What About “Nothing About Us Without Us?”
🔗 **Source:** [What About “Nothing About Us Without Us?”](https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/)
> [!note]+ Document Notes
> tags: [disability-rights, accessibility, technology]
> author: Anil Dash
> source: anildash.com
> reference: [https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/]
> date created: 2025-12-08 12:00
>
> # 🏷️ Title: What about “Nothing about us without us?”
>
<!-- deep-read:sections start -->
## 🧭 Table of Contents
- [📝 Summary](#-summary)
- [📖 Main Content](#-main-content)
- [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes)
- [📚 References](#-references)
- [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase)
- [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter)
- [✅ Action Items](#-action-items)
- [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses)
- [📊 Methodology](#-methodology)
- [❓ Questions](#-questions)
- [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research)
- [💡 Implications](#-implications)
- [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment)
- [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment)
- [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment)
- [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity)
- [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis)
- [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion)
### 🔗 References
- Include links cited in or relevant to the article.
## 📝 Summary
- What happened.
- Dash reflects on the disability-rights slogan “nothing about us without us,” connects it to tech design, and to his own temporary and invisible disabilities.
- Why it matters.
- He argues everyone will experience disability, so solidarity and centering disabled leadership is both morally necessary and practically urgent.
- Key stakeholders.
- Disabled people, tech creators, policymakers, employers, and nondisabled people who will eventually become disabled.
- Risks and tradeoffs.
- Patronizing or outsider-led “solutions” can harm disabled people and crowd out better approaches; ignoring eugenic politics and economic exclusion worsens outcomes.
- Bottom line.
- Center disabled people’s voices and leadership now; build empathy and shared advocacy before you personally need it.
## 📖 Main Content
- Dash distinguishes between his earlier piece about being able to “talk about us without us” (communication skills) and this essay, which focuses on the disability movement’s demand that policy, products, and advocacy center disabled people themselves.
- He honors Alice Wong and other disability advocates as key teachers of the slogan’s history and meaning, emphasizing that “nothing about us without us” is rooted in lived experience and movement-building, not a generic catchphrase.
- Using his Function podcast episode with Emily Ladau, Alex Haagaard, and Vilissa Thompson, he shows how disabled technologists offer “specific and personal insights that the creators of these technologies did not have” and how small changes could make tech more accessible for everyone.
- He stresses that the “us” in the slogan is ultimately everyone: disability is universal over a lifetime; the difference is only when and for how long. Treating disabled people as “other” is a psychological defense, not a moral or factual truth.
- Drawing on his own experiences with Lyme disease and later physical and cognitive challenges, Dash illustrates how invisible disabilities are dismissed and how people’s willingness to accommodate often depends on visibility and legibility to strangers.
- He is explicit that these experiences do not make him an expert or spokesperson; they instead highlight “how porous the boundary is” between those who identify as disabled and those who do not yet realize they are part of the community.
- In the closing section, he notes the “righteous rage” behind the slogan, especially in a context of eugenic policies, economic precarity, and disproportionate harm to disabled people. He calls for broad solidarity guided by disabled leaders and by faithfully applying “nothing about us without us.”
### 🗒️ Notes
- “Nothing about us without us” is rooted in disability-rights history as a response to outsiders deciding policy, care, and technology for disabled people without their leadership.
- Dash’s earlier essay on “They have to be able to talk about us without us” was about equipping others to communicate well about communities; here he draws a line between that and the need for self-determination and leadership by disabled people themselves.
- He foregrounds Alice Wong (Disability Visibility Project, MacArthur Fellow) as a central influence who “personified the spirit of ‘nothing about us without us’ by fighting to ensure that disabled people led the work to make the world accessible for all.”
- The Function podcast episode with Emily Ladau, Alex Haagaard, and Vilissa Thompson offered concrete examples of how contemporary tech is inaccessible and how modest changes could dramatically improve usability for disabled and nondisabled people.
- Dash notes that “each of them was the ‘us’ in the conversation,” drawing from community knowledge and lived experience, which product creators lack. This makes their input indispensable, whether one’s motivation is moral responsibility or business sense.
- A major conceptual shift: the “us” in the slogan is temporally universal—“everyone is disabled; it’s only a question of when and for how long.” This reframes accessibility as self-interest and shared fate, not charity.
- He critiques societal narratives that rationalize failing to meet needs, arguing they rely on casting disabled people as “other” and unworthy; people “who don’t (yet) identify as disabled” rarely talk honestly about this inevitability.
- His own health crises (Lyme disease; later physical and cognitive challenges) gave him “glimpses” of disability and exposed how unsettling cognitive change can be and how heavily accommodations depend on visible signals that fit stereotypes.
- He underlines that non-disabled experiences of temporary or partial disability do not authorize speaking for disabled people; rather, they should prompt earlier “empathy and solidarity,” before one is forced into the identity by circumstance.
- The closing “Everything about us” section ties the slogan to present threats: authoritarian, eugenicist politics; economic shocks that cut disabled people out of work; and the need for all of us to “stand in solidarity” under disabled leadership.
## 📚 References
- Anil Dash – “What about ‘Nothing about us without us?’” (https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/)
- Disability Visibility Project – founded by Alice Wong (https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/)
- Function podcast archive (accessibility & tech) – if available via Dash’s prior work
- Emily Ladau – “Demystifying Disability” (book / related accessibility writing)
- Vilissa Thompson – Ramp Your Voice (https://www.rampyourvoice.com/)
- The Disabled List – work by Alex Haagaard and collaborators on disability-led design
## 🗣️ Paraphrase
- Paragraph A paraphrase.
- Dash introduces the tension between his prior essay about others speaking well about a community and the disability-rights demand that disabled people lead when decisions concern them, grounding this in movement history and his relationships with activists.
- Paragraph B paraphrase.
- Through tech-accessibility stories, his own health experiences, and current political threats, he argues that disability will eventually touch everyone, so the only ethical and practical path is to follow disabled leadership and honor “nothing about us without us.”
