When it comes to disabled people, we as a society have a tendency to focus on disability rather than ability. When we speak about people with special needs, we immediately associate this with wheelchairs, visual impairment, mental conditions. However, it's crucial to recognise that disabled people across the world should never be defined by the things that they can't do.
A group of activists in Canada are spreading this very message, starting with a proposed International Symbol of Access. The Forward Movement, an organisation which aims to ignite healthy dialogue about disability and accessibility issues, presented a revamped design of the traditional wheelchair symbol to Toronto's council’s Accessibility Advisory Committee in early December.
In the hopes of reflecting the more active lifestyle of people with disabilities, the new accessibility symbol is not all that different to the one we all know but has a few key changes. Rather than the familiar rigid stick figure, which has become one of the most recognisable signs in the world, the new symbol depicts a figure leaning forward in a wheelchair, a revamp intended to focus on people's many abilities, rather than their disabilities.
The new symbol, attributed to Sara Hendren, Brian Glenney, and Tim Ferguson Sauder of The Accessible Icon Project, and produced by Ferguson Sauder’s agency asmallpercent, was presented to City Hall by Jonathan Silver, co-founder of The Forward Movement. Before his presentation, he spoke of the importance of the change, proudly explaining that there is no other symbol like it.
“A symbol is basically – it’s the brand, right?", he said. "Symbols communicate basic messaging – very instructive messaging like, ‘Here is an accessible entrance'. Symbols also can carry an emotional value as well. So they transmit a message… if they’re showing somebody who is stationary in a chair and looks like that person needs help and is focusing on that chair, then the message is communicated to us emotionally in a way where we feel very differently about persons with a disability.”
Expressing his hopes for the future of the symbol, Silver made it clear exactly he had hoped it would stand for, stating: “If that image portrays the sense of movement and activity and independence, then we’re going to get a different portrayal of persons with a disability.”
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Many present at the meeting supported the proposed change, claiming that it gives a voice to a global demographic that has been long been kept in the dark. Toronto Accessible Advisory Committee member Joe Knapper expressed his approval after the gathering, claiming that it gives a far better representation of disabled people than the one we currently have. He told Signal Toronto: “The [currently used] static image gives you the impression that people in wheelchairs just sit there, and don’t do anything. I like the idea that the symbol gives that sense that we might be in wheelchair, but we’re contributing in society, we’re participating in society, we’re moving forward too. People in chairs or whatever the disability is.”
The proposed amendment to the worldwide accepted symbol won't be too unfamiliar to certain Americans out there. The updated access symbol is officially used in the US states of New York and Connecticut, with cities such as Phoenix, El Paso and Texas also said to be on board back in 2015. However, that's not to say it hasn't divided opinion. In May 2015, the Federal Highway Administration rejected the new design for use on road signs in the United States, citing the fact that it had not been adopted or endorsed by the U.S. Access Board, the agency responsible for developing the federal criteria for accessible design. In addition, the International Organization for Standardization, which established the regular use of the original symbol, also rejected the new design.
So, what was the problem? The modernised symbol, which started out as a street art project, has came under sharp criticism in the past with many claiming it was representative of political correctness gone mad, heavily questioning why exactly the symbol had to be changed. However, it wasn't only these people who didn't approve of the new sign; it also met with disdain by many disabled people, who claimed that the new symbol made disability purely about the body, while ignoring the person inside.
Back in late 2015, Cathy Ludlum, a disability rights activist from Connecticut, spoke out against the revamp, claiming that the new design was insensitive towards people with serious disabilities. Ludlum, who has a neuromuscular disorder and controls her motorised wheelchair by using three fingers, said: "The old symbol leaves everything up to the imagination. The new symbol seems to say that independence has everything to do with the body, which it isn't. Independence is who you are inside."
So, what exactly is the new sign symbolising? Does it celebrate ability, or does it misrepresent disability in society? No matter what your opinion, there's no denying those who advocate the redesign have good intentions, even if they didn't quite get it right.
At the end of the day, we as a society need to put more effort into acknowledging the needs of disabled people, while also at the same time recognising that they are much more than their disability. No one should be judged by their health issues, but at the same time, nor should anyone be obliged to act as an inspiration, or as anything else that society chooses to name them as. Ultimately, they should be just them.
