Our Work

As part of our work with Gendered Intelligence on The Trans Dimension events listing site, we learned that there were a lot of event organisers wrestling with how to improve access to their spaces. This particularly arose with trans event organisers, who recognise that many in this community have additional access needs, and it is important that we make our events and gathering spaces as inclusive and welcoming as possible.

We worked with GI and the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People to put together a zine covering these areas, and in doing so, learned a lot about the breadth of what ‘access’ can mean.

The zine includes anecdotes of experiences that a number of people in the trans community have faced when attempting to attend events or spaces. GMCDP were also able to offer invaluable insight about what accessibility means, and how far it extends beyond just ramp access and disabled toilets.

Above all, the zine takes a non-carceral approach to accessibility, aiming to give organisers the tools and understanding to recognise that while completely universal accessibility is often impossible, a high standard of accessibility may well be more within their means than they had imagined. It ends with some questions organisers might want to ask themselves, to help consider how accessible their events are, from a range of perspectives. The goal of the zine is to help organisers think more deeply about accessibility, and offer them some starting tools for putting together a comprehensive access statement of their own.

We unveiled the zine at the launch night of the Trans Dimension website, and our designer also created some extremely cute pin badges to accompany the zine and website!