where I have visited in the U.S., and where I have visited / lived in Europe, and from what I know from my friends in the U.S. and friends in other European countries, I get the feeling that overall the U.S. has stricter disability access laws than a lot of places in Europe do, especially in regard to building codes.
Of course there are exceptions, I know New York city is abhorrently hostile in its design towards anyone elderly and/or disabled. Although when I visited New York city it really just felt on par with a lot of major European cities with how abhorrently inaccessible it was.
One example of this is that recently I saw a Reddit discussion where a USAmerican vacationing in France was surprised at how many staircases didn’t have handrails, because according to this man handrails are required by law in the U.S.
The comments were all Europeans having an absolute field day with this. Pretty much all of the comments were some variation of “I can’t believe Americans are too stupid and lazy to use the stairs without a handrail 🤣🤣🤣 what’s wrong with you fat lazy stupid Americans that you can’t even use stairs without a handrail 🤣🤣🤣 thank GOD I was born in Europe where I was just taught how to walk up and down the stairs on my own and don’t need a handrail like a lazy fat stupid American 🤣🤣🤣”
A few people tried to gently point out that this was about accessibility for elderly and disabled people, and it’s not cool to laugh at building codes that are about accessibility, but those commenters were usually shut down with some variation of “yeah well in MY European country if someone is disabled or becomes elderly we either move to a more accessible building or we modify our home to be more accessible, we don’t sit around whining like a bunch of Americans that our building isn’t already accessible 🙄”
Which is, such a cruel way to talk about accessibility. Why wouldn’t disabled and elderly people deserve the same access to a building as anyone else? Are elderly and disabled people not allowed to visit friends and family? Anyone could get hit by a car today, and after that struggle with going up and down stairs without the use of a handrail for the next several months, years, possibly the rest of your life. It’s so easy to feel smug when you can easily trot up and down the stairs without a handrail, but so cruel to be unwilling to consider anyone who struggles with stairs should maybe be allowed access to the same places as you.
Honestly when I go on vacation abroad with my elderly + disabled mother, it’s often easier to go to the U.S. with her than other places in Europe, because the U.S. does tend to be more accessible (in my experience, and except for New York city ofc) making going around to different public places with my mom generally a lot easier than somewhere like France or the Netherlands.
It’s also part of the reason a lot of retired people in Iceland end up having to move abroad to live out their retirement. Of course the main reason for that is usually that the cost of living here is so ridiculously high most people can’t afford the cost of living on a pension. However for some the fact that Iceland is just not very accessible is part of that.
Out of all the things you could clown on the U.S. about, why you gotta go for accessibility of all things? It’s disgustingly ableist and ageist, and I have to wonder if these people actually just hate disabled people / accessible design, and are using the U.S. as an excuse to hate on disabled people and accessible design.
When I was a kid we were always taught to use a handrail when walking down the stairs to the point it feels weird to not have one when using stairs.
Because here’s the thing, a lot of disability accomodations are also safety features. Handrails on stairs make it significantly less likely even able-bodied people fall down the stairs when used.
Benches are protection against over exertion, ramps are less dangerous when wet. Disability aids help everyone not just the disabled. Disability accomodation is one of the few things the US is actually progressive on, don’t take that from us.
I was in England visiting a legally blind friend that uses a screenreader and he told me he was struggling to get a certification because the testing center would not let him use his screenreader. He talked about his many attempts to get an accomodation. I knew of the organization he was trying to get his cert from and said, that’s a U.S. company. I am positive they have an accessibility policy that includes that sort of accommodation*. He said they probably did but the local testing center was not going to allow that. I shrugged and said, then sue them. He was horrified and said, we don’t do that here. Later I was talking to some leftist friends in the UK and they were equally horrified by my deeply US American assertion that if an organization will not provide the accessibility you deserve, they should be forced to through this mechanism. I was horrified that self-proclaimed leftists think that a person should just stiff upper lip accept disability discrimination that wildly limits their career opportunities.
I’m with the USAmericans on this one, there was absolutely no reason to not provide that accommodation, and by refusing to allow a screen reader they were, as you said, limiting his career opportunities based on his disability. If they’re going to refuse to accommodate disabled people, why not force their hand? In this case it wouldn’t just be about your friend, but all the legally blind people after him who also deserve the same access to a career as anyone else.