## 📰 Newsletter
In today’s issue, we’re stepping slightly outside core WordPress topics to examine a principle that should shape how we build the web: “nothing about us without us.” Anil Dash’s latest essay unpacks the disability-rights slogan in the context of tech and lived experience, reminding us that accessibility is about shared fate, not checklists.
For WordPress builders, this is a call to center disabled contributors in decisions about core features, themes, and plugins. Before you ship that new UI pattern, ask: who’s at the table, and who’s directly affected? Pair WCAG audits with actual user feedback, prioritize accessible defaults in theme design, and invite disabled community members into product-roadmap and testing conversations.
A few starting points: revisit your theme’s color contrast, keyboard navigation, and focus states; add real-world accessibility testing to your release process; and consider sponsoring or collaborating with disability-led projects. A more accessible WordPress ecosystem is better for everyone—and we’ll all need it sooner than we think.
## ✅ Action Items
#### DevRel
- Developer advocacy: Co-create accessibility talks and demos with disabled speakers; highlight disability-led plugins and themes with clear metrics (adoption, reduced support tickets).
- Education: Build accessibility curricula that include disabled guest instructors; run office hours focused on real-world assistive-technology workflows.
- Developer experience: Provide accessible starter themes, ARIA patterns, and copy-paste examples; create quickstarts for adding alt text, focus management, and semantic structure.
- Developer marketing: Run campaigns that feature disabled creators as first-person voices; track impact via engagement with accessibility resources.
- Community management: Enforce CoC protections around ableism; add accessibility questions to community surveys and act on feedback.
- Internal/external/cross-project: Align roadmaps so accessibility regressions are treated as release blockers; establish feedback loops with disability organizations.
#### OSPO
- Policy & Governance: Require “nothing about us without us” representation in governance bodies where accessibility decisions are made.
- License Compliance: Include accessibility-related license obligations (e.g., for icon sets, fonts) in reviews and training.
- Security Management: Treat accessibility-breaking changes as stability/security risks for some users; integrate into incident response.
- Software Inventory: Track accessibility-critical dependencies and ensure timely updates (screen reader compatibility, a11y libraries).
- Developer Support: Offer consultation hours on accessibility and disability-inclusive governance.
- Community Engagement: Fund disability-led upstream projects and formalize collaboration via MoUs.
- Strategic Alignment: Add accessibility KPIs and disability representation metrics to OSPO dashboards.
#### Community
- Maintainers: Hold roadmap clinics that prioritize accessibility issues raised by disabled users; formalize accessible release checklists.
- Contributors: Create clear accessibility-onboarding paths and pair new contributors with experienced a11y reviewers.
- Sponsors: Earmark budget for accessibility audits led by disabled consultants; publish transparent impact reports.
- Ecosystem: Coordinate incident drills for major regressions affecting assistive-tech users; share learnings across projects.
#### WordPress
- Core: Prioritize accessibility regressions in triage; make “does this work with assistive tech?” a standard acceptance criterion.
- Core Performance: Ensure performance optimizations don’t break or bypass accessibility hooks (e.g., skeleton UIs still screen-reader-friendly).
- Core AI: Embed responsible AI guidelines that avoid ableist outputs and respect disabled users’ data and agency.
- **Core Program Team:** Schedule regular accessibility check-ins across teams; treat disabled contributors as key stakeholders.
- Mobile: Improve screen-reader support, dynamic type, and offline accessibility flows.
- Playground: Provide accessibility test scenarios and labs that simulate common impairments.
- Community: Include accessibility tracks and disability-led sessions at meetups and WordCamps; support remote participation.
- Training: Build structured learning paths on accessibility for devs, designers, and content creators.
- Marketing: Highlight accessibility success stories and disabled creators in WordPress campaigns.
- Support: Document common accessibility issues and respectful support patterns for invisible disabilities.
- Design: Run UX audits with disabled users; standardize accessible design tokens.
- Documentation: Add “accessibility considerations” sections to DevHub and HelpHub pages.
- Photos: Curate inclusive imagery with accurate alt text, including representation of disability.
- TV: Enforce caption quality and encourage transcripts for all videos.
- Polyglots: Ensure accessibility terminology is consistently translated and culturally relevant.
- Accessibility: Maintain WCAG-aligned issue heatmaps; set a regular audit cadence with disabled testers.
- Meta: Ensure WordPress.org and related tools meet high accessibility standards.
- CLI: Provide accessible scaffolds and docs (e.g., clear language, examples).
- Hosting: Encourage hosts to adopt accessible default themes and onboarding flows.
- Tide: Consider accessibility signals in scoring; create feedback loops with plugin authors.
- Openverse: Ensure search, filters, and previews are accessible; highlight disability-related media respectfully.
- Themes: Add accessibility-ready checks and mentoring for theme authors.
- Plugins: Improve review processes for accessibility; flag plugins that may introduce barriers.
#### The WPOCC
- Programs: Offer stipends and fellowships for disabled maintainers and educators.
- Projects: Run governance clinics that include disability-rights perspectives.
- Funding experiments: Pilot microgrants for accessibility work with transparent criteria and reporting.
### FAIR
- Technical independence: Support local accessibility testing tools and store provenance for accessibility-related changes.
- Policies and covenants: Add anti-eugenics, anti-ableism commitments to funding and governance covenants.
- Productized governance artifacts: Publish templates for accessibility charters and operator agreements that embed “nothing about us without us.”
## 🧪 Hypotheses
- H1: Projects that include disabled people in leadership roles produce more accessible and widely usable products than those that do not.
- H2: People who have experienced temporary or invisible disability show higher long-term support for accessibility policies.
- H3: Tech teams that adopt disability-led accessibility practices reduce support burden and increase user satisfaction.
- H4: Public exposure to disability-rights narratives (like Dash’s essay) increases acceptance of disability as a universal lifecycle condition.
- H5: Economic downturns disproportionately reduce employment opportunities for disabled people compared to nondisabled people.
### 📊 Methodology
- For H1: Comparative case studies of software projects; measure accessibility defects, user satisfaction, and presence of disabled leaders.
- For H2: Longitudinal surveys tracking personal health histories, attitudes toward disability policy, and behavior (voting, advocacy).
