Radical accessibility: co-designing for intersectionality in a peer-led LGBTIQA+ disability digital storytelling project.

Abstract

The Our Voices, Our Lives, Our Way (OVOLOW) initiative was developed to strengthen the existing knowledge, skills and confidence of LGBTIQA+ people with disability. Specifically, providing training in digital storytelling was seen as a valuable way for LGBTIQA+ people with disability to advocate for themselves and others. In this article, we apply the nascent concept of 'radical accessibility' within co-design processes that led to increasing engagement with LGBTIQA+ people with disability and their communities. This article uses qualitative data from the OVOLOW initiative evaluation which aimed to understand the impact of this model of digital storytelling on affecting social change. Here, we draw on thirteen in-depth, semi-structured individual and group interviews about the co-design processes that underpinned the initiative, conducted with 21 project stakeholders and/or participants between November 2023 and January 2024. Three themes were co-constructed, derived from the co-designed nature of the project itself: (i) a commitment to radical accessibility, aligning with (ii) the emphasis on intersectionality, resulting in (iii) the generation of peer-led spaces. Radical accessibility became the process by which digital storytelling was operationalized as a mechanism for advocacy for and by LGBTIQA+ people.