It reminds me of how a co-worker of mine, a USAmerican woman married to an Icelandic man, was applying for Icelandic citizenship, and to apply for Icelandic citizenship she needed a document from the municipality proving that she’s never received any sort of government assistance like unemployment benefits.
So she goes to the municipality office, and they tell her they can’t help her or give her the document and she needs to come back with her Icelandic husband, and then they’ll give it to her. Super illegal btw, of course it’s illegal to deny giving a woman a document pertaining to her own records and tell her to come back with her Icelandic husband before they’d help her.
So she hired a lawyer and sued them. And then they gave her the document without her needing to bring her Icelandic husband with her, as they legally should have done in the first place, but didn’t because, well, let’s just say that women of foreign origin are often not treated kindly by Icelanders.
She said she didn’t really even do it for herself, her main motivation was wanting all women of foreign origin after her to be able to go into a government office, and retrieve their own legal documents that they legally have access to, without being discriminated against and being told they need to come back with their Icelandic husband.
A lot of Icelanders got huffy with her over this, telling her it’s “not the Icelandic way” to solve your problems by hiring a lawyer. But why should she have just settled for being discriminated against like that?
I grew up in the US and live in the UK now and the stiff upper lipped getting walked all over with a “thank you sir, may I have another” is absolutely a thing. I have long covid. So far:
- A GP I asked for a referral from outright denied that I had a health condition I have a diagnosis for and denied me the referral. I filed a complaint, which was dismissed by the GP practice. I’m sure this is in no way because the complaints are evaluated by the practice’s administrative management, in whose interest it is to not have complaints, because they lose funding if they admit to mistakes. So I escalated the complaint to the health service ombudsman, whose job it is to handle matters like this, who said they can’t do anything about this case because if part of my request is to have my medical record amended to overrule this GP’s notes that I don’t have the condition I clearly do have, then that’s a legal matter and I have to deal with it myself. Specifically, I have to hire a lawyer and take this doctor to court to request she change my record. They gave me no information on programs that allow free access to lawyers for people who can’t afford legal fees and had no further resources to offer. The expectation was that I accept the outcome and risk my condition being denied by any other doctors who see this GP’s appointment letter and notes. There were no repercussions for the GP. (When I told my in-laws, who are both doctors, that I was filing a complaint, they told me not to bother. British people genuinely can’t handle any kind of complaint, expression of concern, or stirring of the waters.)
- When I got covid (the second time) and was at risk for serious damage to my health because I already had long covid and a couple other conditions (that would have qualified me as vulnerable in most other countries but not under the UK guidelines) I requested antivirals. I was referred to a local clinic that could prescribe them, because the GP couldn’t. The doctor there said I qualified for them but she wanted to hold off for a day because she was worried it would trigger my IBS. I told her I didn’t care, but she said call back tomorrow if I’m still unwell. I was, in fact I was worse, but my GP wouldn’t put me through again saying I didn’t qualify for antivirals. They outright refused me. Over a year later, after I’d changed GP’s and the new practice switched to using the NHS app as their online portal, I logged on to check something and found, sitting in my open referrals, a referral for the antivirals I requested. It was literally in my medical record that I was entitled to them, and my GP practice denied me access. As a result, my long covid worsened significantly, I became disabled, couldn’t work, and over 2.5 years later I’m still not fully recovered. I’ve called half a dozen law practices who specialize in medical negligence, and none of them are willing to take this case on because it “wouldn’t be worth it.” Lawyers I was willing to pay in full out of pocket for their time.
- Last year I applied for a job with an org I’ve done contract work for before. When I did said contract work a few years ago, my job involved working with their volunteers, among other things - from weekly communications to retreat weekends to a week-long event the org put on annually. The job I applied for last year was one I was extremely well-qualified for and I made it to the final round of interviews. During my interviews I had to wear a facemask because of health reasons, and I was still using a cane to walk. When I didn’t get the job, the feedback I got was that I didn’t have enough experience working with volunteers. It seemed like a blatant and weak cover for the fact they didn’t want to hire a disabled person. This was all they had to do. People here don’t sue for things like this. With a weak excuse, I don’t even have grounds to file a complaint.
No one here gets challenged. The legal system exists to protect the status quo and has no exceptions for disabilities or discrimination thereof. And that is absolutely, unequivically, something that does exist in the US. For all its faults, it is a damn progressive country when it comes to disability protections. That’s not to say it doesn’t have a long way to go, but give credit where it’s due - when you compare the US to most other countries, this is one area where it’s much further ahead.