- For H3: Controlled trials where some teams adopt disability-led accessibility processes; compare support tickets, NPS, retention.
- For H4: Randomized exposure to disability-rights essays vs neutral content; measure attitude changes using validated scales.
- For H5: Analyze labor-market data across economic cycles; compare employment rates and layoff patterns for disabled vs nondisabled workers.
### ❓ Questions
- How can organizations operationalize “nothing about us without us” beyond token advisory roles?
- What structures best prevent accessibility from being deprioritized under financial pressure?
- How does the experience of invisible disability change people’s perception of workplace policies?
- Which incentives most effectively move tech companies toward disability-led accessibility practices?
- How can open-source communities systematically recruit and support disabled leadership?
### 🔮 Future Research
- Detailed ethnographies of disabled technologists participating in product design and governance.
- Metrics and dashboards that fairly capture accessibility quality without reducing it to checklists.
- Research on narrative framing that most effectively shifts disability from “other” to shared identity.
- Studies on the impact of eugenic rhetoric on disabled people’s mental health and civic engagement.
- Evaluation of funding models that put disabled-led organizations in the driver’s seat for accessibility work.
### 💡 Implications
- Practice: Teams should embed disabled contributors in decision-making, testing, and governance, not just consult them post hoc.
- Policy: Disability-rights principles must inform AI, public health, and labor regulations, especially in crisis planning.
- Security: Treat accessibility disruptions as availability and safety issues for disabled users.
- Education: Curricula for designers and developers should include disability history and movement perspectives.
- Funding models: Shift resources to disability-led initiatives rather than outsider-designed “solutions.”
### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment
- Reading level estimate: Around 10th–11th grade (Flesch–Kincaid style complexity: long sentences, abstract concepts).
#### 👀 Visual learners
- Present: Clear sectioning and conceptual contrasts (e.g., visible vs invisible disability).
- Improve: Add diagrams showing lifecourse disability, and flows from disabled input to design decisions.
#### 🔊 Aural learners
- Present: References to podcast discussions about accessibility.
- Improve: Provide a short audio summary of the essay and related conversations.
#### 🗣️ Verbal learners
- Present: Strong slogans and narrative; definitions implied via examples.
- Improve: Add an explicit glossary for key terms (e.g., eugenicist, accessibility).
#### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners
- Present: Actionable ideas (change tech design, advocacy).
- Improve: Offer step-by-step exercises (e.g., audit a product with disabled users).
#### 🧠 Logical learners
- Present: Clear causal chains (outsider-designed solutions → harm; disabled leadership → better outcomes).
- Improve: Add tables or decision trees for accessibility prioritization.
#### 🧑🤝🧑 Social learners
- Present: Emphasis on community, solidarity, and leadership.
- Improve: Provide discussion prompts and group activities around accessibility.
#### 🧘♀️ Solitary learners
- Present: Reflective tone and personal anecdotes.
- Improve: Include explicit reflection questions for readers’ own experiences.
#### 🌿 Naturalistic learners
- Present: Indirect (connection to broad social ecosystems).
- Improve: Tie disability and accessibility to broader social and infrastructural “ecosystems” and resilience.
### 📊 Accessibility Assessment
#### Screen reader semantics
- Present: Likely solid basic HTML structure on anildash.com.
- Improve: Ensure headings are hierarchical and alt text is descriptive.
#### Keyboard navigation
- Present: Standard blog layout often keyboard-usable.
- Improve: Verify all interactive elements are reachable and clearly focused.
#### Contrast and readability
- Present: Typical blog typography is likely acceptable.
- Improve: Confirm 4.5:1 contrast, adequate line spacing, and font size.
#### Text resizing and reflow
- Present: Responsive design likely.
- Improve: Test at 200% zoom; respect prefers-reduced-motion.
#### Media and captions
- Present: Primarily text; external podcast episode has its own accessibility profile.
- Improve: Provide transcripts and avoid autoplay media where embedded.
#### Forms and interactions
- Present: Minimal (newsletter/comments).
- Improve: Ensure labels, error messages, and hit targets meet WCAG 2.2 AA.
#### Standards reference
- Map gaps to WCAG 2.2 AA criteria on perceivable (1.1–1.4), operable (2.1–2.5), understandable (3.1–3.3), and robust (4.1).
### 🌍 DEIB Assessment
#### Cultural breadth
- Present: Focus on disability in a mostly US/Western tech context.
- Improve: Include global disability perspectives and non-US policy examples.
#### Inclusive language
- Present: Respectful, non-patronizing language; explicit rejection of eugenic framing.
- Improve: Add more explicit definitions for readers new to disability discourse.
#### Neurodiversity support
- Present: Discussion of cognitive changes and invisible disability.
- Improve: More explicit reference to neurodiverse experiences and accommodations.
#### Representation
- Present: Highlights disabled leaders (Alice Wong, Ladau, Haagaard, Thompson).
- Improve: Broaden to include more diverse global and intersectional examples.
#### Psychological safety
- Present: Validates disabled experiences and anger; warns of eugenic politics.
- Improve: Add content warnings where needed and pointers to support resources.
### ✅ Logical Validity
#### Strong reasoning
- Inductive strength: Uses personal experience plus multiple advocates’ insights to generalize about why disabled leadership matters; acknowledges limits of his own perspective.
- Causal reasoning: Connects outsider-designed solutions to specific harms and misallocations, and disability-led design to better alignment with real needs.
- Temporal framing: Argues that because disability is inevitable over time, accessibility is a universal concern; this is logically consistent and intuitive.
#### Fallacies
- No obvious major fallacies; claims are modest and grounded. Some generalizations about “everyone is disabled” are rhetorical but framed as temporal and probabilistic rather than absolute.
#### Tone of voice
- Reflective, respectful, and insistent. The tone blends personal vulnerability with firm political clarity, especially regarding eugenics and economic exclusion.
### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis
- Deny: The essay does not deny harm; it foregrounds historical and ongoing harms to disabled people.
- Attack: There is critique of “authoritarians” and eugenic policies, but not ad hominem attacks on victims or advocates.
- Reverse victim/offender: Dash explicitly avoids positioning himself as the primary victim; he stresses that his experiences do not equate to those of people with serious disabilities and emphasizes disabled people as leaders and primary stakeholders.
## 🎯 Conclusion
Dash’s essay deepens the meaning of “nothing about us without us” by tying it to disability-led design, universal and often invisible disability, and the current political moment. For readers—especially in tech—practical next steps include centering disabled leadership in decision-making, treating accessibility as a core requirement, and building solidarity and empathy now rather than waiting until disability becomes personally unavoidable.
## 🧱 Refactor Appendix (append after 🎯 Conclusion)
### 📚 Literature Split Pad
- Purpose: Stage Konik CEE units that become per-source Literature notes.
- Split level: **H3**.
- Include verbatim quotes under 25 words and a [view highlight] link.
### [H1] Disability leadership improves tech accessibility
> [!quote] [What about “Nothing about us without us?”](https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/) by [[Anil Dash]] via [[anildash.com]]. Published 2025-12-08. Accessed 2025-12-08.
> “Each of them was the ‘us’ in the conversation…to offer specific and personal insights that the creators of these technologies did not have.”
Two lines: Dash shows how disabled technologists provide insights non-disabled creators lack. Use to justify disability-led design in software projects.
[view highlight](https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/) #xref #articleseed ID:rw_[MISSING]
### [H2] Everyone eventually experiences disability
> [!quote] [What about “Nothing about us without us?”](https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/)
> “It’s very hard for many people who haven’t experienced it to understand that everyone should be accommodated and supported, because everyone is disabled; it’s only a question of when and for how long.”
Two lines: Frames disability as a universal lifecycle condition, not an exception. Use to motivate broad-based accessibility and solidarity.
[view highlight](https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/) #xref ID:rw_[MISSING]
---
### 🔖 Atomic Split Pad (Zettel Candidates)
- Purpose: Promote reusable claims into Atomic notes.
- Split level: **H4**.
- Each item: one idea, present tense, specific, testable.
#### [Z1] Disability-led design improves accessibility outcomes
- Scope/condition in one line.
- Pointer to page/time or dataset.
- Links: [[Accessibility]] [[Software-Design]]
#### [Z2] Disability is a universal lifecycle condition
- Scope/condition in one line.
- Pointer to page/time or dataset.
- Links: [[Disability-Studies]] [[Health-Over-Lifespan]]
---
### ✏️ Fleeting Queue (Extract by Selection)
- Purpose: Capture quick actions or sparks for Fleeting notes.
- Extraction: **Select one line** → “Refactor: Extract selection to new note (content only).”
- Keep each line short and self-contained.
- [F1] Map where my projects violate “nothing about us without us”—start an audit./https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/ #fleeting #inbox
- [F2] Identify disabled collaborators to co-lead upcoming accessibility work./https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/ #fleeting #inbox
- [F3] Draft a team session on disability as a universal lifecycle condition./https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/ #fleeting #inbox
---
<!-- deep-read:sections end -->
[[3. Resources/Readwise/Full Document Contents/Articles/What About “Nothing About Us Without Us”|Full Document Contents]]
## Document Notes
---
tags: #disability-rights #accessibility #technology
author: Anil Dash
source: anildash.com
reference: [https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/]
date created: 2025-12-08 12:00
---
# 🏷️ Title: What about “Nothing about us without us?”
## 🧭 Table of Contents
- [[#📝 Summary]]
- [[#📖 Main Content]]
- [[#🗒️ Notes]]
- [[#📚 References]]
- [[#🗣️ Paraphrase]]
- [[#📰 Newsletter]]
- [[#✅ Action Items]]
- [[#🧪 Hypotheses]]
- [[#📊 Methodology]]
- [[#❓ Questions]]
- [[#🔮 Future Research]]
- [[#💡 Implications]]
- [[#🧠 Learning Styles Assessment]]
- [[#📊 Accessibility Assessment]]
- [[#🌍 DEIB Assessment]]
- [[#✅ Logical Validity]]
- [[#🛡️ DARVO Analysis]]
- [[#🎯 Conclusion]]
### 🔗 References
- Include links cited in or relevant to the article.
## 📝 Summary
- What happened.
- Dash reflects on the disability-rights slogan “nothing about us without us,” connects it to tech design, and to his own temporary and invisible disabilities.
- Why it matters.
- He argues everyone will experience disability, so solidarity and centering disabled leadership is both morally necessary and practically urgent.
- Key stakeholders.
- Disabled people, tech creators, policymakers, employers, and nondisabled people who will eventually become disabled.
- Risks and tradeoffs.
- Patronizing or outsider-led “solutions” can harm disabled people and crowd out better approaches; ignoring eugenic politics and economic exclusion worsens outcomes.
- Bottom line.
- Center disabled people’s voices and leadership now; build empathy and shared advocacy before you personally need it.
## 📖 Main Content
- Dash distinguishes between his earlier piece about being able to “talk about us without us” (communication skills) and this essay, which focuses on the disability movement’s demand that policy, products, and advocacy center disabled people themselves.
- He honors Alice Wong and other disability advocates as key teachers of the slogan’s history and meaning, emphasizing that “nothing about us without us” is rooted in lived experience and movement-building, not a generic catchphrase.
- Using his Function podcast episode with Emily Ladau, Alex Haagaard, and Vilissa Thompson, he shows how disabled technologists offer “specific and personal insights that the creators of these technologies did not have” and how small changes could make tech more accessible for everyone.
- He stresses that the “us” in the slogan is ultimately everyone: disability is universal over a lifetime; the difference is only when and for how long. Treating disabled people as “other” is a psychological defense, not a moral or factual truth.
- Drawing on his own experiences with Lyme disease and later physical and cognitive challenges, Dash illustrates how invisible disabilities are dismissed and how people’s willingness to accommodate often depends on visibility and legibility to strangers.
- He is explicit that these experiences do not make him an expert or spokesperson; they instead highlight “how porous the boundary is” between those who identify as disabled and those who do not yet realize they are part of the community.
- In the closing section, he notes the “righteous rage” behind the slogan, especially in a context of eugenic policies, economic precarity, and disproportionate harm to disabled people. He calls for broad solidarity guided by disabled leaders and by faithfully applying “nothing about us without us.”
### 🗒️ Notes
- “Nothing about us without us” is rooted in disability-rights history as a response to outsiders deciding policy, care, and technology for disabled people without their leadership.
- Dash’s earlier essay on “They have to be able to talk about us without us” was about equipping others to communicate well about communities; here he draws a line between that and the need for self-determination and leadership by disabled people themselves.
- He foregrounds Alice Wong (Disability Visibility Project, MacArthur Fellow) as a central influence who “personified the spirit of ‘nothing about us without us’ by fighting to ensure that disabled people led the work to make the world accessible for all.”
- The Function podcast episode with Emily Ladau, Alex Haagaard, and Vilissa Thompson offered concrete examples of how contemporary tech is inaccessible and how modest changes could dramatically improve usability for disabled and nondisabled people.
- Dash notes that “each of them was the ‘us’ in the conversation,” drawing from community knowledge and lived experience, which product creators lack. This makes their input indispensable, whether one’s motivation is moral responsibility or business sense.
- A major conceptual shift: the “us” in the slogan is temporally universal—“everyone is disabled; it’s only a question of when and for how long.” This reframes accessibility as self-interest and shared fate, not charity.
- He critiques societal narratives that rationalize failing to meet needs, arguing they rely on casting disabled people as “other” and unworthy; people “who don’t (yet) identify as disabled” rarely talk honestly about this inevitability.
- His own health crises (Lyme disease; later physical and cognitive challenges) gave him “glimpses” of disability and exposed how unsettling cognitive change can be and how heavily accommodations depend on visible signals that fit stereotypes.
- He underlines that non-disabled experiences of temporary or partial disability do not authorize speaking for disabled people; rather, they should prompt earlier “empathy and solidarity,” before one is forced into the identity by circumstance.
- The closing “Everything about us” section ties the slogan to present threats: authoritarian, eugenicist politics; economic shocks that cut disabled people out of work; and the need for all of us to “stand in solidarity” under disabled leadership.
## 📚 References
- Anil Dash – “What about ‘Nothing about us without us?’” (https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/)
- Disability Visibility Project – founded by Alice Wong (https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/)
- Function podcast archive (accessibility & tech) – if available via Dash’s prior work
- Emily Ladau – “Demystifying Disability” (book / related accessibility writing)
- Vilissa Thompson – Ramp Your Voice (https://www.rampyourvoice.com/)
- The Disabled List – work by Alex Haagaard and collaborators on disability-led design
## 🗣️ Paraphrase
- Paragraph A paraphrase.
- Dash introduces the tension between his prior essay about others speaking well about a community and the disability-rights demand that disabled people lead when decisions concern them, grounding this in movement history and his relationships with activists.
- Paragraph B paraphrase.
- Through tech-accessibility stories, his own health experiences, and current political threats, he argues that disability will eventually touch everyone, so the only ethical and practical path is to follow disabled leadership and honor “nothing about us without us.”
## 📰 Newsletter
In today’s issue, we’re stepping slightly outside core WordPress topics to examine a principle that should shape how we build the web: “nothing about us without us.” Anil Dash’s latest essay unpacks the disability-rights slogan in the context of tech and lived experience, reminding us that accessibility is about shared fate, not checklists.
For WordPress builders, this is a call to center disabled contributors in decisions about core features, themes, and plugins. Before you ship that new UI pattern, ask: who’s at the table, and who’s directly affected? Pair WCAG audits with actual user feedback, prioritize accessible defaults in theme design, and invite disabled community members into product-roadmap and testing conversations.
A few starting points: revisit your theme’s color contrast, keyboard navigation, and focus states; add real-world accessibility testing to your release process; and consider sponsoring or collaborating with disability-led projects. A more accessible WordPress ecosystem is better for everyone—and we’ll all need it sooner than we think.
## ✅ Action Items
#### DevRel
- Developer advocacy: Co-create accessibility talks and demos with disabled speakers; highlight disability-led plugins and themes with clear metrics (adoption, reduced support tickets).
- Education: Build accessibility curricula that include disabled guest instructors; run office hours focused on real-world assistive-technology workflows.
- Developer experience: Provide accessible starter themes, ARIA patterns, and copy-paste examples; create quickstarts for adding alt text, focus management, and semantic structure.
- Developer marketing: Run campaigns that feature disabled creators as first-person voices; track impact via engagement with accessibility resources.
- Community management: Enforce CoC protections around ableism; add accessibility questions to community surveys and act on feedback.
- Internal/external/cross-project: Align roadmaps so accessibility regressions are treated as release blockers; establish feedback loops with disability organizations.
#### OSPO
- Policy & Governance: Require “nothing about us without us” representation in governance bodies where accessibility decisions are made.
- License Compliance: Include accessibility-related license obligations (e.g., for icon sets, fonts) in reviews and training.
- Security Management: Treat accessibility-breaking changes as stability/security risks for some users; integrate into incident response.
- Software Inventory: Track accessibility-critical dependencies and ensure timely updates (screen reader compatibility, a11y libraries).
- Developer Support: Offer consultation hours on accessibility and disability-inclusive governance.
- Community Engagement: Fund disability-led upstream projects and formalize collaboration via MoUs.
- Strategic Alignment: Add accessibility KPIs and disability representation metrics to OSPO dashboards.
#### Community
- Maintainers: Hold roadmap clinics that prioritize accessibility issues raised by disabled users; formalize accessible release checklists.
- Contributors: Create clear accessibility-onboarding paths and pair new contributors with experienced a11y reviewers.
- Sponsors: Earmark budget for accessibility audits led by disabled consultants; publish transparent impact reports.
- Ecosystem: Coordinate incident drills for major regressions affecting assistive-tech users; share learnings across projects.
#### WordPress
- Core: Prioritize accessibility regressions in triage; make “does this work with assistive tech?” a standard acceptance criterion.
- Core Performance: Ensure performance optimizations don’t break or bypass accessibility hooks (e.g., skeleton UIs still screen-reader-friendly).
- Core AI: Embed responsible AI guidelines that avoid ableist outputs and respect disabled users’ data and agency.
- **Core Program Team:** Schedule regular accessibility check-ins across teams; treat disabled contributors as key stakeholders.
- Mobile: Improve screen-reader support, dynamic type, and offline accessibility flows.
- Playground: Provide accessibility test scenarios and labs that simulate common impairments.
- Community: Include accessibility tracks and disability-led sessions at meetups and WordCamps; support remote participation.
- Training: Build structured learning paths on accessibility for devs, designers, and content creators.
- Marketing: Highlight accessibility success stories and disabled creators in WordPress campaigns.
- Support: Document common accessibility issues and respectful support patterns for invisible disabilities.
- Design: Run UX audits with disabled users; standardize accessible design tokens.
- Documentation: Add “accessibility considerations” sections to DevHub and HelpHub pages.
- Photos: Curate inclusive imagery with accurate alt text, including representation of disability.
- TV: Enforce caption quality and encourage transcripts for all videos.
- Polyglots: Ensure accessibility terminology is consistently translated and culturally relevant.
- Accessibility: Maintain WCAG-aligned issue heatmaps; set a regular audit cadence with disabled testers.
- Meta: Ensure WordPress.org and related tools meet high accessibility standards.
- CLI: Provide accessible scaffolds and docs (e.g., clear language, examples).
- Hosting: Encourage hosts to adopt accessible default themes and onboarding flows.
- Tide: Consider accessibility signals in scoring; create feedback loops with plugin authors.
- Openverse: Ensure search, filters, and previews are accessible; highlight disability-related media respectfully.
- Themes: Add accessibility-ready checks and mentoring for theme authors.
- Plugins: Improve review processes for accessibility; flag plugins that may introduce barriers.
#### The WPCC
- Programs: Offer stipends and fellowships for disabled maintainers and educators.
- Projects: Run governance clinics that include disability-rights perspectives.
- Funding experiments: Pilot microgrants for accessibility work with transparent criteria and reporting.
### FAIR
- Technical independence: Support local accessibility testing tools and store provenance for accessibility-related changes.
- Policies and covenants: Add anti-eugenics, anti-ableism commitments to funding and governance covenants.
- Productized governance artifacts: Publish templates for accessibility charters and operator agreements that embed “nothing about us without us.”
## 🧪 Hypotheses
- H1: Projects that include disabled people in leadership roles produce more accessible and widely usable products than those that do not.
- H2: People who have experienced temporary or invisible disability show higher long-term support for accessibility policies.
- H3: Tech teams that adopt disability-led accessibility practices reduce support burden and increase user satisfaction.
- H4: Public exposure to disability-rights narratives (like Dash’s essay) increases acceptance of disability as a universal lifecycle condition.
- H5: Economic downturns disproportionately reduce employment opportunities for disabled people compared to nondisabled people.
### 📊 Methodology
- For H1: Comparative case studies of software projects; measure accessibility defects, user satisfaction, and presence of disabled leaders.
- For H2: Longitudinal surveys tracking personal health histories, attitudes toward disability policy, and behavior (voting, advocacy).
- For H3: Controlled trials where some teams adopt disability-led accessibility processes; compare support tickets, NPS, retention.
- For H4: Randomized exposure to disability-rights essays vs neutral content; measure attitude changes using validated scales.
- For H5: Analyze labor-market data across economic cycles; compare employment rates and layoff patterns for disabled vs nondisabled workers.
### ❓ Questions
- How can organizations operationalize “nothing about us without us” beyond token advisory roles?
- What structures best prevent accessibility from being deprioritized under financial pressure?
- How does the experience of invisible disability change people’s perception of workplace policies?
- Which incentives most effectively move tech companies toward disability-led accessibility practices?
- How can open-source communities systematically recruit and support disabled leadership?
### 🔮 Future Research
- Detailed ethnographies of disabled technologists participating in product design and governance.
- Metrics and dashboards that fairly capture accessibility quality without reducing it to checklists.
- Research on narrative framing that most effectively shifts disability from “other” to shared identity.
- Studies on the impact of eugenic rhetoric on disabled people’s mental health and civic engagement.
- Evaluation of funding models that put disabled-led organizations in the driver’s seat for accessibility work.
### 💡 Implications
- Practice: Teams should embed disabled contributors in decision-making, testing, and governance, not just consult them post hoc.
- Policy: Disability-rights principles must inform AI, public health, and labor regulations, especially in crisis planning.
- Security: Treat accessibility disruptions as availability and safety issues for disabled users.
- Education: Curricula for designers and developers should include disability history and movement perspectives.
- Funding models: Shift resources to disability-led initiatives rather than outsider-designed “solutions.”
### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment
- Reading level estimate: Around 10th–11th grade (Flesch–Kincaid style complexity: long sentences, abstract concepts).
#### 👀 Visual learners
- Present: Clear sectioning and conceptual contrasts (e.g., visible vs invisible disability).
- Improve: Add diagrams showing lifecourse disability, and flows from disabled input to design decisions.
#### 🔊 Aural learners
- Present: References to podcast discussions about accessibility.
- Improve: Provide a short audio summary of the essay and related conversations.
#### 🗣️ Verbal learners
- Present: Strong slogans and narrative; definitions implied via examples.
- Improve: Add an explicit glossary for key terms (e.g., eugenicist, accessibility).
#### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners
- Present: Actionable ideas (change tech design, advocacy).
- Improve: Offer step-by-step exercises (e.g., audit a product with disabled users).
#### 🧠 Logical learners
- Present: Clear causal chains (outsider-designed solutions → harm; disabled leadership → better outcomes).
- Improve: Add tables or decision trees for accessibility prioritization.
#### 🧑🤝🧑 Social learners
- Present: Emphasis on community, solidarity, and leadership.
- Improve: Provide discussion prompts and group activities around accessibility.
#### 🧘♀️ Solitary learners
- Present: Reflective tone and personal anecdotes.
- Improve: Include explicit reflection questions for readers’ own experiences.
#### 🌿 Naturalistic learners
- Present: Indirect (connection to broad social ecosystems).
- Improve: Tie disability and accessibility to broader social and infrastructural “ecosystems” and resilience.
### 📊 Accessibility Assessment
#### Screen reader semantics
- Present: Likely solid basic HTML structure on anildash.com.
- Improve: Ensure headings are hierarchical and alt text is descriptive.
#### Keyboard navigation
- Present: Standard blog layout often keyboard-usable.
- Improve: Verify all interactive elements are reachable and clearly focused.
#### Contrast and readability
- Present: Typical blog typography is likely acceptable.
- Improve: Confirm 4.5:1 contrast, adequate line spacing, and font size.
#### Text resizing and reflow
- Present: Responsive design likely.
- Improve: Test at 200% zoom; respect prefers-reduced-motion.
#### Media and captions
- Present: Primarily text; external podcast episode has its own accessibility profile.
- Improve: Provide transcripts and avoid autoplay media where embedded.
#### Forms and interactions
- Present: Minimal (newsletter/comments).
- Improve: Ensure labels, error messages, and hit targets meet WCAG 2.2 AA.
#### Standards reference
- Map gaps to WCAG 2.2 AA criteria on perceivable (1.1–1.4), operable (2.1–2.5), understandable (3.1–3.3), and robust (4.1).
### 🌍 DEIB Assessment
#### Cultural breadth
- Present: Focus on disability in a mostly US/Western tech context.
- Improve: Include global disability perspectives and non-US policy examples.
#### Inclusive language
- Present: Respectful, non-patronizing language; explicit rejection of eugenic framing.
- Improve: Add more explicit definitions for readers new to disability discourse.
#### Neurodiversity support
- Present: Discussion of cognitive changes and invisible disability.
- Improve: More explicit reference to neurodiverse experiences and accommodations.
#### Representation
- Present: Highlights disabled leaders (Alice Wong, Ladau, Haagaard, Thompson).
- Improve: Broaden to include more diverse global and intersectional examples.
#### Psychological safety
- Present: Validates disabled experiences and anger; warns of eugenic politics.
- Improve: Add content warnings where needed and pointers to support resources.
### ✅ Logical Validity
#### Strong reasoning
- Inductive strength: Uses personal experience plus multiple advocates’ insights to generalize about why disabled leadership matters; acknowledges limits of his own perspective.
- Causal reasoning: Connects outsider-designed solutions to specific harms and misallocations, and disability-led design to better alignment with real needs.
- Temporal framing: Argues that because disability is inevitable over time, accessibility is a universal concern; this is logically consistent and intuitive.
#### Fallacies
- No obvious major fallacies; claims are modest and grounded. Some generalizations about “everyone is disabled” are rhetorical but framed as temporal and probabilistic rather than absolute.
#### Tone of voice
- Reflective, respectful, and insistent. The tone blends personal vulnerability with firm political clarity, especially regarding eugenics and economic exclusion.
### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis
- Deny: The essay does not deny harm; it foregrounds historical and ongoing harms to disabled people.
- Attack: There is critique of “authoritarians” and eugenic policies, but not ad hominem attacks on victims or advocates.
- Reverse victim/offender: Dash explicitly avoids positioning himself as the primary victim; he stresses that his experiences do not equate to those of people with serious disabilities and emphasizes disabled people as leaders and primary stakeholders.
## 🎯 Conclusion
Dash’s essay deepens the meaning of “nothing about us without us” by tying it to disability-led design, universal and often invisible disability, and the current political moment. For readers—especially in tech—practical next steps include centering disabled leadership in decision-making, treating accessibility as a core requirement, and building solidarity and empathy now rather than waiting until disability becomes personally unavoidable.
## 🧱 Refactor Appendix (append after 🎯 Conclusion)
### 📚 Literature Split Pad
- Purpose: Stage Konik CEE units that become per-source Literature notes.
- Split level: **H3**.
- Include verbatim quotes under 25 words and a [view highlight] link.
### [H1] Disability leadership improves tech accessibility
> [!quote] [What about “Nothing about us without us?”](https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/) by [[Anil Dash]] via [[anildash.com]]. Published 2025-12-08. Accessed 2025-12-08.
> “Each of them was the ‘us’ in the conversation…to offer specific and personal insights that the creators of these technologies did not have.”
Two lines: Dash shows how disabled technologists provide insights non-disabled creators lack. Use to justify disability-led design in software projects.
[view highlight](https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/) #xref #articleseed ID:rw_[MISSING]
### [H2] Everyone eventually experiences disability
> [!quote] [What about “Nothing about us without us?”](https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/)
> “It’s very hard for many people who haven’t experienced it to understand that everyone should be accommodated and supported, because everyone is disabled; it’s only a question of when and for how long.”
Two lines: Frames disability as a universal lifecycle condition, not an exception. Use to motivate broad-based accessibility and solidarity.
[view highlight](https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/) #xref ID:rw_[MISSING]
---
### 🔖 Atomic Split Pad (Zettel Candidates)
- Purpose: Promote reusable claims into Atomic notes.
- Split level: **H4**.
- Each item: one idea, present tense, specific, testable.
#### [Z1] Disability-led design improves accessibility outcomes
- Scope/condition in one line.
- Pointer to page/time or dataset.
- Links: [[Accessibility]] [[Software-Design]]
#### [Z2] Disability is a universal lifecycle condition
- Scope/condition in one line.
- Pointer to page/time or dataset.
- Links: [[Disability-Studies]] [[Health-Over-Lifespan]]
---
### ✏️ Fleeting Queue (Extract by Selection)
- Purpose: Capture quick actions or sparks for Fleeting notes.
- Extraction: **Select one line** → “Refactor: Extract selection to new note (content only).”
- Keep each line short and self-contained.
- [F1] Map where my projects violate “nothing about us without us”—start an audit./https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/ #fleeting #inbox
- [F2] Identify disabled collaborators to co-lead upcoming accessibility work./https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/ #fleeting #inbox
- [F3] Draft a team session on disability as a universal lifecycle condition./https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/08/what-about-nothing-about-us/ #fleeting #inbox
---
## 🧰 Template Library (paste into Note Refactor → Refactored Note Template)
### 📝 Fleeting — Refactored Note Template (Konik-ready)
---
type: fleeting
status: inbox
created: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time:HH:mm}}
process_by: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} # review within 24–48 hrs
source_title: [MISSING]
source_link:
author: [MISSING]
source_type: article|paper|video|podcast|thread
reading_stage: inspectional|analytical|syntopical
project:
tags: #fleeting #inbox
---
# 📝 Fleeting Note — {{title}}
## 🧠 One-liner (my words)
- State the single idea in one short sentence.
## 🧭 Context & cue
- Where did this arise? Page/timecode/speaker.
- Trigger: quote, data point, claim, or question.
## 🧪 Adler checks (quick)
- What is this about as a whole?
- What is said in detail, and how?
- Is it true? Evidence for or against?
- So what? Impact or next move.
## 🔎 Bias & reliability snapshot
- Possible bias or framing?
- What evidence would change my view?
## 🧩 Konik bridge
- Draft a claim header for promotion.
### [H1] 5–10-word present-tense claim
> [!quote] [{{source_title}}]({{source_link}}) by [[{{author}}]]. Accessed {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}.
> “Short quote under ~25 words.”
One line on why this matters.
[view highlight]({{source_link}}) #xref ID:rw_[MISSING]
## 🧰 Next moves (pick 1–2)
- [ ] Promote to *Literature* with citation.
- [ ] Draft *Atomic* claim from [H1].
- [ ] Park as testable question.
## ✅ Processing checklist
- [ ] Rewrote in my words.
- [ ] Decided: trash | keep | convert.
- [ ] Linked to at least one related note.
- [ ] Tagged and moved out of inbox.
---
### 📚 Literature — Refactored Note Template (Konik-ready)
---
type: literature
status: draft
created: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time:HH:mm}}
adler_level: inspectional|analytical|syntopical
reading_stage: inspectional|analytical|syntopical
source_title: [MISSING]
author: [MISSING]
year:
publisher_or_journal:
edition_or_volume:
doi:
url:
accessed: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}
citekey:
project:
tags: #literature #reading
---
# 📚 Literature Note — {{title}}
## 🧰 Action Inbox
- [H1] Short action — context/{{url}} #articleseed
- [H2] Short action — context/{{url}} #xref
- [H3] Short action — context/{{url}} #share
## 🧭 Bib Capsule
- Title, author, year, venue, and link.
- One-line scope: what the work attempts.
## 🧠 Author’s Thesis (their words)
- Core claim briefly. Include page/timecode.
## 🧩 Key Arguments
- Argument A — method/evidence — page/time.
- Argument B — method/evidence — page/time.
- Argument C — method/evidence — page/time.
## 🧪 Evaluation (Adler)
- What is this about as a whole?
- How is it argued? Fairly and clearly?
- Is it true or plausible? Why?
- So what? Practical or theoretical impact.
## 🗒️ Notes (Konik CEE units)
### [H1] 5–10-word present-tense claim
> [!quote] [{{source_title}}]({{url}}) by [[{{author}}]] via [[{{publisher_or_journal}}]]. Published {{year}}. Accessed {{accessed}}.
> “Verbatim highlight under ~25 words.”
Two lines: context and use. Link to data if relevant.
[view highlight]({{url}}#H1) #xref #articleseed ID:rw_[MISSING]
### [H2] 5–10-word present-tense claim
> [!quote] [{{source_title}}]({{url}}) by [[{{author}}]] via [[{{publisher_or_journal}}]]. Published {{year}}. Accessed {{accessed}}.
> “Verbatim highlight under ~25 words.”
Two lines: context and use.
[view highlight]({{url}}#H2) #xref ID:rw_[MISSING]
## 🔖 Zettel Candidates
#### [Z1] 5–10-word present-tense claim
- One-line context and page/time.
#### [Z2] 5–10-word present-tense claim
- One-line context and page/time.
## 🏷️ Tag Coverage
#articleseed: 0 • #xref: 0 • #share: 0 • #bmf: 0 • #addendum: 0
## ✅ Processing Checklist
- [ ] Thesis captured in my words.
- [ ] 1–3 Zettel candidates drafted.
- [ ] Action Inbox pruned to high-signal items.
- [ ] Cross-links added and filed.
---
### 🔖 Atomic (Zettel) — Refactored Note Template (Konik-ready)
---
type: atomic
id: {{date:YYYYMMDDHHmm}}-{{title}}
status: evergreen
created: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time:HH:mm}}
origin: reading|thinking|experiment
proof_state: conjecture|working|supported|refuted
source_literature: [[Source-Literature-Note]]
citekey:
project:
tags: #zettel #idea
---
# 🔖 {{title}} <!-- 5–10 words, present tense, specific -->
## 🧠 Claim
- One idea only. Clear and testable.
## 🧾 Evidence & Pointers (Konik)
- [H#] from [[{{source_literature}}]] — page/time — brief rationale.
- ID:rw_[MISSING] — link to highlight or dataset.
> [!quote] Evidence snippet (≤25 words) if essential.
> Cite page/time. Keep it minimal.
## 🔍 Scope & Conditions
- When this holds. Boundaries and exceptions.
## 🔗 Links
- Broader: [[Parent-Concept]]
- Narrower: [[Specific-Case]]
- Related: [[Parallel-Idea]]
## 🧪 Tests / Falsifiers
- One check that could disconfirm the claim.
- Simple study or observation plan.
## 🧰 Implications
- Practice, policy, or design moves in one line each.
## 🔙 Backlinks
- From: [[{{source_literature}}]] • Context line.
## ✅ Maintenance
- [ ] Links in and out.
- [ ] Title still precise?
- [ ] Proof state updated.
## Highlights
- So it’s going to take all of us standing in solidarity to ensure that the necessary advocacy and support are in place for what promises to be an extraordinarily difficult moment. But I take some solace and inspiration from the fact that there are so many disabled people who have provided us with the clear guidance and leadership we need to navigate this moment. And there is simple guidance we can follow when doing so to ensure that we’re centering the right leaders, by listening to those who said, “nothing about us without us.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kbzmnda2kane74xe7k62c5rg))
- Tags: 👻 ai highlighted